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Welcome to the Random Rasslin' Reviews Megathread!  I was initially planning a thread where I watch a bunch of random matches off the NJPW World recommended matches list and review them, but then came to the conclusion that maybe I shouldn't hog the thread all to myself and we might as well have an all-purpose thread where anyone can post their reviews and comments on matches and shows they've been watching. So, if you're itching to write some  about a great (or terrible, or mediocre, or whatever you want) match or show you watched and want to share your opinions, this is the place to do it! Long writeups, short reviews, with or without pictures or star ratings, it's all good.  Of course, you can also talk about the stuff others have posted and share your own opinions on the matches and shows, just don't be rude if someone doesn't like your favorite match or wrestler or something. This is meant to be a nice and friendly thread. ----- I'll get things started with a fun match from one of the all-time classic New Japan shows, as I was going to do in the NJPW World recommendation review thread I had planned. Jushin "Thunder" Liger vs. Hayabusa (Super J Cup 1994 Opening Round, 1994/4/16) I decided to start the project with this match because as far as I can remember, it was the first Japanese wrestling match I ever saw (courtesy of a friend's broadband internet connection and popular P2P program back in 2003). While it is by no means the best match ever or even the best match of this classic show, it left a lasting impression and I immediately became a fan of both Liger and Hayabusa (whose career had sadly ended a couple of years prior, as he was paralyzed in an in-ring accident in 2001) and started hunting down any and all puro matches I could. This is actually Hayabusa's debut match in Japan under that name and persona. Eiji Ezaki was originally a Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (FMW) trainee and wrestled under his real name, but by this point he had spent some time in Mexico to hone his high-flying craft and develop the Hayabusa character. Liger, of course, is in the prime of his career and has wowed audiences around the world with his aerial offense in numerous incredible matches, and he has brought Hayabusa into the Super J Cup tournament with the intention of making him a future star in NJPW. Of course, that wouldn't happen as Hayabusa would choose to stay in FMW instead, which caused a falling out between the two men. They didn't reconcile until after Hayabusa had suffered his career-ending injury. NJPW World sadly cuts out the entrances, so we don't get to hear "Ikari no Jushin" or... uh, whatever song Hayabusa used at the time. It's definitely not "Fight With Dream" which he'd use in FMW after this. The Youtube upload I found does include both entrances, and holy poo poo does Hayabusa still look cool as hell after all these years.  This early version of his gear doesn't look quite as awesome as it eventually would, but even then I absolutely love the mask and face paint.  Speaking of cool masks and gear, I distinctly remember going "That's Jushin Liger?" the first time I saw this. I'd heard his name when playing EWR but had never seen as much as a picture of him before this. Well, that's slightly inaccurate, because my very first wrestling memory from the early 90s involves seeing Liger dive off the top rope on Eurosport, who were airing NJPW at the time, and thinking it was the coolest thing my five-year-old self had ever seen. Unfortunately, my dad didn't allow me to watch the shows because he thought wrestling was stupid. Anyway, Liger barely has time to remove his entrance gear as Hayabusa unloads on him with a series of kicks and sends him to the outside before the bell even rings. Hayabusa, still wearing his entrance robe, follows up with a beautiful somersault plancha over the ropes and comes crashing down on Liger on the outside as the crowd roars in approval of the newcomer. The Falcon has officially taken flight.  Hayabusa throws Liger back into the ring and continues his assault with a diving front dropkick to Liger's back. After the explosive opening, things slow down for a bit here as Hayabusa works Liger's back with some holds before sending him back to the canvas and hitting one of the highest leg drops I have ever seen anyone hit from a standing position.  Liger kicks out of the pin attempt, and Hayabusa slows things down again by working the right leg with a submission. Liger makes a comeback after dodging a knee stomp, and now Hayabusa is the one whose legs are getting worked on as Liger locks in the Figure Four. Hayabusa makes it to the ropes and back to his feet, only to get clobbered with a flurry of palm blows by Liger. Liger hits a stiff-looking standing powerbomb for the two count, and looks rather upset when Hayabusa kicks out. Liger goes for the cover again, and Hayabusa kicks out for the second time which makes Liger downright furious. By the way, has anyone ever won a match by pinning someone a second time immediately after a kickout? Liger goes back to working the legs, and slaps the hell out of Hayabusa as he tries to fight out of the hold. Hayabusa gets back to his feet but is sent back down to the canvas with a running lariat for another two count. Liger applies another leg lock but Hayabusa counters with what appears to be an enziguri on the mat. Hayabusa goes for a headlock but Liger reverses into a back suplex, and Hayabusa is down again. Liger flattens Hayabusa with a Rolling Koppou Kick in the corner, but doesn't go for the pin for whatever reason. Big superplex off the top rope, and once again Hayabusa kicks out at two. Hayabusa dodges a running attack in the corner and starts to mount his comeback. Liger gets taken down with a dropkick, and Hayabusa crawls in for the cover (which kind of looks like he tripped, but the camera is focused on Liger so it's hard to tell) and gets a two count. Liger is sent to the ropes and gets knocked down again with a nice spinning heel kick. Standing somersault senton for another two count. Liger gets back to his feet once more and walks into another spinning heel kick, this time off the top rope. Liger sells the move like death, but Hayabusa still only manages a two count. So far, the offense in this match has been really crisp and an absolute joy to watch. Hayabusa goes back up top and hits a moonsault for another two count, and while he hits the move nicely I still can't help but wince every time he goes for it because of the low angle (think of all those times Lita hit the moonsault and almost landed on her head, that's pretty much what's going on here) and of course the fact his career ended on a botched springboard moonsault.  This is where things start to get a little bit sketchy. Hayabusa goes up top again with Liger's back facing him, and attempts a diving 180° headscissors takedown. He just about pulls it off, but it doesn't look good. In the words of good old JR, he didn't quite get all of that. I don't remember if he ever tried this move again after this match, I certainly don't recall seeing him do it very often. In any case, Hayabusa drapes himself over Liger's prone body for the cover, but Liger once again kicks out. Hayabusa then attempts the Shooting Star Press, which at the time was Liger's signature move (and, as was correctly pointed out in the thread, no one else had performed at this time). While he manages not to land on his head in a horrifying manner as he would in a later match against Mike Awesome, he still completely whiffs it. Hayabusa's legs and knees hit Liger's chest pretty hard, but he's the one who takes the brunt of the impact there and Liger doesn't sell the knees to the chest either. Liger goes for the cover and gets a two count. I don't know if Liger was meant to dodge the move or kick out, but that looked pretty bad. Hayabusa is down and out (which makes me think Liger was supposed to dodge the SSP so that Hayabusa would crash and burn), and Liger plants him with the Ligerbomb for a 2.9999 count. Even with the botches, Hayabusa is made to look like a million bucks here. Liger puts Hayabusa on the top rope, maybe looking to put him away with a top rope brainbuster, but Hayabusa fights out of it. He goes for another front dropkick off the top but gets annihilated with another powerbomb right out of the air, bouncing off the mat so hard he accidentally headbutts Liger as his head whips forward.   Liger could go for the cover and win the match at this point because Hayabusa's motionless on the canvas after that huge powerbomb, but instead he picks Hayabusa back up to inflict more punishment.  FISHERMAN BUSTAAAAH! Thanks for blocking my view of the impact, ref. Liger finally gets the three count and advances to the next round. Hayabusa looks like a beast despite losing the match, and I can't help but wonder how things would have turned out if Hayabusa had signed with NJPW. Presumably, we'd have gotten many more matches with him and Liger that would've been even better, not to mention potential bouts with all the other NJPW junior heavyweight stars, and I think he would've become a better and more rounded worker had he spent the prime of his career wrestling guys like Liger, El Samurai and Ultimo Dragon instead of the FMW crew (no disrespect to those guys, but they weren't exactly Jushin Liger). Unfortunately, that was not to be, but Hayabusa did end up having many memorable matches in FMW before the injury that ended his career and eventually contributed to his passing in 2016. In any case, this was a very entertaining ten-minute match, and still a ton of fun to watch even though it doesn't blow my mind like it did when I was a 16-year-old who had mostly seen WWE TV matches. The botches near the end were unfortunate and detracted from the match somewhat, but I still loved seeing these future legends go at it. Liger didn't really do any of the high-flying stuff he was known for, which I feel was a bit disappointing but this was always meant to be a showcase for Hayabusa and his brand of aerial offense so it made sense for Liger to stick with power moves and mat work here. Of course, Liger would go on to wrestle more matches in the tournament as well, so it also made sense for him not to go nuts in the opener. I'm not going to be handing out any stars or snowflakes for these matches because I'd rather leave that to those more knowledgeable than me, but it should be clear by now that this match is very much worth checking out. Well, considering the fact it's on the NJPW World recommendations list that should go without saying, but there are some matches on there that are distinctly less exciting than this. Maybe I'll take a look at one of those in the future. DMorbid fucked around with this message at 17:37 on Jun 12, 2019 |
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Jun 11, 2019 13:49
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I appreciate the coincidence of this thread starting at about the same place that my NJPW Recommendation Review Thread ended. To me, Hayabusa's SSP botch was kind of poetic. A clear symbol of his reach exceeding his grasp. At the time, Liger was the only person who had done a Shooting Star Press, and the story of the match is Hayabusa trying, and failing, to show he's on Liger's level. By attempting the SSP he's trying to show that he can also do what only Liger can, and by botching the move, it reveals that despite his ambition and best efforts, he's not there yet.
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Jun 11, 2019 15:26
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Eh, all right. Dylan James vs. Yuji Okabayashi Hotel Emisia Sapporo; Sapporo, Hokkaido April 20th 2019, AJPW Champion Carnival 2019 Day 12, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cb9fj_x1TKk Dylan James is a six-foot-five, 254 pound Kiwi hoss. Yuji Okabayashi is a five-foot-ten, 271 pound Japanese hoss. This is a goddamn hoss fight, and it is an AMAZING hoss fight. In the opening series of lock-ups, they establish that they're both babyfaces, both of them doing the pat-pat clean break when they have the other on the ropes. Yuji tries to find an opening on James' left arm, but it doesn't really work: in the subsequent test of strength, James out-powers Yuji relatively easily. Even when Yuji powers back for a bit, James isn't down for long. James only loses the test of strength because Yuji manages to kick him in the gut and transfer into a suplex. James might have the size and stamina advantage, especially because his first reaction is to leave the ring and get his bearings, but Yuji is clearly the better wrestler so far.  From there, Yuji tries to find an opening on James' neck, but it doesn't really amount to much, especially as James ends up escaping after elbowing Yuji in the gut. James and Yuji soon end up in this amazing shoulder block battle, which James wins by virtue of his size and strength alone. When he's in a position to just charge at someone like a human juggernaut, he's goddamn unstoppable. That said, Yuji's a better pure striker, and when the pair of them get into a strike-off outside the ring, Yuji takes his share of hits, but he does a fair bit more damage to James than he takes. However, he doesn't find a way to cut off James' stamina advantage, and James sends Yuji into the ring posts in retaliation. James holds the momentum for a good while after this, as he shrugs off a spear and a vertical suplex nearfall to keep attacking Yuji. That said, Yuji just isn't going down as quickly as he wants: the longer the match goes on, the harder it'll be for James to win. He isn't able to find an opening on Yuji's body, so he just keeps attacking wildly, and that just allows Yuji to get back in the game for a bit. However, Yuji can't find much of an opening either, and he has immense difficulty lifting James up for the Argentine backbreaker rack based on his opponent's size and seemingly endless stamina. James soon floors Yuji with a gigantic lariat, and it seems clear that unless Yuji finds a way in, he's kinda hosed here. Luckily, James makes a fatal error: he gets into a protracted chop war. Chopping Yuji to death might've been a good idea ten minutes ago when he was still at the top of your game, but he's a wee bit more gassed now than before, and Yuji's taken thousands of chops in his time. After losing his composure and delivering another desperate lariat, James tries to lift Yuji up for a Jurassic Bomb, but Yuji resists incredibly easily and gives him a back body drop in response. This is where Yuji gets his momentum back. He chops the poo poo out of James and sends him to the floor after an incredible lariat. When he tries to get back up, you notice that James' eye is busted open, and holy poo poo this is such a physical match.   For all of his muscles, for all of his pure strength, James has taken more significant damage than Yuji so far, and his muscles are constantly deprived of oxygen by Yuji's offense. At this point, you genuinely believe he could be counted out, and he only just beats the ten-count. That said, James gets his second wind after Yuji thinks it's a good idea to go for a Golem Splash off the top rope, and he hits a desperate Jurassic Bomb in retaliation...for a two count. gently caress. Well, James needs to do something to win this, so he puts Yuji into a sleeper to capitalise off his fresh neck damage, and it nearly works, but Yuji lifts his arm up just before the three-count, and you realise he's still in the game. Yuji reaches the ropes, but James just reapplies the sleeper and rolls into the middle of the ring, and loving hell Yuji Okabayashi reaches the ropes a second time! James hasn't done enough to open up that neck, and he's surely about to pay for it. Except.  Yuji's also a bit hosed. Even when he hits a perfect Golem Splash, James still has enough juice left in him to brush Yuji off at zero and roll out of the ring. Of course, Yuji's able to pick James up, throw him back in the ring and batter the poo poo out of him easily enough, but when he goes for a running lariat, James catches him with a massive clothesline for a two count. This, of course, doesn't stop Yuji from getting up and intercepting James' rebounding lariat with a clothesline of his own, and when Yuji lifts James up for a brutal powerbomb, you hear someone shouting a thing through the PA. Suddenly, you remember this is a Champion Carnival match, with a thirty-minute time limit, and you're like, gently caress, this might end in a draw. Yuji manoeuvres James into an STF, and you're thinking, he has to tap to this. He's taken so much poo poo, his muscles are goddamn aching, and right after that powerbomb and the neck offense earlier, he has to be at the edge of his tether. The bell rings.  James didn't tap. It's a draw, and it's so loving satisfying. This is one of my favourite matches of 2019 so far, because James and Yuji have such good chemistry with each other, and they're both so good at taking each other's poo poo. James puts himself over as a relentless, determined son of a bitch who's bound to fall eventually, and Yuji puts himself over as the chubby fucker who can take all of James' poo poo and strike back even harder. It's beautiful. Sure, it isn't a scientific wrestling match, but it didn't have to be. It's two big guys beating the poo poo out of each other, and that is everything to me. Venomous fucked around with this message at 23:13 on Jul 20, 2019 |
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Jun 11, 2019 16:55
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I'm glad AJPW is seemingly doing better both quality wise and attendance wise.
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Jun 11, 2019 17:02
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El Gallinero Gros posted:I'm glad AJPW is seemingly doing better both quality wise and attendance wise. Yeah, they’re doing pretty well right now. Not entirely sure about attendance, iirc they’re regularly selling out Korakuen but not really doing huge numbers outside Tokyo. Might be wrong tho. In terms of match quality tho, they’re doing incredibly well. Kento Miyahara is imo the best ace in wrestling right now, and their heavyweight division is absolutely stacked with talent. Their juniors aren’t doing so great, but tbh I don’t much like the existence of junior divisions in general so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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Jun 11, 2019 19:37
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Next up, we've got another Jr. Heavyweight bout. However, this time we are going all the way back in time to 1981, to an era of wrestling I am not particularly familiar with in general and a match I have not seen. I do at least know who the participants in this match are (because I wouldn't be much of a wrestling fan if I didn't know at least one of them), so let's get to it: Tiger Mask vs. Villano III (1981/6/24) I'll be honest, the main reason I chose this match was that I've only seen Villano III in his final years. By that point he was completely broken down and participating in some of the saddest matches in the history of professional wrestling, and eventually passed away in 2018 at the age of 66. I wanted to see how this guy wrestled in his prime, and obviously a Tiger Mask match is always going to be a good time. Most of the matches I've seen from Satoru Sayama, the original Tiger Mask, have been against Dynamite Kid (including his classic debut as Tiger Mask two months prior to this match) so it'll also be nice to see him face off against someone else for a change.  As usual, no entrances on NJPW World so I don't know if Villano enters to the Pink Panther theme, but that is definitely some S+ tier entrance gear. Speaking of which, I guess this would be kind of a Pink Panther vs. Tiger Mask match. Feel free to make your own jokes about cat fights.  You all know what Tiger Mask looks like, but here he is anyway because I wanted to get a good shot of the mask. Of course that is a legendary mask design and I love it, but I gotta say this early version looks a bit janky, I know the white bits are supposed to be the fluffy white fur around the tiger's cheeks but here it looks more like a plush toy's stuffing coming out. Anyway, that's all the fashion critique you're getting from me today. There's a great bit as the ref grabs one of Tiger Mask's tiger ears as he's checking him for foreign objects, and Villano grabs the other ear and pretends to attach it to his own mask for some reason. The bell rings and the wrestlers spend some time sizing each other up. Finally, they lock up and look very evenly matched in terms of strength. Armbar takedown from Villano sends Tiger Mask to the mat, but both men soon get back up and trade holds for a while until Tiger Mask takes Villano down with... I don't even know what to call that one, but it's basically a Russian leg sweep into an arm drag and looks really cool. Does that move has a fancy name? Let me know in the thread.  More standing holds until Villano flips Tiger Mask onto his back, both men back to their feet again and Villano hits a headscissors takedown into a headscissors hold on the mat. Tiger Mask shows his athleticism by flipping right out of the hold and landing on his feet, which looks awesome. Just this beautiful, fluid motion, which may not be anything special by today's standards but looks great nonetheless. The crowd is impressed as well and show their appreciation for Tiger Mask as the two men face off in the middle of the ring once more. Headstand headscissors takedown brings Villano back down to the mat, Tiger Mask rolls backwards but is caught by Villano and goes down to the mat himself, only to catch Villano's arm in a hammerlock. Tiger Mask keeps the hold locked in and Villano is feeling the hurt, unable to free himself despite getting back to his feet and trying different ways to get Tiger Mask to break the hold. Finally, Villano succeeds in freeing himself from the hold with a headscissors takedown and seems to be mounting a comeback, but Tiger Mask counters with a running sunset flip. That only gets a one-count from the ref. Elbow to the face sends Villano reeling, but he manages to counter the next strike attempt into a backslide which gets a two-count. Tiger Mask was in the ropes anyway, so I doubt that would have counted regardless. It seems we have now switched gears, as the pace is picking up at a rapid rate. Villano attempts a powerbomb but Tiger Mask counters into a side arm drag, followed by the now-cliched staredown spot after a cool sequence. The crowd is loving it. Villano is looking to slow things back down as he sends Tiger Mask down again and applies a leg lock on Tiger Mask's left leg. Tiger Mask manages to grab a hold of Villano's arm and lock it in a cross armbreaker. Villano fights back to his feet but Tiger Mask isn't letting go of the arm. Finally, Villano gets free and Tiger Mask's shoulders are down, but he bridges out of the pin attempt. Tiger Mask remains in the bridge position for quite some time as Villano tries to pin him back down without much success. Both men are up to their feet again, and Tiger Mask delivers a big monkey flip. However, Villano is quick to his feet, and there's another staredown. Tiger Mask goes for the side headlock, which Villano tries to counter into a back suplex to no avail and eventually gets free by whipping Tiger Mask to the ropes, only for Tiger Mask to knock him down with a shoulder block. Tiger Mask into the ropes again, BIG BACK BODY DROP (actually kind of a sideways shoulder back toss, I completely forget what that's actually supposed to be called) but Tiger Mask lands on his feet. Monkey flip by Villano, and Tiger Mask lands on his feet again. Tiger Mask is in the ropes and dodges Villano's running attack to send him down to the outside. Villano quickly returns to the ring, but is just as quickly knocked down to the mat with a sweep kick. Tiger Mask is very much in control of the match at this point, but doesn't go for the cover and lets Villano catch his breath. The two lock up in the middle of the ring once again, with Villano gaining the upper hand at first but Tiger Mask fights back once more and works Villano's arm as he flips him to the mat a couple of times. Villano manages to fight out of the hold with an arm drag followed by boots to the face, and Tiger Mask applauds Villano's efforts as he sits down on the mat. Villano now works the arms and back of Tiger Mask in the middle of the ring, and Tiger Mask isn't quite able to power out despite a good effort.  After several attempts, Tiger Mask finally gets the upper hand. The two trade nearfalls in the middle of the ring, and we get yet another staredown. Villano goes right back to working the left arm following the lockup. Tiger Mask fights back and goes for the Tiger Spin but that is blocked by Villano. Tiger Mask with a quick leg takedown, bringing Villano down to the mat and following up with the spinning toe hold into a Figure Four, as Villano screams in agony in the middle of the ring. However, Villano is able to reverse the hold and suddenly Tiger Mask is in trouble, but is able to reach the ropes. Villano is showing some rudo tendencies as he refuses to release the hold, so the ref goes over to physically break it. I'm guessing there was no five-second rope break rule at this point. Fujiwara armbar takedown by Villano sends Tiger Mask to the canvas, and Tiger Mask is now clearly favoring his left arm. Big running bulldog from Villano takes Tiger Mask down again, but instead of going for the pin he decides to attempt another running bulldog on Tiger Mask. Naturally, this backfires on him as Tiger Mask blocks it and sends Villano crashing down on the mat by himself.  Villano is back up but Tiger Mask hits his signature Tiger Wall Flip in the corner and goes for a bulldog of his own, which is countered by Villano who sends Tiger Mask to the opposite corner. Tiger Mask tries to reverse into a headscissors takedown in the corner, but Villano has it well scouted and tosses Tiger Mask onto the apron. Villano attempts to knock Tiger Mask off the apron with a running shoulderblock or headbutt, but Tiger Mask flips over him and lands on his feet in the ring. Villano fights back with two running shoulderblocks, but the third one is countered into an arm drag by Tiger Mask. Villano pushes Tiger Mask into the ropes, but whatever he was attempting is countered with a handspring crossbody block. Tilt a whirl backbreaker and Villano is down. Tiger Mask goes for another tilt a whirl maneuver, but Villano lands on his feet. Villano gets behind Tiger Mask and goes for a bridging rollup pin, but Tiger Mask just kicks out. Another running crossbody attack sends Villano back into the corner, but Tiger Mask misses his followup corner splash. Villano runs at Tiger Mask in an attempt to... I'm not actually sure what he was going for there, but Tiger Mask uses his legs to flip Villano up to the turnbuckle and out of the ring. That could've looked smoother, because it appeared as if Villano landed on the top turnbuckle and then immediately remembered he was supposed to fall off. I will say that was the first time in this match something has looked a bit off, because up until this point this has been an extremely solid performance by both guys. Villano is now on the outside, and Tiger Mask is looking to capitalize. He does so with a twisting springboard plancha off the top rope, very nicely executed as usual.  Tiger Mask makes it back to the ring, but Villano doesn't have enough strength left to make it up to the apron and falls back to the floor just as the timekeeper finishes his 20-count. Huh, I certainly didn't expect this one to end on a countout of all things. This was, unsurprisingly, a very good match despite the somewhat disappointing countout finish. I still don't feel like I really got to see what Villano III could do in the ring, but his offense looked good and he kept up with Tiger Mask very well so I'm not going to complain too much. Of course, Tiger Mask completely stole the show here even though we didn't see most of his signature stuff like Tiger Suplexes or the Space Flying Tiger Drop. This guy was years ahead of his time, and these old matches of his are still an absolute delight to watch because everything he does looks so great. DMorbid fucked around with this message at 12:09 on Jun 12, 2019 |
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Jun 12, 2019 11:48
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Also watch VIII's mask vs mask match with Atlantis. Even if you're not a huge lucha person, you'll probably like it. Insanely hot crowd. https://www.voicesofwrestling.com/2016/10/11/villano-iii-legacy-atlantis-mask/ El Gallinero Gros fucked around with this message at 15:52 on Jun 12, 2019 |
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Jun 12, 2019 15:47
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Cool, I'll give that a watch at some point! Yeah, I'm not a big lucha person, but that's mostly because it was pretty hard to watch lucha in my part of the world when I was at the peak of my wrestling fandom over a decade ago. I'd occasionally find some CMLL shows online, along with the occasional classic match from the 90s, but that was about it.
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Jun 12, 2019 16:12
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I didn't want this thread to die and what the hell, I thought I'd randomly review the history of Chikara's Grand Championship. It's a big mixed bag that I think is interesting enough to talk about. Part 1: The Pre-Championship Era Chikara started in 2002 and didn't have a top singles title until the end of 2011. It made sense at first. The whole promotion was a wrestling school that started putting on shows for the sake of giving the students an audience. What good was having a world title when it only made sense for the non-students to be champ? Rather than put too much focus on the trainers and their higher-profile indie friends, they came up with a special championship just for the younger wrestlers called the Young Lions Cup. Every year, a tournament would be held based on inexperienced and young wrestlers. The winner would hold onto the trophy until they either lost it in a title defense or the next year's tournament would commence. One of the rules was that nobody could hold the trophy twice, so if you lost it in a title defense, that was it for you. No rematch. For the record, the first Young Lions Cup champion was first-year student Hallowicked. After a few years, they finally introduced tag titles. The tag champs were crowned via their second Tag World Grand Prix tournament and won by Chris Hero and Claudio Castagnoli. To build up challengers, they created a point system. For every tag match a team won, they got a point. If they ever lost a tag match, they went back to zero. If they reached three points, they were awarded a title shot. Nice and simple while allowing teams to be hot-shot into the #1 contender spot via four-corner elimination matches and one-night tournaments. The 2009 season of Chikara ended with a massive cliffhanger when the roster was beaten down by Die Bruderschaft des Kreuzes (The BDK), an nWo-type stable led by Claudio Castagnoli and Ares. The Director of Fun (GM) Leonard F. Chikarason was ousted and replaced with an obvious BDK puppet who allowed them free reign. This led to a year-long Chikara vs. BDK war and part of the conclusion was that Chikara was bought by a corporation and the new Director of Fun was a guy named Wink Vavasseur. He was the unqualified son of the guy running WMD Corp and was essentially a gender-flipped parody of Dixie Carter. Before the power went to his head, he did come up with one good decision: it was about time Chikara had a Grand Championship.  Part 2: Eddie Kingston In early 2011, Chikara was reeling from the loss of Larry Sweeney. He had a falling out with the company in 2009, then returned towards the end of the Chikara vs. BDK feud to make a surprise appearance. A few months later, he took his life. The tournament to crown the inaugural Grand Champion was dedicated to him and was named after one of his catchphrases: 12 Large. Everyone on the Chikara roster was tasked with voting for someone other than themselves to be in the tournament. While who voted for who was anonymous, there were certain implications from the results, such as how not all of the BDK underlings voted for Claudio. The twelve with the most votes were split into two round robin tournaments with the winners set to face off for the title. It was a great setup that went horribly wrong. Lots of forfeits, several injuries and they pretty much had to job out Claudio (the company's top heel) because he was getting signed to WWE. That put a damper in the obvious finals of Eddie Kingston vs. Claudio Castagnoli that would have been the ultimate closure to the BDK storyline. The closest thing they had to payoff was having Sara Del Rey turn face and break away from the BDK by defeating Claudio in their block. The finals ended up being Mike Quackenbush vs. Eddie Kingston and the match happened at High Noon, which was both the 2011 season finale and the company's very first iPPV. With the meta story there that people were afraid that Quack was going to book himself as his promotion's first champion, Kingston was unanimously the one everyone was most behind. He ended up winning the match and was awarded the Grand Championship by Larry Sweeney's brother and a close friend. Kingston was really close with Sweeney as well, so it was an extra-emotional victory. Eddie Kingston spent 2012 defending the Grand Championship against all comers. There was no real system in place to come up with challengers. A lot of it was basic stuff where heels talked trash and maybe had a decent reason for getting a shot (ie. Vin Gerard was the only person to defeat Kingston during 12 Large). While there were a lot of great, long-running storylines going on in Chikara, Kingston's title reign came off as weak in comparison. There would be maybe a few weeks to a month of build, he'd win a match, then his feud would be over. For Vin Gerard and Brodie Lee, they were gone from the company immediately after losing. Kingston's run was never supposed to last all that long. The plan was to have him drop the title to Sara Del Rey, who was over like crazy after the BDK imploded. Plus there was the big deal about having a woman as champion in an intergender promotion. Del Rey was instead on her way to getting signed to WWE, meaning they had Kingston go over and continue his reign. That was fine, though, as there was a perfect challenger to beat him being built up in Tim Donst. Tim Donst showed up back in 2007 as a white meat babyface rookie who turned some heads in a fantastic singles match with Kingston. Kingston was a vicious bully heel at the time and proceeded to brutalize Donst for the hell of it for an extended and uncomfortable amount of time, choosing not to just pin him and end it. Donst ended up fighting back, earning the respect of the crowd, even if he still lost. In the years that followed, he remained Kingston's enemy, especially when Kingston was the company's top face and Donst was a member of the BDK. Donst was coming off losing a feud with Hallowicked over who was the best Young Lions Cup champion ever and it broke him. He started up a more Raven-like persona where he would surround himself with loser cronies and would regularly berate and abuse them. It made sense for him to go after Kingston, who he believed to be the cause of his self-loathing. Apparently, Donst was meant to become Grand Champion, but for some reason plans changed due to one show's cancellation from bad weather. Instead, the 2012 finale had Kingston defeat Donst in a rather bad match where nothing of note happened. Even Donst's abused best friend Jakob Hammermeier's faceturn was put on the backburner. Kingston had all but run out of heel challengers, so 2013 was him defending against faces. Faces who the crowd wanted to go over because they were so, so tired of this reign. It was a weird spot because the story going on was that Vavasseur and Kingston were doing a Vince vs. Stone Cold feud with Vavasseur trying to get the title off Kingston, which would obviously make Kingston the face. Yet the crowd was starting to turn on him and Kingston responded by acting heelish towards them. It was a confusing mess. A lot of Chikara was a confusing mess around this time, honestly. They had another big iPPV coming up, Aniversario: Never Compromise, which would become the most infamous night in Chikara history. For the main event, Eddie Kingston would defend the Grand Championship against Icarus, one of the most hated men in the promotion. But more on that in the next part. (Should there be a next part?)
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Jul 4, 2019 23:50
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Gavok posted:I didn't want this thread to die and what the hell, I thought I'd randomly review the history of Chikara's Grand Championship. It's a big mixed bag that I think is interesting enough to talk about. Yes. One thing missing though: Eddie's hyper emotional promo for High Noon that may or may not have made the room I watched it in extremely dusty. I know it's fashionable to dunk on Chikara around these parts and I often join in because Quack's kind of a tool, but this is great. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1AGjIQKxNE
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Jul 5, 2019 00:46
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 Part 3: Icarus Icarus was one of the Gen 1 Originals, along with Hallowicked, UltraMantis Black, Mr. Zero and Dragonfly. His persona I would describe as Half-rear end Jericho. He wasn't horrible in the ring, but he also wasn't memorable. The main thing people remembered was his terrible, terrible back tattoo. He'd constantly get booed when removing his ring jacket and while Bryan Danielson had the nickname "Best in the World," Icarus capitalized with t-shirts based on the crowd's chants of, "Worst in the World." The guy was straight-up hated by the Chikara faithful. Several developments happened with him in 2012 and 2013. Wink Vavasseur started mixing and matching people in tag teams and stables because of his own harebrained Moneyball concept called Chikarametrics. Sugar Dunkerton was forced to join Icarus' stable FIST. FIST members Chuck Taylor and Johnny Gargano absolutely hated Sugar, but Icarus gradually took a shining to him, even if he was too much of a goody-two-shoes. The two had great chemistry and Icarus started to stand up for him. Gargano quit FIST and Chikara in response and Taylor just went off to do his own thing. Icarus tried to help Sugar by cheating for him in a singles match, but that caused Sugar to snap at him and quit Chikara himself. Marty Jannetty was in Chikara for a time, having won tag team contention points alongside Sean Waltman. It was established that Icarus was a huge fan of Jannetty, so it hurt when they were in the ring together and Jannetty shamed him into putting a drat shirt on. Icarus was being given a title match against Eddie Kingston at Aniversario: Never Compromise and made a plea for Jannetty to be in his corner. Jannetty never came and Kingston ended up using the reserved chair as a weapon on Icarus. Chikara was starting up their ill-fated Ashes storyline. Without getting too far into it, Chikara owner WMD Corp was apparently up to something shady, a piece of evidence was revealed during Aniversario and it drove Wink Vavasseur completely mad. During the main event, as Icarus put Kingston in the Chikara Special and had the match won, Vavasseur had his security goons rush the ring, pull everyone away and then tear down the set. Not only was Icarus cheated out of his title win, but Chikara as a company was closed down. So they did their whole "year without Chikara" story. They had already established side promotions for the wrestlers to compete in during this time, such as Wrestling Is Cool, Wrestling Is Art, Wrestling Is Heart and several others. All the while, Icarus refused to let things go. Chikara meant too much to him, so he started a grassroots campaign with the fans. All the while, various heel factions from Chikara's past (ie. BDK, Gekido, Wrecking Crew) started showing up at those Wrestling Is shows to crush them into nonexistence. Icarus was able to rally everyone to his side and they not only fought off this mega-stable, eventually named the Flood, but he announced that Chikara was coming back thanks to elderly wrestler Robbie Ellis buying the rights. During all this time, Eddie Kingston still carried around the Grand Championship and didn't want Chikara to come back because that brought with it the possibility of losing the belt. The first show back was You Only Live Twice in mid-2014. The main event had Icarus face Kingston once again. This time Icarus was dressed like the Greatest American Hero, with part of the idea being that face Icarus = covered up back. Icarus ended up winning, but it was pretty rough because he got concussed towards the end and had a hard time hitting his spots. When the Chikara roster held him up, you could see he was completely dazed. Then his win was overshadowed by the coming of Deucalion, the leader of the Flood, who was COMIC BOOK AS gently caress and murdered fan-favorite Kobald in the middle of the ring. The half-season of 2014 was dedicated to Chikara vs. Flood with Deucalion mostly showing up for the sake of murdering either Chikara guys or his own men for failing him. One of his victims was the Estonian Thunderfrog whose "Frog Thor" gimmick included him wielding a special hammer that only the worthy could lift. With the revival of Chikara, they added the same points system used for the tag division. Regardless, Icarus' title reign in 2014 was background noise and he only took on two challengers. Still, the main event of the 2014 finale was Icarus vs. Deucalion in a cage. It was... pretty bad. Not only did setting up the cage take so long that they waited until the main event to do the show's intermission, but Deucalion wasn't all that interesting in the ring without all of his creepy endboss mystique. Icarus tapped him out, then smited him with Thunderfrog's hammer. That was the last we heard from Deucalion, so I guess he dead. Icarus continued to defend the title in 2015, though he ran out of gas. Without the Flood angle, there was little to keep him in the forefront. Luckily, he dropped the belt at just the right time.  Part 4: Hallowicked Since 2009, Chikara had a maguffin artifact called the Eye of Tyr, which essentially allows mind-control. It led to a lengthy storyline involving Hallowicked, Frightmare, Delirious and UltraMantis Black. UltraMantis and Delirous had a "loser leaves Chikara" match at the end of 2014. UltraMantis won, but in defeat, Delirious used the Eye of Tyr on Hallowicked and Frightmare. It awoken something evil in them and they turned on UltraMantis. No longer were they fan-favorites who spoke in gibberish. They became deranged cultists who ranted about the coming of an evil deity known as Nazmaldun. Hallowicked also started wearing crazy badass entrance armor. Chikara's 2015 season was dedicated to a massive tournament thing called Challenge of the Immortals. The idea was that ten wrestlers would draft members of the roster and create teams of four. These ten stables would face off throughout the year in a double round robin tournament. These matches could be anything from one-on-one, two-on-two, six-man tag or eight-man tag. The two teams with the highest score would face off in the finals. The members of the winning team would each earn what is essentially a Money in the Bank type of opportunity for any title they wanted. Icarus was part of Dasher's Dugout, alongside Dasher Hatfield, Mr. Touchdown and Heidi Lovelace. Hallowicked had his own team that included Frightmare, Blind Rage and Silver Ant (a face drafted in for the sake of brainwashing). In April, Hallowicked earned his three points and challenged Icarus for the title during a UK tour. Hallowicked won cleanly and became the first member of the roster to win every major title in the company. While Hallowicked's Nightmare Warriors continued to rack up enough wins to make them a threat, Hallowicked was regularly defending his title. He took down the likes of Ashley Remington, Oleg the Usurper, Dasher Hatfield, Amasis and Shynron. All the while, there was one challenger he was afraid of. Early in the year, UltraMantis started earning points towards title contention, but Hallowicked kept getting involved and kept screwing up his chances. It seemed obvious that UltraMantis would be the one to overthrow Hallowicked, but then UltraMantis announced that his knee was messed up and he was being forced into retirement. He could no longer compete in Challenge of the Immortals and would only manage his teammates. He was later beaten badly by the Devastation Corporation and was reduced to a wheelchair. The Nightmare Warriors failed to make it to the finals. The team with the most amount of points was Dasher's Dugout, but things fell apart for them. Dasher realized that Mr. Touchdown had been cheating to win this whole year and due to his sense of honor, he declared that he was forfeiting all the points they earned. Icarus was okay with that, as he had three points as a singles wrestler and could get a title shot. Eddie Kingston appeared to point out that he too had three points. It was decided that the main event of the 2015 season finale Top Banana would be Chikara's very first* triple threat match. * Weird, right? The only three men to hold the Chikara Grand Championship faced off and in the end, Hallowicked won with his highly-protected DDT variation Never Wake Up. The season would have ended with him standing tall, but one of the winners of Challenge of the Immortals was running down to the ring...
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Jul 5, 2019 03:32
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 Part 5: Kimber Lee Princess Kimber Lee first showed up in Chikara's developmental offshoot Wrestling is Fun. She was a quasi-manager for the tag team Knight Eye for the Pirate Guy, made up of Jolly Roger and Lance Steel. The original idea was that Roger and Lance were faces and Kimber Lee was a heel, but Lance barely noticed because he was a knight and he was happy to do her royal bidding. The three then showed up at the 2014 King of Trios, where they lost in the first round. In that match, Kimber Lee was treated as a total face. Jolly Roger was kayfabe injured, writing him out of the company and Lance Steel stopped showing up. Coincidentally, they only just recently brought back the Kimber Lee/Lance Steel plot thread, but that's another story. Kimber Lee didn't really do much for the rest of 2014, but during the 2015 National Pro Wrestling Day show, she ended up making friends with comedy jobber tag team Los Ice Creams. Kimber Lee was given one of the ten captain spots for Challenge of the Immortals, but also got the last pick. She first drafted her then-tag team partner Jervis Cottonbelly and then used her latter picks for Los Ice Creams because they were such nice guys. Jervis knew this was a bad idea, but this fell on deaf ears. Their team, Crown and Court, did not do so well initially. They went months without garnering a single point. Their team didn't even win a match until June of that year. Kimber Lee was more than capable, but she had a mid-carder and two losers and they couldn't stand up to the heavy hitter teams. Also, Kimber Lee and Jervis earned a tag title shot against the Devastation Corporation and lost that as well. They started racking up wins in the latter part of the year and rose up thanks to certain teams imploding on themselves, such as Dasher's Dugout forfeiting and how the Wrecking Crew (DevCorp and Jaka) became reckless after their manager Sidney Bakabella was taken out of the picture. A DevCorp vs. Los Ice Creams tag match had Los Ice Creams win because the pissed off DevCorp wouldn't stop hitting their finishers on the two and refused to try and pin them, which is worth a DQ in Chikara. Funny enough, that match helped Crown and Court get the points needed to make it to the finals, where it was Crown and Court vs. Wrecking Crew in a 4-on-4 tag. Crown and Court won, meaning everyone was granted a Golden Opportunity. The match that followed was the Hallowicked/Kingston/Icarus triple threat for the Grand Championship. After Hallowicked won, Kimber Lee ran down to the ring to cash in her Golden Opportunity. The match lasted about three minutes and although Hallowicked's allies tried to run in and maybe cause a DQ, Jervis and Los Ice Creams prevented them. Kimber Lee forced Hallowicked to tap to the Chikara Special, ending 2015's season with the company's first female Grand Champion. On social media, Chikara and its workers went from "Hey, check out this cool thing we did!" to eventually, "No! Seriously! Check out this cool thing we did! Look how progressive this is!" Kimber Lee had an okay run that never hit any real highs. Her defense against Oleg the Usurper ended in a no contest and she had wins over Soldier Ant and Jaka. The biggest match she had was against Heidi Lovelace, who was the Young Lions Cup holder at the time. She was popular enough, but she just wasn't a focal point in the company and they weren't investing in any major title angles with her. By May, it was time for her to drop the title. Coincidentally, while Los Ice Creams went on to use both of their Golden Opportunities to get abrupt tag title matches, Jervis never got around to using his as the man under the mask ended up having to leave Chikara and burned his bridge after the fact. Personally, I always figured that they were going for an eventual Jervis heelturn on Kimber Lee due to "nice guy" reasons as she never reciprocated his advances. I'm probably wrong. Part 6: Hallowicked again In May of 2016, Chikara introduced the Infinite Gauntlet, their attempt at their own Royal Rumble. 33 entrants, 88 second intervals, pins/submission/over-the-top eliminations and the winner gets a Golden Opportunity. Even the champs are allowed to enter, meaning Kimber Lee was there, but the very first winner was Hallowicked. Around that time, Hallowicked's henchmen were ambushing Kimber Lee and regularly attacking her leg. This culminated in him cashing in his Golden Opportunity for a match at Aniversario: The Lost World and due to both Kimber Lee's injured leg and Frightmare distracting the ref, Hallowicked won via Never Wake Up. At least he made the match ahead of time! 2016 was Hallowicked's last stretch of relevance in Chikara, but it was certainly an interesting year for him. He and Frightmare got their mitts on the Eye of Tyr and used it on the wheelchair-bound UltraMantis Black. UltraMantis started referring to himself as Nazmaldun, the same deity that Hallowicked and Frightmare worshiped. It was never clear if they made him believe this, if UltraMantis was Nazmaldun all along or if he was being used as a host body. Either way, UltraMantis gained telepathic powers and started gradually mindwiping members of the roster into being his soldiers. Guys like the Batiri, Mr. Touchdown, Icarus and Jigsaw became slaves to his will and started wearing red and black costumes. They were called the heXed Men because psychic in a wheelchair and stuff. Hallowicked was able to spread his psychotic behavior like a cancer throughout Chikara and even claimed that by 2017, King of Trios would be made up of nothing but Nazmaldun worshipers. He also kept defending his title against all comers, but his victories led to the discovery of a weakness. After Hallowicked defeated Ophidian, UltraMantis tried to take his mind too. It didn't work. Ophidian already had established hypnotic powers, which was usually treated as a joke, but it not only made him immune to the Eye of Tyr and UltraMantis, but it made him able to potentially undo the damage. At the 2016 finale, Chikara Supremacy, an eight-on-eight Chikara vs. heXed Men match ended with Dasher Hatfield as the last man standing. Ophidian then stole away the Eye of Tyr and freed UltraMantis' mind. Later on, he had Thunderfrog destroy the Eye of Tyr for good. Meanwhile, himself again, UltraMantis stood up from the wheelchair, screamed, "I REMEMBER EVERYTHING!" and chased off Hallowicked. The question wasn't IF UltraMantis was going to get his revenge, but WHEN. No, seriously, the question really was "WHEN" because the next title change was weird as hell.
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Jul 6, 2019 02:34
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So I've been watching old ROH shows along with a podcast, ThROH the Years. From The Era of Honor Begins with the ghastly homophobic opening segment with the Christopher Street Connection and Da Hit Squad and the godawful commentary team of Eric Garguilo and Steve Corino up until 2004's At Our Best. With the equally but differently terrible commentary of Ray Murrow (Doug Gentry) & Chris Lovey (Gabe Sapolsky). No, I don't really know why they needed aliases to do commentary. It's an interesting show as much because of what happened in the month between the previous show, The Second Anniversary Show, and this one: the owner of the promotion got caught up in a Perverted Justice sting and was accused of trying to solicit an underage boy for sex. ThROH the Years do a deep dive into this, it's interesting but despite Feinstein having allegedly sold his stake in the company to his friend and roommate and employee Doug Gentry nothing much has changed at this stage. Bobby Heenan pulled out of this show but you still have appearances from Ox Baker, Dusty Rhodes & Ricky Steamboat along with most of your ROH regulars (though Christopher Daniels and Bryan Danielson are absent, on tour with New Japan and beating Gedo & Jado to become IWGP Jr Heavyweight tag champs). Somehow this was the most attended ROH show up to this point with a claimed 1,800 at the RexPlex. This is probably because it was Wrestlemania XX weekend and that was in New York so a lot of wrestling fans were already in the area. First half of the show is mostly fine, starts with Samoa Joe's regular "stretching students while doing a promo" bit, this time he's mad at the Pure title for existing, and Julius Smokes gets questioned on "where is Homicide?". There's a generic 6 man scramble clusterfuck in the opener with Amazing Red, Jack Evans, Teddy Hart, Sonjay Dutt, Jimmy Rave and Mark Briscoe which is super 2004 indy wrestling, a bunch of impressive high flying spots and not much character work aside from Jack & Teddy not really going at it because we know they are friends. Teddy yells homophobic insults at the fans and the commentators spend most of the match burying him and I have no idea why they brought him back after his last appearance, he also hits a shooting star press onto nobody, hard to know if he was trying to break up a submission and misjudged it or just wanted to do cool flippy poo poo because he's Ted Hart. Jack Evans does his awesome 630 senton to Dutt and looks like he murdered him which was cool. Red wins it with his standing shooting star press. There's a short backstage promo where The Second City Saints of Colt Cabana & Ace Steel are about to talk about their big tag match with The Prophecy but CM Punk barges in and tells them to take this seriously and then just does the promo before walking off. At the end Ace asks "should we start the promo now?" because ROH at this time liked to do a thing where they pretended the wrestlers didn't know the camera was rolling yet to get "candid" promos or something. Mostly it's pretty lame but Ace's line was quite funny. And then Gary Michael Cappetta interviews Julius Smokes in the ring who tells everyone Homicide wants a shot at the ROH championship after beating Samoa Joe in a non-title match at the last event. And then something setting up Punk vs AJ for later on with the guest referee Ricky Steamboat. Finally on to match 2 and boy do I remember nothing about this clash between Slyk Wagner Brown and Xavier. Xavier was the 2nd ROH Champion and a bit of a forgotten guy 15 years later but is a solid hand. Brown is not and this is just instantly forgettable. Jerry Lynn beats Nigel McGuinness in a Pure title #1 contender match that had a fun chain wrestling section at the start and a decent finish but not much in between. Nigel has only worked 3 ROH matches up to this point and is a long way off what he'd become by 2006. Lynn wins after reversing a backdrop attempt into the Cradle Piledriver. A tag team called The Solution who'd been on a ROH show earlier in the day (Do Or Die II, featuring the first ROH appearances of Roderick Strong, Austin Aries & Super Dragon) come out and complain about not being on this show while in the background Dunn & Marcos are "tightening the ropes" in the background. It's hard to do justice to how over Dunn & Marcos are in their role of "tiny dorks who like 80s hard rock & hair metal and usually get beaten up" but this is part of their "We're Not Going To Take It Tour" and they get jumped by The Solution before turning the tables and beating them up. It's really fun Dunn & Marcos have been a consistently entertaining part of ROH since the start. Their goofy catchphrase of "We are Dunn & Marcos and we are the top tag team in Ring of Honor and we are going to rock you like a hurricane" is so great. Less entertaining, #1 Contenders Trophy match between Matt Stryker (the unibrow guy from the mid-west, not the teacher from the north east who went on to work for WWE & be terrible on commentary for AAA & NJPW & presumably other companes) and John Walters. These two dudes are kind of stereotypical Ring of Honor midcard dudes in that they are incredibly dull and lacking in personality. Walters had a fun bloodbath plunder match with Xavier in 2003 but outside of that he's just a guy. Technically competent but lacking any real charisma to make you care. Somehow this ended by Walters passing out from a leg submission which was a bit odd. There's then Second City Saints vs The Prophecy tag match, this is the hot feud in the company at the time and this is mostly okay but is fairly short at 7 minutes before ending in a no contest and the locker room empties to stop the two teams brawling. The most notable part of this is Gabe on commentary with his grossest line of the show, just saying “I’d have sex with both of them” about valets Alison Danger & Traci Brooks. Gabe isn't meant to be a heel commentator here and just the power dynamics of the guy who books the promotion and two women managers is really hosed. Horny Chris Lovey is a recurring theme in his commentary and it's always dogshit but somehow this seems like the worst line he's had. ROH Pure Title with AJ Styles defending the title he won on the last show in the tournament finals against the man he beat, CM Punk. Punk got the instant rematch because of referee shenanigans where he was deemed to have used a rope break when he didn't or something, I forget the details, it's been a couple months since I saw it. That's why we have a guest ref though in The Dragon Ricky Steamboat. Pure Title rules limit you to 3 ropebreaks per match and I think also restrict closed fist strikes but maybe that's a later rule. Instantly they start with the front facelock then pushed to the ropes spot that opens every Okada match these days and Steamboat decides that this counts as a ropebreak for AJ? It builds to a really fun and solid match and AJ has used up all his ropebreaks after CM Punk hit him with the Styles Clash and is in a sleeper, down on the mat. Steamboat raises his hand and it drops to the mat once, twice, three times, Steamboat is about to call it and then suddenly AJ's hand starts rising up. Kind of awkward looking to go for the forced controversy with this matchup twice in a row but Steamboat decides AJ isn't out and lets it continue, AJ lands two big lariats and then a discus lariat to get the pin. Afterwards they shake hands because it's ROH and Punk starts jawing at Steamboat about his trash refereeing, Punk goes to hit him up but instead he eats a chop & an armdrag and the crowd go wild to see Ricky do his spots. There's a break while they setup the cage for the last 2 matches, they show clipped highlights from a couple of Do or Die matches, Roderick Strong vs Hydro (better known today as Jay Lethal) and Austin Aries vs Danny Daniels. Matt Stryker also declares he wants to challenge Joe for his title, and Joe gives a great promo where he talks up the match against Jay Briscoe tonight, the match against Homicide and the match against Matt Stryker. Joe is great but this is news to no one. ROH Title match between Samoa Joe & Jay Briscoe in a steel cage. Why? It's a whole thing involving Jim Cornette managing the Briscoes and feuding with Joe and a partner (Bryan Danielson & Jerry Lynn both teamed with him) and it's culminating in this. Cornette chose the stip, thinking it'd be easy for Jay to just burst out the door right away and that's certainly what he tried to do. Joe caught him though, and lands an armdrag before starting in on Jay's arm, headbutting it. Drop toe hold by Jay, again he runs for the door and gets stopped. Then Jay finally gets Joe down with a Yakuza kick, Mark Briscoe opens the door up and Jay decides "nah, I've got this", suplexes Joe, goes for the pin, 1 count. Jay misses an enziguri, gets German suplexed and then thrown into the cage a couple of times. This leaves Jay down while Joe goes to the door and pulls out a chain and padlock to lock Jay in there with him, it's a cool moment to show how drat scary Joe is. Meanwhile Jay is bleeding and bleeding heavily. Dustin Rhodes would be proud, he is an absolute mess. Joe pummels Jay some and then licks some blood off his fingers and then there's 2 gnarly looking Ole kicks in the corner. Jay Briscoe's face is completely red at this point, not sure you can see any skin underneath his crimson mask. Blading is obviously dumb but it looks loving great, let's be real here. Jay Briscoe just continuing while looking like this makes him look so tough, and Joe doing that to him makes him seem a monster. At one point Jay hits a Super Ace Crusher, there's a great spot where Mark on the outside basically rips a corner of the cage open and Jay tries to slither out of it, but there's a table in the way that stops him getting to the floor before Joe pulls him back in. Jay is on his hands & knees at this point and there is a pool of blood below his forehead. The finishing stretch is hot, starting when Samoe Joe is beating on Jay, gets hit with an enziguri and then Jay lands the Jay Driller but is too tired to immediately pin him. Mark Briscoe starts climbing on the outside while Jay starts climbing the cage inside, AJ Styles comes out and pulls Mark down before giving him a Styles Clash on the floor, Joe grabs Jay and lands a Super Muscle Buster for the 1-2-3. It's a really hot and fun cage match. Very much a one-sided beating but Jay came out of it a much bigger deal than he was going in and Samoa Joe continued his reign of terror with the belt, having held it for 1 year now. Main event is a Scramble Cage match, which is a normal cage but with platforms in the corner to make dives easier, which is totally cribbed from Mat Rats. The Carnage Crew are 4 working class blokes who just hate their moaning children and wives and like to fight, Special K are dastardly spoiled rich kid ravers. Carnage Crew is Tony DeVito, HC Loc, Justin Credible & Masada, Special K is 12 mostly interchangable flippy guys and I'm not sure which 4 are technically in this match. It's a mess, there's a run-in featuring Ox Baker & Dusty Rhodes and it ends with a spike piledriver to one of the Special K guys. Which hopefully means this feud is done because it's kind of played out. After the match there's a promo with the Carnage Crew celebrating backstage until they discover someone has taken a poo poo in one of their bags. Wrestling is a very normal form of entertainment. Overall, far from the greatest ROH show but the 2 title matches are both totally worth watching and the opening clusterfuck is enjoyable enough for what it is.
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Jul 6, 2019 02:58
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 Part 7: UltraMantis Black As we last left UltraMantis Black, he stood up from his wheelchair and chased off Hallowicked -- someone who has been his longtime partner/rival over the promotion's history. That was the end of 2016, which was considered Season 16. The next show would be National Pro Wrestling Day in February of 2017. One of the things they were hyping up was an announcement from UltraMantis, presumably that he was coming out of retirement to make a run for the Chikara Grand Championship. But... something was off about the show. Race Jaxon went from a face having some issues with his tag partner to a full-on heel singles competitor with a Rick "The Model" Martel gimmick. The tag team Crummels and Defarge had only been around for a few months, but commentary referred to them as ring veterans. There were a lot of new guys showing up, but they weren't making a big deal about their debuts. Finally, when UltraMantis walked out, he talked up his hardships... and announced that it all paid off! He opened his robe to reveal the Chikara Grand Championship. He wasn't chasing the title. He already won it! Somehow! As the show ended, the announcer welcomed us to Season 18. It was then revealed that there was a Season 17 filmed in secret (with full crowd, oddly enough). Nine episodes that would be released gradually, exclusively on Chikara's streaming service. Throughout the episodes, UltraMantis went through Frightmare, Kobald and Chuck Taylor to earn his shot against Hallowicked. Their match had the "we swear this is epic" trope that Chikara does from time to time where the locker room empties out to watch from around the ring. UltraMantis ended up winning and even had enough time in the season for a single title defense. It was against Race Jaxon, who over the course of the season injured his tag partner and started up his egotistical "I'm so handsome" heel gimmick. With about ten minutes left in the show's video, it looked like the last match of the season was going to be a slightly competitive title match. Instead, they dedicated an excessive amount of time to a backstage Race Jaxon promo that went on and on and on. By the time the match happened, UltraMantis squashed him in seconds. It was wonderful. In the ACTUAL 2017 season, UltraMantis wasn't around as much as you'd think for the champ. He went over Max Smashmaster and had a non-title match against Grado. By the time the Secret Season episodes were all released to the public, it was decided that UltraMantis would drop the title and fade away from Chikara for real this time.  Part 8: Juan Francisco de Coronado Juan Francisco is good in the ring, is good at generating heat, can pull off some fantastic facial expressions and has been a regular heel since showing up in 2012, but he's also never been fully believable as a top heel. He's a mid-carder whose whole deal is that nobody wants to actually watch him. He's an Ecuadorian aristocrat whose entrance takes so long just to troll the audience. He's fine for what he is, but "long-running Grand Champion" is not what he is. Having gotten rid of his henchmen, the Proletariat Boar of Moldova and Prakash Sabar, Juan Francisco soon after earned his three points and defeated UltraMantis in April 2017. For the remainder of the year, he successfully defended his title once a month. The payoff appeared to be losing it to Chikara's then-ace Dasher Hatfield at the season finale, but Juan Francisco cheated his way to victory and won regardless, deflating the fans. He continued to successfully defend the title month after month and it felt underwhelming. Any time someone looked like they were being built towards a big title win, Juan Francisco would go over again and we'd wonder where this was even supposed to be leading to because Chikara's roster wasn't really all that great for such a long game. His matches were fine, but in a time when Chikara as a whole needed a shot in the arm, he was doing the opposite. During his time on top, Juan Francisco defended the championship successfully twelve times and survived via one DQ loss. They were building towards a rematch with Dasher Hatfield, but Juan Francisco lost to someone else. In the end, he held onto that title for a year and three months. Juan Francisco immediately fell down the ranks of the company and was shortly after given a storyline where he lost his money and Ecuador disowned him, causing him to become a patriotic face named John Francis of Coronado.
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Jul 6, 2019 19:02
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 Part 9: Mr. Touchdown "Mr. Touchdown" Mark Angelosetti easily has the weakest championship reign despite giving us one of the better championship angles out of it. Touchdown was introduced in 2012 as Dasher Hatfield's step-cousin-in-law. He was a total blowhard heel despite Dasher being the most pure-hearted face. It was a great dynamic. Dasher seemed unaware that Touchdown was an rear end in a top hat cheater. Touchdown seemed to genuinely care about Dasher despite their differences and never betrayed him, even when his girlfriend Veronica wanted Dasher out of the picture. Around the time of the Ashes storyline, Dasher became aware of what kind of person Touchdown was and insisted on a match between the two so he could beat some manners into him. Dasher won via roll-up and the two let bygones be bygones afterwards. The two were the company's top face tag team for a good while, but in 2015, when Challenge of the Immortals was going on, Touchdown went back to his cheating ways by regularly using a loaded kneepad as a weapon. Dasher figured it all out and angrily forfeited all of his team's points while wanting nothing to do with Touchdown. In most cases, this would have led to another heel run for Touchdown, but he instead acted ashamed for his actions and wanted to redeem himself. Touchdown was a man without a country until the whole heXed Men story. Dasher was reluctant to believe that Touchdown was being mind-controlled and thought it was just his true nature. Eventually, the two made up during the Secret Season and went back to being a tag team. Touchdown had a shot at Juan Francisco's title in 2017, but failed to capture it. In 2018, after Touchdown and Dasher failed to win the tag titles, Touchdown went back to singles competition and earned his three points. In his rematch, Touchdown surprisingly put an end to Juan Francisco's endless championship reign. Sadly, Touchdown never got around to defending the belt. Later that month, he entered King of Trios alongside Dasher and Dasher's plucky newcomer son Boomer Hatfield. In the first round, they faced Team Beyond. Touchdown suplexed Chris Dickinson to the outside and broke his own leg. The match was deemed a forfeit and Team Beyond advanced. Once King of Trios winded down, Director of Fun Bryce Remsberg announced that Touchdown would be out of commission for at least a few months. Rather than simply have him vacate the championship (which Juan Francisco definitely wanted), he could hand off the belt to someone in the meantime. This chosen one would defend the Grand Championship in Mr. Touchdown's name and if they still had the belt by the time Touchdown returned to action, they would give it back to him. It didn't take any thinking for Touchdown to make his decision. He trusted Dasher Hatfield to be the interim Grand Champion.  Part 10: Dasher Hatfield Dasher Hatfield was the conscience of Chikara. He had various title opportunities throughout the years, as far back as Eddie Kingston's run, but always came up short. The 2017 finale seemed to be his time, especially since he earned his points through beating outsiders Moose and Keith Lee as well as Merlok, Chikara's unstoppable hoss during that time. He once again lost the big one as Juan Francisco twisted Dasher's mask over his face and rolled him up for a pin. In 2018, Juan Francisco continued to taunt him, claiming that Dasher was a hypocrite and cheated just as much as he claimed Juan Francisco did. Instead of ending in a rematch, Juan Francisco lost his title to Mr. Touchdown. As I just talked about, Touchdown had to hand over the belt to Dasher to defend in his name. Dasher proceeded to make Touchdown proud by winning against challenger after challenger. He won four defenses in 2018, ending in beating Ophidian at the season finale. Afterwards, Touchdown and Boomer came out to congratulate him on the win. Touchdown also announced that he would be cleared very soon and could have the belt back. Dasher refused to relinquish the belt and instead attacked Touchdown. He stormed off and yelled at Boomer to come with him. In the 2019 season, Dasher explained to Touchdown that he just didn't feel that Touchdown was healthy enough to be champ just yet. He wanted him to prove it by winning a series of singles matches and re-earning his three points. Touchdown chose not to simply attack Dasher just because of family loyalty and how he felt he owed Dasher for constantly believing in him. Touchdown won his three points, including the latter two in one day. Dasher still refused to give up the belt. Bryce Remsberg resigned as Director of Fun, but gave one last order: Dasher vs. Touchdown in a ladder match to decide who was truly Chikara Grand Champion. It was a brutal bout that ended with Dasher winning. Touchdown hasn't been heard from since and he's not even on the website's roster page anymore. Instead of being sweet and supportive to his son Boomer, Dasher has been an all around rear end. He constantly talks up how disappointed he is, especially when he puts Boomer in matches against those with two contention points and Boomer loses. This led to the 2019 Infinite Gauntlet match, where the two kept clearing the ring and fighting each other over and over again. Both lost the match, but afterwards, they kept getting in each other's face. At Aniversario: Scotch Mist, the two faced off in a mask vs. mask match. Shockingly, Boomer won, but couldn't bring himself to unmask his father. Disappointed once again, Dasher removed his mask and walked away. That's the last we've seen of the champ as of this writing.
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Jul 6, 2019 20:12
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This probably could be its own thread, but I'm kinda on the fence to committing and don't trust myself to follow through/ finish. Anyways, I think I'm gonna try and review the TNA Weekly PPVs from 2002-2004. Copy pasting this from my dumb tumblr 17 years ago NWA TNA started the weekly PPV experiment. I went to every single one. Now I’m going to watch them for the first time since I was there. In 2002, I was a teenager set adrift by 9/11 and the alienation from starting high school. For better or worse, every week I started going to National Wrestling Alliance - Total Nonstop Action shows on Wednesday night. I loved WCW and was bitter about the botched invasion going on, and here was a new WCW in my backyard. It looks like there were 111 weekly PPVs, I’m not sure exactly how many taped ones / clip shows ended up happening, but I never missed one for injury, illness, or even vacation for the better part of two years. It was basically my ECW, for someone who was too young to follow ECW when it first aired. I’m not really sure what the format of these is going to be. It’s kind of a recap + live blog + review, I’ll give matches the standard 0-5 star ratings with ¼*’s possible, so it’s really a 20 point scale. I’m going to hopefully figure out a better way to get screen captures going forward. Also, these first couple were taped in Alabama, not at the TNA Asylum in Nashville. Hopefully if my memory holds up, I’ll be able to give some live notes and memories from being there for some of these. I have an old hard drive of pictures taken that I hope I can recover. I won the “Best Fan of the Night” and “Best Sign” contests a couple times to get to go backstage, and I also generally hung out before the shows and after the shows to talk to the wrestlers coming and going like a groupie. Later on, I was even on the TNA “Street Team” helping to market TNA and hand out flyers/ads during Smackdown tapings. I was also the moderator for the brief TNA Online Message Board, which I truly wish I had screencaps/archives somehow of all the…wildness there. NWA TNA #1 June 19th 2002 Don West is the first person out of the gate, introducing Ed Ferrara after pyro and a brief introduction. Ed’s all about TNA and introducing the girls dancing in cage as some sleazy music plays. Appropriately, he throws it to Mike Tenay, all business at ringside. TNA chants kick us off. Don West’s hawaiian shirt is a thing of legend, and it’s distracting me from Tenay’s long explanation of the “Gauntlet For The Gold”. Jeremy Borash eventually is in ring announcing a parade of legends. Harley Race, Dory Funk, Jr, Jackie Fargo, Bullet Bob Armstrong, Corsica Joe & Sarah Lee, Bill Behrens, Ricky Steamboat. “All Our Base Are Belong To Us” shirt spotted in the stands. The Dragon compares the belt to every major championship in pro sports, the Stanley Cup, etc. He will special referee the finals of the match, and that brings out the one and only - Jeff Jarrett. His TNA theme “My World” is a lowkey banger that nevertheless completely haunted my life for 2 years. His big mouth earns him the first spot in the match. Ken Shamrock is here after that, and he joins Jarrett in burying the Battle Royal match. Finally, Scott Hall saunters through the crowd in a strip club(!!!) t-shirt as his awesome theme “Marvelous Me” plays. To round up, Ken Shamrock’s theme wasn’t great. “Hey Yo” sign spotted. Goldylocks is backstage with Total Nonstop Action and the original midget killer “Puppet the Psycho Dwarf”. Oh no. He’s gonna spill some midget blood. Jeff Jarrett angrily kicks over a tiny music stand in the background hilariously. Then we go to the girls in cages and honest to goodness our first wrestling match - 6 Man Tag Team X Division Showcase AJ Styles, Low Ki, and Jerry Lynn vs The Flying Elvii (Sonny Siaki, Jimmy Yang, and Jorge Estrada) An X Division showcase awaits. The legends surround a tiny monitor backstage. The generic faces’ intro music is bland. The flying Elvii have a nice little knockoff theme at least. Siaki has Big The Rock Energy while the other two mug. The Elvii refuse handshakes and all hell breaks loose. Triple dropkicks and flying splashes to the outside. Styles reverses a back suplex into a phenomenal forearm, and I’m not going to attempt to catch every move. As an aside - Total Nonstop Action has taken a full 18 minutes on air before someone punched someone. Siaki and LowKi is a pretty appealing matchup. The former does a crisp Samoan Drop. Styles and Yang get in and have a very crisp, quick flurry of moves together. Jerry Lynn crushes a cradle Piledriver, and Siaki runs in and hits his neckbreaker finisher. LowKi accidentally brains AJ, and Yang capitalizes with the Yang Time for the pin. Considering who went on to hold the X Title, this is an odd result, but commentary was generally putting over how the mismatched team was going to compete in the X Title Round Robin coming up. The Flying Elvii in 7 minutes, Yang Time pins AJ Styles **¾ Midget Showcase Teo vs Hollywood Hollywood starts it before the bell. From the promo, I thought this was a triple threat with Puppet. Hollywood kicks out of the “Tadpole Splash” from the top rope. Ed Ferrara says in response to Teo’s claims to be a ladies’ man - “He’s the right height”. Teo finishes Hollywood with an ugly swanton. Teo in 3 minutes, Swanton?, ½* Now West and Ferrara are in the ring hyping the Lingerie Battle Royal next week. The New Francine, Miss Joanie, Shannon (Daffney?), Alexis Laree (Mickie James!), The Incredible Sasha, Erin (Baltimore Cheerleader?), Elektra from ECW, Miss Taylor Vaughn, Darisa Da?? I didn’t catch her name as Ed starts rambling about a kid in a candy store. Maybe I’ll catch all the names if they’re introduced with title cards next week. Francine grabs a mic and calls Ed “pudgy” and says none of the women compare to her. Elektra stands up to Francine and starts a catfight. Goldylocks is in the back with Mortimer Plumtree. His character peaks with his name. He manages a tag team that bullied him in high school for reasons that are never explained. He leaves to walk “The Johnsons”, Richard and Rod, to the ring. Tag Team Match The Johnsons w/ Mortimer Plumtree vs Psychosis and James Storm The latter is an odd pairing for a few reasons. I honestly didn’t remember James Storm started off without Chris Harris and America’ Most Wanted. He even has the prop guns firing blanks in the ring, which was always a nice touch. I feel like this is where I mention that the Johnsons are in full body suits and masks that make them look like walking penises. In other news, Psychosis is going without his trademark horned mask. Alicia from WCW is on the stage scouting the match. There’s a fella in an XFL jersey in the stands. What year is it? “Buff your(sic) still the stuff” sign spotted. Ferrara “These Johnsons just look good”. They hit simultaneous clutching suplexes to take control of the good guys, but Mortimer interferes to let one of the Johnsons hit their finisher on Cowboy. Post match, the ref pays off the lady watching the action. The Johnsons in 4 minutes, Samoan Drop into Neckbreaker, * Stan and Bo Dupp harass Goldylocks in the back until they run into the brothers’ shared girlfriend in a quick nothing segment. Borash introduces 1993 Rookie of the Year and Winston (yes, cigarettes) Cup Points Leader Sterling Martin. K-Krush is out to save us from the race car drivers. He’s getting booed, but this would be a face promo anywhere other than Huntsville Alabama. K Krush “drat you, and drat Alabama” Brian Lawler is out to save the NASCAR dopes from the angry black man. He cuts an angry promo about “your kind” while the crowd howls in racist jeer. It’s a pretty ugly segment considering “Grandmaster Sexay” Lawler is still clad in his Too Cool black rapper cosplay outfit. Backstage, Jeff Jarrett is choking Jackie Fargo. Tag Team Match Christian York & Joey Matthews vs The Dupps w/ Fluff Dupp For better or worse, now I know their girlfriend/cousin’s name now. After the crowd roared for the pasty white NASCAR duo, commentary is really going in on how these two wrestlers are completely loving stupid and southern. The Dupps’ intro is very boring twangy banjo crap, and they’re not much better in the ring. Matthews hits a move called the Virginia Necktie that looks pretty nice. I think the non-Dupp team is working face, but it’s hard to tell who the crowd is popping for. The Dupps win with some cheating and Fluff interference. The Dupps in 4 minutes, Crotch shot, ½* Before the Gauntlet For The Gold, we get a Toby Keith music video. He is singing “Angry American”. Jeff Jarrett walks out and pushes Toby Keith off his little stupid stool and the crowd goes wild and honestly, I screamed in joy and Jeff Jarrett turned face for my money when he says “Nobody wants to hear that drat song, and take your Angry American rear end OUTTA HERE”. The Gauntlet For The Gold 20 Man Battle Royal for the NWA Heavyweight Championship Of The World Buff Bagwell runs down for number 2 and the bell rings. Maybe it was for the main event finally starting but honestly the crowd goes pretty wild for Buff Bagwell laying hands on Double J. Buff hits a couple signature moves, but gets tossed before the next entrant. Ragin’ Cajun Lash Laroux Is 3. He falls victim to The Stroke and is eliminated fast. “Somebody pissed in Jeff’s Cheerio-s this morning!” Here comes Screamin’ Norman Smiley at 4. The second largest pop of the night so far comes for the Big Wiggle. Jarrett tosses him anyways. Apolo comes down at 5, getting more offense than the previous entrants combined. K-Krush is 6. His signature axe kick gets tremendous boos, they hate him. Slash w/ James Mitchell is 7. Del Rios is 8. He is some kind of bodybuilder and it shows. Slash bites his way out of a belly to belly suplex as the announcers stress everything is legal. Justice is 9, I think this Is the future Abyss, but I can’t swear to it. He hits a Black Hole Slam and now I’m 99% sure. Konnan is 10, yelling “Arriba La Raza” on his way to the ring. Abyss sells Konnan’s facebuster a la HBK vs Hogan and I love it. 11 brings out Joel Gertner “I’m gonna be with 5 girls in Huntsville because I don’t settle for less” He gives an X-rated introduction for the man they call Bruce of the Rainbow Express, led out by Lenny Lane. I’m not gonna bother listing all of the homophobic euphemisms the announce team runs through explaining who the Rainbow Express are. Rick Steiner is 12. He dumps Slash and Abyss with a couple impressive shows of strength. Malice is 13, dealing out chokeslams. Bruce, K-Krush, Del Rios, Konnan, and Steiner go out quickly thereafter. Scott Hall is 14. Toby Keith? is 15. He suplexes and tosses Jarrett. Not that anyone cares, but Toby Keith leaves through the middle rope to chase Jarrett and is never officially eliminated. 16 brings Wildcat Chris Harris. Vampire Warrior, former Gangrel, runs down seemingly early as an entrant with no music? The on screen countdown timer disappeared during the Toby Keith situation. Dangerous Devin Storm, aka Crowbar, is probably 18. Steve Corino comes in at 19, the only former NWA Champ. Ken Shamrock is out at 20. “Hall was framed” sign spotted. Brian Christopher/Lawler is number 20 and I realize now that Toby Keith was not an official entrant. Brian clears out Chris Harris, Vampire Warrior, and Crowbar mostly by holding the top rope down when they ran by. He dumps Corino shortly after. Christopher and Apolo get dumped by Malice next. Then the cameraman somehow misses Malice back body dropping Scott Hall over the top, leaving Malice vs Ken Shamrock to go to a pinfall or submission. Malice vs Ken Shamrock, Special Referee Ricky The Dragon Steamboat Malice gets some advice from Father James Mitchell at ringside. After going back and forth, Shamrock gets an awesome cross arm breaker reversal of a choke slam. After a long tease of tapping, he gets the rope, maybe with James Mitchell pushing it a little toward his client. A big boot leads into the Ankle Lock and Shamrock refuses to break it on the ropes, after even a 7 count, leading to heated words with Steamboat. Shamrock wins with a Belly to Belly to a big pop despite his heel tactics. Cue pyro, and hoisting the tiny gold belt. Ken Shamrock wins a 5 minute match following a 33 minute battle royal, Belly to Belly. ** The match was a little too long, even with Jarrett speeding up the beginning by tossing the opening entrants as fast as possible. Speaking of Double J, he fights with legends and security backstage before emerging with a microphone. He punches the legends after moaning about the battle royal until Toby Keith and Jackie Fargo come back out to book Scott Hall vs Jeff Jarrett next week, the show ends with them brawling up the ramp. That wraps up episode 1! They have some marquee singles matches next week in addition to crowning the first X Division champ, I’ll see you then to wrap up the two first Alabama shows before settling into The Asylum.
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Jul 11, 2019 18:46
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try the new taco place posted:As an aside - Total Nonstop Action has taken a full 18 minutes on air before someone punched someone. Slight bit of fairness to TNA but if memory serves this was because Cheex broke the ring in a dark match beforehand and they were scrambling to repair it. Rad review though, looking forward to the others 
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Jul 11, 2019 20:10
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