We've been on sabbatical for a while- watching tapes, drinking booze, raising kids, not writing. Sabbatical's over and the smartest thing we did while taking the time off was to add the prolific and astounding Raven Mack to Posse of Wrestling Freaks That Is The Death Valley Driver Video Review. This is 2 Big 2 B B-lieved so print it out and read it in the park as you stalk that special lady. Enjoy the writing- the writing about the motherfucking Professional Wrestling that we watched! Please enjoy the stylings- of Raven Mack...
 

A TWELVE PACK OF ALABAMA WRASSLIN'
(by RAVEN MACK)

BEER ONE: My man down in Guntersville, the Wild Irish Rose, won the UCW Alabama Heavyweight title last weekend, and though I’ve never met the man personally, I know through our shared stories of friends tweaked out on various bathtub forms of methamphetamines, and crazy women with plump breasts and behinds and mental illnesses, and just being weird motherfuckers in the small-town South, we could easily split a case of whatever it is they call cheap and good beer in north Alabama around the kitchen table, probably Natty Light. I love the Southern wrestling promotions you never hear a fuckin’ word about on the Internet – things like Southern States Wrestling in Knoxville or the NAWA in Rome (which apparently is at a place that has bluegrass music in the next room) or All Access Wrestling in Louisiana which has been packing them in with little online fanfare. Shit, some dude died from complications after a match in Roanoke, not even two hours away from me, and I didn’t even hear about the card. And I went to see wrestling in Farmville, Virginia, and it was a larger live crowd than I’d seen at any of the super-hyped indy shows of the last year, including King of the Death Match, Ted Petty Invitational, and Freedom Fight. Last winter, when me and the wife and kid went to see a horrendous Other Ones show at the Roanoke Civic Center, somebody fliered all the cars with a scrap about some super-awesome wrestling show there the next night, and I imagine hippies from the entire east coast headed down that road feelin’ bad under that giant neon star on the mountain in Roanoke, wondering what the fuck was wrong with that town. Oddly enough, I left the show early because it was terrible and ended up getting really drunk with some guy from New Hampshire who couldn’t get tickets and rode dirt bikes and looked like what I would imagine Triple H’s 16-year-old brother who’s not on experimental supplements would look like. We drank Newcastle, because hippies love expensive beer, and laughed at how with that Star of Roanoke, it was like somebody’s grandma had decorated the city.

Oh yeah, wrestling – I love the fact there are still wrestling promotions that exist entirely outside the realm of the Internet. The Internet, as it relates to wrestling, is very much like it’s current Anti-Christ – Triple H, in that it completely overestimates its worth to the Wrestling, and how over it is. I can honestly tell you, young Internet wrestling fan, you could do the greatest wrestling website ever, with completely awesome interviews with all of today’s American strong style hybrid cruiser junior superstars extraordinaire, and wonderfully literary critiques of every fuckin’ tape from Osaka to Monterrey to Dayton, Ohio, and you will never, and I promise you this, NEVER get even one blowjob out of it. Oh sure, you’ll get lots of pasty white guys to send you emails telling you how smart or funny you are, but what the fuck does that really matter? When you’re drinking a beer with the boys on a Friday night, waiting for your quarters to come up on the pool table, you’re not gonna brag to them about “this awesome email I got from some kid who said I was funnier than hell.” However, blowjobs, that’s a completely different thing. 

Back to Wild Irish Rose – he plays a homoerotic heel, which is the best thing in the South. No true-stars and stripes Southerner would ever admit to being even mildly homosexual, though I’m sure most of us have probably lingered a little longer on the playing-tennis-with-a-buddy-and-pulled-a-muscle-morphs-into-mutual-masturbation letter in Penthouse than we’d care to admit, publicly. So we deny ourselves the femininity that is in us, as it is everybody, by jeering loudly and drunkenly the little pink-trunked faggots who cheat their way into title reigns, or hug their weaselly managers a little too gingerly – it’s a wonderful social exercise that keeps us all together, to an extent, in our heads. So I decided to have a smorgasbord tape watching, Old Milwaukee drinking sit-down review deal all around that wonderful hotbed of the Wrestling – Alabama. 

As a young kid coming up, Alabama, namely Continental, was the southern bitch of the NWA, not getting nearly the Apter mag press as Florida or the Mid South or Georgia or anything, really. It was sort of in that second tier, along with the Northwest and Central States, and whatever, let’s watch some wrestling shall we? The Beast and Terry Garvin are re-breaking Miss Linda’s arm, all while Adrian Street is laid out in the ring. This is one of my all-time favorite bizarre homoerotic angles blending the on-stage and off-stage into a blur of fantastic reality or realistic fantasy, which only really happens in wrestling, but not nearly as much as it used to. You see, off-screen Terry Garvin was an infamous homosexual, as does seem to occur rather often in the wrestling world, and on-screen Adrian Street was infamous for his homoerotic heel character, accompanied by a woman who sprayed perfume on him. Street would kiss his opponents and generally drudge up those angry feelings of denial I mentioned earlier as common amongst the Southern machismo set. However, this was during Street’s face run in Alabama, and Garvin’s partner is a cartoon-monster goon called The Beast, big and dirty and carrying a giant phallic bone as his foreign object of choice. Now on the level, this is just a feud between Garvin and Street because Garvin done did Street’s woman wrong; but below that, you’ve got an obvious homosexual in Garvin hating on a pretend homosexual in Street, because Street has a woman, and Garvin has his sexual fantasy partner in The Beast, to help in battle. Street has the young and innocent and unaware of what he’s actually involved in fully Todd Morton.

BEER TWO: In between heaping helpings of the battle for satisfaction, as well as the spiritual conquest of the sexual orientation of the young Todd Morton, Dennis Condrey is in full-on $10,000 challenge to get up from his DDT. How could Condrey be lost in the Midnight Express shuffle like he was? Condrey knows the crowd has to be pissed, and bandanas are wonderful accessories, and Alan Jackson is awesome but you can’t go taking your girlfriend to his show because she’ll talk about how cute he is and that shit ain’t cool, ya dig baby? “I’d rather be six feet under, pushing up daisies, jack, than to say I quit to you,” says Wildcat Wendell Cooley, and I drink cheap, shitty beer in honor of such workingman stubbornness. 

Back to the homoerotic undertones, as Street and Morton pin Terry Garvin in a tag match, but then the Beast comes in and smashed Todd Morton right upon his sub-conscious mind with that 14-inch bone of his. Didn’t Terry Garvin kill himself because he was afraid he was gonna get outed? That’s pathetic. American pop culture needs more cool homosexuals and less stereotypical flamers that seem to be flourishing on cable television lately, dressing non-homosexuals up in a way to make them looks stereotypically homosexual themselves. Adrian Street is crying about Linda’s injury, saying maybe he shouldn’t wrestle at all, talking about how he loved wrestling all his life, putting him over with that same macho stubborn mind set that makes the Average Joe chant “faggot” at Terry Garvin, but yet crying like a baby to make himself true to his effeminate character he’s always portrayed, mostly heel. “He was tore up,” explains Johnny Rich as he stops the interview with Street, and then they go back, after Street recollected himself, and Todd Morton is wearing a tank top that says “WEEKEND WARRIOR”, and Street is wearing polka dots, and they’re hyping a losing team splits up match, thus allowing them to be left alone to fall prey to the other's advances, and good fuckin’ God, shit like this makes me MOTHERFUCKIN’ LOVE THE WRESTLING! The internet smark in me wonders who The Beast actually was, but then the drunken oaf in me does not give half a shit because Terry Garvin has permed hair and is wearing a pink shirt and I hate him, I motherfuckin’ hate him, and I’d never let my buddy masturbate me and shit, I don’t even play tennis. 

Then we’ve got the masked Tennessee Stud, and I loved how Alabama, for some odd reason, constantly worked the masked angle into things, and Robert Fuller says he wears the mask because he’s ashamed of the Fuller name because of the bullshit his brother is doing. Then we have the Wild Eyed Southern Boys having a successful squash match, but Ron Fuller’s Stud Stable interrupts to establish heelish chicanery, and they are taping Steve Armstrong to the ropes, and your commentator is discussing how this tape being used is stronger than masking tape, more like electrical tape or maybe even duct tape. He really does explain that, and this is the most beautiful working class wrestling promotion ever. Jimmy Golden, Ron Fuller, and Primetime Brian Lee are having their way with Tracy Smothers and have busted a wide-open gash on Steve Armstrong, and then some masked man wearing one of those The South Will Rise Again confederate flag tapestries as a cape comes in and clears house and good goddamn.

BEER THREE: Let’s switch gears real quick, meaning switch tapes, and time warp back to roughly February 1987 and Continental wrasslin’, with Gordon Solie on the stick with the play-by-play. Tony Anthony comes out with full hair, and a studded belt like you’d be able to get in the back pages of Hit Parader, or at any quality flea market back in the day, usually at the same table run by an Indian dude who also had the nicest selection of Aviator sunglasses. Tom Pritchard vs. Thunderbolt Hamilton is your match, and the Continental ring, with the star motif on the canvas, absolutely ruled. Hamilton is the U.S. Junior heavyweight champion, and it sucks how the lighter weight classes automatically mean “Hey, look how crazy a stupid diving board jump flip thing I can do?” on most wrestling TV shows. Every promotion had a junior title back in the day, and it was used to create glorified jobbers as well as establish young guys not yet heavy enough on the old carbohydrate diet as stars of the future. Now, it’s basically an excuse to book clusterfuck four, five, and six-way matches and to give Juventud Guerrera a little more lapdance money. They bust out an instant replay during the match of a hiptoss reversal by Hamilton, followed by an armdrag – my how standards have changed. In today’s world, he’d have to throw fireballs while doing a moonsault through three tables to get an instant replay, and once he did the armdrag, smart fans would start chanting “Armdrag! Armdrag!” to show how super-hip and worthy of sharing a table at the Waffle House with the boys after the show they were. THEY ARE BATTLING OUTSIDE THE RING, IN THIS NON-TITLE MATCH, AND THE REF COUNTS THEM OUT! AND THEY WON’T SEPARATE! I’m all about the local house show rematch where the National Wrestling Alliance United States Junior Heavyweight Wrestling Championship is actually on the motherfuckin’ line.

BEER FOUR: Ahh, Gordon Solie has Wendell Cooley in the ring to explain the intricacies of a Pole Match, with a coalminer’s glove up top. A coalminer’s glove looks a lot like something Nikki Sixx would wear, back when Motley Crue only wore red and black leather. But this coalminer’s glove goodness has the second aspect of flags on the pole as well, and Cooley goes back up for the American flag, and some sucker named Kris Von Colt comes out and gives the necessary evil foreigner beatdown. Von Colt is basically your late ‘60s biker gang exploitation flick character come to life in the Alabama wrestling ring, complete with a predilection for chewing on chains. 

Well, Solie was talking about Doug Furnas and Kevin Sullivan, but all that is interrupted by BUDDY LANDEL with all three New Guinea Headhunters. Why the fuck did nobody tell me that the true Nature Boy at one time had three south Pacific cannibals under his control? Holy shit, this is great, and Doug Furnas’ bodybuilding, slow-talking ass is no match for style like this. A generic masked face called The Starfighter takes on Landel, who is mockingly wearing The Tennessee Stud’s mask. “I don’t know who this Starfighter is, but I bet he wishes right now he was in a different galaxy,” says Gordon Solie. Beautiful squash, with Landel in dress slacks, a Pro Wrestling Illustrated t-shirt, and the Stud mask. Ron Fuller is now good, and he and Jimmy Golden and The Tennessee Stud are doing taped segment battle with the New Guinea Headhunters, and the house lights come on, and it’s chaos with all sorts of everybody beating each other gloves and sticks and canes and Landel steals the Stud’s mask. Jimmy Golden, even as a babyface, looks like a real fuckin’ asshole. Landel with the Headhunters is perfect for Alabama wrestling, because Landel’s cocky, rich man ways are just as alien as fuckin’ tribal maniacs from parts unknown if you were to have to point it out on a map to the average Hank Jr. fan this seems to be geared towards. This was long before Wal-Mart laden four-lane miracle miles littered every small Southern town, and a hard-scrabble family would eat at the brick rancher family restaurant for breakfast, the type of joint that served drinks in those red-tinted glasses and had police certificates framed on the wall, rather than the Shoney’s buffet with some redneck slut named Jennie bringing you by your drinks and telling you where the plates were and expecting a fuckin’ tip for that. Landel stole the mask off a man who’s name is from a song popularized by Johnny Cash. The Fullers and Golden, they like football and beer, not some stupid-ass champagne in a glass while watching jai alai or polo. 

Being a pagan at heart, it’s always bothered me the Nature Boy gimmick has been perverted into a super-rich asshole in wrestling, probably due to Christianity’s hypocritical tentacles reaching deep into the hearts of the good ole boy network of promoters back in the day. I can at least thank Vince McMahon for one thing – he turned wrestling into a Godless smorgasbord of evil, where Christianity is booed and ridiculed. Now if only we could have a really boss earth-worshipping face rise up, who defends his title once every cycle of the moon rather than every 30 days, and tells kids to take their homeopathy and say their mantras. Yeah. 

Adrian Street is on a fancy-lad phone talking about how wack-ass Rip Rogers is, and I realize that the weird thing about Street as a babyface is he doesn’t wear the glitter eye make-up in that role, but does as a heel. Same with the pigtails, as the good guy he wore the longhair with bangs like any member of Whitesnake’s road crew would wear, but as a heel, back with the pigtails. Haha, they’ve got Rip Rogers valet in a doghouse, blind-folded, brought in the house to serve tea to Adrian Street. AND THE GREAT THING ABOUT OLD ADRIAN STREET ANGLES IS THE BACKGROUND APPEARANCE OF ADRIAN STREET MUSIC! – all while Rip Rogers’ old lady is dusting Street’s furniture. “She was a mighty good girl for her age,” sings the song, and goddamn Adrian Street is fuckin’ great. Why couldn’t they bring him back to manage Palumbo and Billy Gunn in that gay marriage angle instead of stupid Rico? Rip Rogers is so pissed after seeing that footage, but still manages, like most wrestlers at that time in Alabama, to drop a “baby” within his promo. I’m gonna start applying that rule to my everyday life, because redneck hepcat lingo is dying fast at the hands of the anglo hip-hop pimped out Honda Civics sub-culture, baby.

BEER FIVE: You know, on the fly, I’ve decided to just switch out Alabama tapes at every two beer interval, and this one is one of those nice bonuses when you trade with people who are completely weird and not just about the wrestling. This particular tape I got is four hours of Southeastern Championship Wrestling, before it became Continental, from March 23, 1985, thru whatever four weeks later would be; then the last two hours of this videotape is selected bootleg concert footage of Lynyrd Skynyrd from the ‘70s. That’s quality tape trading right there. And the guy I traded this with, we never did any sort of organized trading whatsoever – we’d just send each other shit, to the point neither of us really knew who owed what or how, and we both always felt in debt to the other guy, which meant mad packages of weird shit, continuously, at the old post office box. 

Charlie Platt, the commentator, looks a shitload like my mechanic, who just failed my car for having a busted up airbag, even though he was the one who duct-taped it together last winter and told me he’d pass it. I got an airbag on ebay for $45 and replaced it, but the stupid airbag light is still on. Ron Fuller is in a tuxedo and is the second for Lord Humongous, who Fuller says can beat Austin Idol in an arm-wrestling contest, a baking contest, a horse race, whatever. Old school hockey mask equals instant nightmares, and I don’t mean Danny Davis and Ken Wayne. Hey! Speak of the devil – there are the Nightmares, still wearing the masks with the star rather than the facepaint stars, going up against two suckers. The Nightmares, at this point, are heels, but not super-evil heels, as they’re new to the area. They pull hair and do the ol’ switch-a-roony, but don’t throw fireballs or use chairs, in fact are pretty scientific in this TV match. Johnny Rich & Steve Armstrong, your tag champs to be loved on, are in the booth coaxing Charlie Platt along in the commentary, putting over how The Nightmares bend the rules and shit. Nightmares win with distracted referee top rope headbutts. Am I to assume top rope maneuvers are illegal? I don’t fuckin’ know. From that, they go into one quick highlight of a Rich & Armstrong match against the Nightmares, where they do the ol’ switch. The Midnight Express and Rock-n-Roll Express had some great matches, but damn, a Nightmares/RnRs feud seems almost perfect to me.

Bill Ash vs. Burrhead Jones is your next match, and Ash’s U.S. Junior title is not on the line. Wow, Bill Ash is not afraid to smash his forearm really hard against Burrhead’s head. Plus, with menacing kicks to the body and rather awkward axehandles to the noggin, this Ash is one mean motherfucker. Goddamn, Ash is ridiculously stiff, and hits a clothesline where he holds onto Jones around the throat until he fell and Ash got the pin. That was way more awesome than I expected it to be. I’ll drink to the unheralded rulingness of Mr. Bill Ash.

Lord Humongous is now in the ring, ready to dispatch of Steve Brinson. That hockey mask really shouldn’t be legal; it gives Humongous an unfair advantage. Humongous’ finisher is a cobra clutch style sleeperhold, with some Oriental name for it to make it sound crazy, and everyone hates him. Bob Armstrong is out to hype his match with Boomer H. Lynch, with Cadillacs and money and all sorts of grudge feud kitty-bumping nonsense, and Boomer Lynch is an Of Mice and Men simpleton, looking for blood. Porkchop Cash – the greatest name in the history of wrestling – is talking shit on Jimmy Golden on their impending I-Quit match, and every heel in Alabama is seconded by Ron Fuller. Golden looks like a big fuckin’ asshole in this tape, too, like the type of guy you’d really be glad to see his ass get kicked by Philo Beddoe. Austin Idol is hyping his hold vs. hold match with Humongous, and he talks of what his daddy told him, how he tried his best, and how he’s very concerned about this match with that “whatever it’s called” sleeperhold of Humongous. I love the humble face in awe of the monster heel showdown promo.

BEER SIX: A masked jobber named The Super Star is facing Porkchop Cash, who comes out to “Let’s Hear It For The Boy” with it’s synthesized urban beat, and Cash sells the funkiness of it well. He’s the first black man to ever hold the Southeastern Heavyweight title, says Charlie Platt, and then Austin Idol comes out to talk shit on Humongous, and I’m not getting the proper Porkchop Cash build-up I’d expect. Austin Idol, the blonde-haired babyface, coming out to steal the glory of Cash, the champion black man in full effect, all to talk shit about a tug-of-war challenge, and I’m sure those shitheads in Alabama would use that rope to lynch a guy like Cash if he suddenly turned heel. Porkchop Cash wins with guess what? A headbutt.

Your main event of this hour of Southeastern wrestling is Austin Idol going up against Mr. Russia, who wears a mask and carries a Russian flag and is, of course, accompanied by Ron Fuller. Idol quickly gets the figure four on Mr. Russia, then Humongous comes out, and gets caught in the figure four as well, and all hell breaks loose and everybody is fighting everybody and goddamn I wish I had a time machine to go back to the Montgomery Civic Center to see how all this turned out. 

BEER SEVEN: And with the beer refill, we switch tapes, finding ourselves in 1986, with Gordon Solie commenterating, giving things that mid-‘80s legitimacy of combat, and I am a big mark for wrestling show backgrounds that feature regional maps with super-imposed images of Greco-Roman grappling. Wildcat Wendell Cooley is out to start the show, in a black satin jacket, and mega-pissed at Exotic Adrian Street’s homoerotic ass. They go back by clip to a non-title match where Street is working a wristlock on Cooley, kicking him, controlling him and his wild Skynyrd fan nature, in fact, overpowering him, much to the secret sexually charged chagrin of every good ole boy in attendance. Cooley finally wildcats up and nails a nice kneedrop after a flurry of punches, and I miss the kneelift. A ref bump, and it looks as Miss Linda perfumes Cooley in the eyes, but it was slyly done enough that Solie could say, “Something happened to Cooley. It looks like something got in his eyes,” and then Street walks off with the belt he didn’t rightfully win, and Cooley ain’t about that shit, baby. Solie says, “I guarantee you, your belt will be returned to you before this program is over, or Mr. Street will be suspended.”

El Fuego is in the ring, your masked jobber, and the multi-dubbed level of this tape causes his red outfit to blaze with the aura of evil, and The Bullet comes out, with blazing green aura (which is the most positive color of aura, except maybe purple), and he is doing the Jed Clampett with his legs to George Thorogood’s “Bad to the Bone”, and I can’t imagine him having an enemy in that building. El Fuego is a nice, fat heel ala the Assassin, but he takes a potato by The Bullet to the head, stands there for a second, leans back into the corner, then drops into position for a Bronco Buster, which wouldn’t work because it's not 1998 and that move would partially kill the heat of Adrian Street’s gimmick, so The Bullet just kicks him. That goddamn El Fuego, true to his evil red aura, digs something out over in the corner, but as the ref starts to question him, he tucks it back into his mask and starts bludgering The Bullet with his brain. The Bullet goes for the mask, but before he can get it, out comes another masked guy, and nobody wants to show their face and they all have such nice color-coordination. With the second masked man in a sleeperhold, El Fuego comes back out and FIRE! BALL OF FIRE! And El Fuego follows up by digging at The Bullet’s eyes, and I am such a mark for fire, shit, I spend a good three or four hours a weekend standing around giant fires drinking beer. I just build piles of brush around the yard and randomly set one on fire every weekend, sitting around sucking down Old Milwaukees and roasting marshmallows with the young one. I’m also a housepainter, so I can respect the amazing carney-like dedication to selling the angle shown by old school fireball victim workers who used sandpaper to scuff up their faces right smart for television the next week. Wrestlers who do corkscrew monkeysault dragondriver ‘97s off of balconies are not nearly as crazy as a guy who’ll sit there in the locker room and rub some 80 grit all around his eyes.

BEER EIGHT: The Bullet is “scarred, but I’m not burned” in the ring, and calls for the steel cage match to settle their masked feud. El Fuego is with Solie, and agrees to the stipulation, saying, “If I missed with that first fireball, I won’t miss with the second, or third, or fourth or fifth, until your face is nothing but a scarred mess of goo.” And whoever originally made this tape was nice enough to delete the commercials and I get the immediate transition of Jerry Stubbs, who is a doctor of some sort, piledriving people on concrete and declaring war on all Armstrongs. Dr. Stubbs is wearing a shiny vest, Dale Earnhardt weed-eating sunglasses, and a fedora with animal print bandana tied around. Whoa, Stubbs is billed as “Mr. Perfect” at this point, which I think pre-dates Curt Hennig in WWF. Stubbs and Brad Armstrong are facing off, and this is gonna turn chaotic and make me want that time machine again, to go to the Alabama State Fairgrounds in Birmingham circa 1986. Early on, the spring-stepped Armstrong out-technicals Stubbs, causing the balding heel to stall in the corner and complain to the ref. Old school psychology of the young lion vs. the old bastard is for the evil guy to slowly realize, each and every time in the ring, that his legit wrestling ways aren’t good enough to beat the youngster, so he first resorts to simple cheat tactics, like Stubbs does here with a hair-pulling take down that is quickly countered. This will escalate, after much rope-grabbing for the break and ringside stalling by the heel, to show the fans how the bad guy is bad out of unsportsmanlike desperation, not due to pure evil; he’s a good boy gone wrong, not a monster like Humongous or Abby, thus six months down the road, Stubbs can be a good guy once Buddy Landel makes fun of his ways or Kevin Sullivan stabs him with a bone or something. This is a completely different time in wrestling, as a good couple of minutes is spent on the ref accusing an emphatically disagreeing Stubbs of using a closed fist on the young Armstrong. Jerry Stubbs is awesome, taking a flurry of punches, falling to one knee mid-stagger quickly, then getting up and immediately dropping with a tug of Armstrong at the waist to put him through the ropes to the concrete. I am no fool; I can see they are teasing ringside melees. Holy shit, Brad Armstrong has bladed a Terry Funk of a laceration, and Stubbs works the wound, laughing as Armstrong feigns being dazed and throws wild punches into nothing, again like the Funker. I don’t think I’ve seen the Funker hit a cross-bodyblock for a two-count in some decades though. Stubbs blasts with a series of headbutts, and after Armstrong falls, that bastard looks at the crowd and laughs as he wipes the other guy’s blood from his forehead. The match has somehow morphed from Armstrong being superior into Stubbs not quite being able to get a three-count on the kid, with the young, handsome, future of Alabama wrestling continually kicking out. Frankie “The Thumper” Lancaster comes ringside, in neck brace, leading me to believe he’s the guy who got piledrived by Stubbs in that earlier segment, and causes Stubbs to lose his Continental heavyweight title to a schoolboy by Brad Armstrong. The Thumper gets posted and blades himself, and Stubbs is a bald mad man without his belt.

The public service commercials during the break have people getting shot execution style and black men robbing white women in convenience stores for the Crimestoppers commercial, and poor kids running around broken cars and old people getting beaten by their relatives in an anti-poverty ad; I am glad I live in America 2003, where crime and poverty are long gone and will never come back, unless those shitty wrong-God terrorists have their brown-skinned way.

Never mind all that today talk though, as Mike Fever is about to do wrestle-battle with “White Lightning” Tim Horner, who took his name from the greatest Burt Reynolds movie ever, with a climactic car chase scene even better than Bullitt. Roy Lee Welch is talking shit on the commentary about Horner, saying he could beat that dude in ten minutes.

HEY! A drunk driving PSA where a dude in regular clothes gets put in jail, then that picture freeze frames, and he comes out in a suit in front of it to say how the Intercept Program turned his life around. Back roads where treatment centers have billboard advertisements are the type of places I feel comfortable. And perhaps I’m insane, but the beginning intro of the Ford commercial is NOTE FOR NOTE the start of the love song in the Ronnie Dobbs movie, and I am sure that David Cross, that goofy bastard, stole that bit and never expected anybody except three dumb dopeheads to ever catch the reference. 

Back to wrestling – Cooley is at the set ringside with Solie, and Adrian Street is in the ring, claiming the belt should be his. “The only reason I need Miss Linda is to look after my beautiful hair, my beautiful make-up, my beautiful me.” I can relate, that’s the only reason I got married, that and the pregnancy.

Gorgeous Jimmy Golden and Luscious Robert Fuller are challenging for the Southeastern tag belts, held by Wildfire Tommy Rich and Steve Armstong, accompanied by The Intern. If Fuller and Golden lose, they will split up their team. Tom Pritchard is the ringside accouterment of the heel teams, in hospital get-up, as he’s the Dr. of note at this point in Alabama wrestling history, and not Jerry Stubbs. Tommy Rich is a drunken delight, and I’m sure at this point in history he was drinking Bud Light since Genuine Draft was a few years away and the whole Spuds McKenzie craze had already been in full effect, and I drink beer in homage, thinking What Would Tommy Do? I bet he wouldn’t go to work tomorrow, and I bet he wouldn’t give a shit about those pink envelopes in the billholder in the kitchen, trying to trick you into paying extra special immediate attention to remit some damn payment, and I bet Tommy would not be afraid to ask that slightly chunky short-haired girl with the pierced tongue at the Somerset store, who’s attractive in a fucked-up homemade porn movie way, what time she gets off work and if she’d like to ride up to Old Rag Mountain for a little hike, which would work as a euphemism for unprotected sex somewhere off the beaten path, with the help of an 18-pack of Budweiser.

BEER NINE: Back to that first tape, and Smothers is cutting a face promo saying “Remember Grant, remember Lee, forget that stuff, remember Dixie D,” talking about Dixie Dynamite, a little dude in a confederate flag mask with a confederate flag cape, and “Hurricane Hugo ain’t gonna be nothin’ but a light drizzle compared to Dixie D,” and Johnny Rich, your mic-holder, adds in true country boy fashion, “Tear ‘em up, boys.” Jimmy Golden, Robert Fuller, and Brian Lee are talking smack in response, and all are tall as fuck, and football and wrestling combine, as Robert Fuller hypes up Tennessee college football and talks about how they’re gonna tear up Alabama, and Bear Bryant is God still in this place, and they’ve got some weird gimmick match involving footballs with keys to cages containing Downtown Bruno and Dixie Dynamite and scrums starting the match and what the fuck, Brian Lee is even wearing shoulder pads. “You oughtta know something about the football team, because if you knew anything about Auburn, you’d know they already done the job for them,” says Fuller, referring to Tennessee football, mixing carney and sports, and then this suddenly switches to an introduction of Cactus Jack Manson as the new member of the Stud Stable, coming out to “Helter Skelter”s psychedelia evilness by the Beatles, one of the most punk songs ever, and if Cactus Jack had remained this evil offshoot of the actual Manson Family proper and not turned into a goofy children’s book writer who takes himself seriously, then I might not think he’s the piece of shit he actually is. The Beyond the Mat thing where his kids are crying because he’s getting bludgeoned, I can’t imagine any sensible dude letting his kids see him do that. Manson does the ring apron elbowdrop onto the concrete, which by the standards of those days, was crazy like mixing lines of oxycontin and cheap wine. Manson gets the count-out victory, and he stares off into space as Robert Fuller talks about the football match again to Charlie Platt.

Steve Armstrong and Tracy Smothers are doing the face promo for the match, in actual Alabama jerseys and helmets with shoulder pads, and this is weird, overblown nonsense. A football with keys taped to it match? And Dixie Dynamite is adding even more stipulations, putting a woman in the cage instead of Bruno, and then Bruno matches up against Dynamite earlier in the evening, and whoever wins that match gets to decide what Sylvia wears or Dynamite unmasks, and this will obviously lead to blonde women in lingerie and masked rebel flag dudes beating up tiny men and football helmets and fishnet pantyhose and Tennessee hatred and Bear Bryant worship and plenty of concessions sold to a crowd hyped the fuck up for a most confusing blend of sex and violence and I await Jerry Clower to be announced as special referee.

Back to the heels, and Fuller is trying to get Bruno’s little ass fired up in the spirit of Tennessee football, and Bruno is saying he’s gonna win, and Fuller says double D has “real ugly problems because you got to wear that mask,” and I’m incredibly confused and entertained at the same time. Blonde mullet Brian Lee is cranked up and mocking Bear Bryant’s corpse, and it’s hard to believe this is the same guy who’s been an evil biker type most of his later career.

Finally, the tag break-up match, with The Beast and Terry Garvin vs. Adrian Street and Todd Morton, and Morton still wrestles in awesome places like Knoxville, Tennessee, and Salem, Indiana, and Adrian Street is a wrestling seamster, and Terry Garvin is dead by a sexually frustrated suicide and The Beast aka Mark Guline is wherever he is, probably operating a bar in Huntsville that refuses to have Ja Rule on the jukebox no matter how much all them younger boys, with their baggy-ass pants, ask for it. I’ve never seen much Terry Garvin in action, and he’s the perfect bad guy tag team type to be part of a generic Midnight Express of the local variety to have long-running feuds with The Fantastics in deeper parts of the South to cash in on the Southern tag wars of that time period. The Beast thinks he’s pinned Todd Morton, but no, Morton is taking the beating to deliver the hot motherfuckin’ tag to Street, complete with diving roll after Terry Garvin is brought in, but dastardliness is the order of the night, and Garvin and the Beast double team Street, with Morton getting held back by the ref, and Beast comes off the top with his big phallic bone of destruction, to hit Street as Garvin holds him from behind, but, get this, Street slips free and Garvin takes the metaphoric dildo to the cranium, gets pinned, and their team is broken the fuck up. Garvin is fuming ringside, talking about flying to get there that night and being out of town, and with his high-pitched voice and hair permed quite properly to the side, how could you not know. “What I’m gonna propose to you, Adrian Street, is you and me…” and that’s enough for me, I don’t need to start renting firefighter movies again at the artsy video store, thank you very much.

BEER TEN: Back to 1987, and this is for the Continental tag team championships, and good guitar-driven “Dirty White Boy” comes over the PA, which hardly gets play on the classic rock format anymore, and it’s Tony Anthony and Len Denton, as the Dirty White Boys, against The Nightmares, unmasked but with star face paint and blonde mullets, who come out to “We’re Not Gonna Take It” by Twisted Sister. Wrestling is so motherfuckin’ beautiful. You may not agree with my tastes or my words, but goddamn, how can you deny wrestling is motherfuckin’ beautiful. Old perverts like Jerry Lawler get blowjobs from 14-year-olds, and crazed unemployable moral degenerates like Vader can make money in between stare downs with police hounds, and men try to out-pretend each other in fake fights by taking legitimate “stiff” blows and cutting their own foreheads open with slivers of razor blades, all in the name of professional wrestling, to make it believeable to the lovable losers who dig it. Tony Anthony looks like this trucker dude Paul who used to date and made two human beings with my aunt, but she’s a stupid slut, she just got busted for driving on a suspended license with expired tags, all while being on probation for embezzlement from Roses, and at least Paul held a steady job and didn’t fuck up with the law, regardless of how much he loves the smell of meth and hates black people. My wife hates Paul because she’s only met him like twice and he’s dropped that old n-word around her, but I’ve known Paul for a while, can trust him, and used to show up with black dudes whem coming by his house to buy weed before, and to me, that’s the best way to confront racism, is to show up with a guy who will fuck up some dude’s entire preconceptions about the world, rather than just get all preachy at him, white guy to white guy, sitting in the living room where none of us are confronted with a motherfuckin’ thing. Anyways, yeah…The Nightmares, they are a team of cloned Bobby Eatons in Paul Stanley face paint. Double atomic knee drop onto the Dirty White Boys, who bounce off each other mid-ring. 

We go to promo hype for the Wednesday night show at the Platteville National Guard building, and I’m confused by my tape-switching as Adrian Street and Wendell Cooley are together, talking shit, against Rip Rogers, the Hustler, and Karl Von Colt, who is German in name only and talks and looks like the type of guy who fought seven Gypsy Jokers with a three foot link of chain outside of Roxboro, North Carolina, at some point in his life.

Back to the match, and Len Denton is manhandling shit, and Tony Anthony looks insane, and even more remarkably like that guy Paul the trucker than I could think possible. Anthony is the ultra-heel, threatening the ref, and Denton is the willing accomplice, following his lead, and while Denton, in grey trunks of semi-evil, distracts the ref, Anthony in pure black evil trunks, throws one of the Nightmares over the top. Now Jerry Stubbs shows up in satin jacket, ready to take his place alongside Anthony in this match, and methinks a face turn is imminent. The Nightmares turn the tides, and Anthony hits Denton with the belt by accident and the Bobby Eaton clones win the belts, I think, but then Stubbs is hitting people with briefcases, and a good cut bleeding profusely over top of a blue star painted on your face is a super-dope visual to remember as the Halloween season approaches.

BEER ELEVEN: Back to Austin Idol on that other tape, ready to fight Lord Humongous’ slasher movie ass, and Charlie Platt, why the fuck did you fail my car? Idol is back out, after the backstage smelling salts, to overhype the tug-of-war challenge.

We segue into the next episode, and Mr. Announcer man says, “Welcome to Southeastern Championship Wrestling, innovators in television wrestling, with split screen, instant replay, and other technical perks; the program voted number one by the wrestling writers federation; join us now for fast-paced competition of professional wrestling, featuring the top stars from the World’s largest governing body – the National Wrestling Alliance.” That’s quality intro writing, right there.

After Idol vs. Humongous recapping, we get The Nightmares, in swank blue and red gear, vs. Dave Foxx & Burrhead Jones. Burrhead keeps his team in this with double tough punches, and these blue and red Nightmare masks are the best masks I’ve seen yet in this entire Alabama overload. Backbreaker by one Nightmare, with a sort-of early variation on the senton from the top rope by the other Nightmare, and one-two-three, pound a beer, switch the tape back to Wendell Cooley’s stolen belt, after a moment of admiring those old school Southeastern title belts with the crown motif.

Wait, holy shit, we’ve got a video montage of Johnny Rich and Steve Armstrong are riding around in a four-wheel drive Blazer, hunting and fishing all while “Dixie On My Mind” by Hank Jr. is playing. That’s off Rowdy, which on the cover has Bocephus getting drunk with two fine outlaw women at a booth in some joint, and as a kid, that shit was so fuckin’ erotic to my budding mind. Well, the stack of OUIs my dad had under his bed helped, too. Armstrong plays the banjo, and then shoots a rifle in somebody’s backyard, and this makes him a babyface and that makes me happy. He even checks the action on the second rifle he shoots, and I expect him and Rich to slide across the hood of a hot rod Dodge while running from the cops. Steve Armstrong gives props to the dog in the clip – his boxer Sputnik, named after Sputnik Monroe. Yep, the professional wrestling is a beautiful motherfuckin’ thing.

BEER TWELVE: Miss Linda brings back Cooley’s belt, wrapped up all pretty like. And the belt is painted pink, and that my friends, is the greatest stolen belt angle of all-time. You can have high dollar video segments of belts getting thrown off of bridges, and people getting mad, but seeing a dude in a satin steakhouse jacket open up his own title belt and it’s painted pink by some fairy limey bastard, that’s what the fuck I’m talking about.

We’ve got a tag match, and some wild-haired dude named Hank Brown is locking up with Tommy Rich on an apron pocked with stars, and according to the Channel 6 of Alabama’s past, it’s 82 degrees outside, and with Steve Armstrong wrestling in a muscle shirt and remembering his dog is named after Sputnik Monroe, who the fuck am I to argue. I would like to go outside and drink beer until the sun comes up, sporadically getting paranoid of Bat Monsters in the woods when my dog, named after Waylon Jennings, dashes off barking for no reason from time to time, but I have a wife and kid and another kid on the way and that means I’m a pussy for the sell-out lifestyle, and am more likely to go to bed late and work slow all day long with a headache, but still work, instead of blowing it all off to put on a nice red and black mask, hide out by the railroad tracks behind my boss’ house all afternoon, drinking his beer since he doesn’t lock the door, though he drinks shitty Michelob Light like any upwardly mobile working class stiff from a college-educated family would drink, and throw a fireball in his face when he comes home in his new Forerunner. Then I could drive my shitty Tercel, rejected by the State of Virginia’s safety standards, home with pride, like Tommy Rich would; but no, I’m just a pussy who watches wrestling tapes.

Daisuke Ikeda vs Tommy Drake:
Diasuke Ikeda is fucking balls out. Tommy Drake looks like he would get eliminated by Japanese Poolboy in the ECWA Super 8 Summit. Drake WILL stand there and take Diasuke Ikeda kicking him right in the motherfucking throat. He also doesn't get completely smoked when Ikeda makes him trade forearms to the face. Drake gets in an Eddy Jackie-esque offensive flurry before Ikeda kills him with the nasty Ikeda lariat. I can't hate Tommy Drake. He'll stand right there and take his assbeating.

Scorpio/ Doug Williams vs Akitoshi Saito/ Masashi Aoyagi: 
Doug Williams in Japan is like Mike Modest in Japan- I can't pay attention to him because he gets so smoked by everybody else around him. Here, he doesn't work stiff enough with the completely average Aoyagi until way too late in the first segment of this match. Scorpio is now- for all intents and purposes- Black Vader, and he and Saito in the ring excites me. I find it exciting. And pleasing. They punch each other in the face for a while and then Scorpio starts a-bumpin and we have a bonafide NOAH match on our hands. Williams knows the score by the time he gets in with Saito and makes with the sweeet European uppercuts. Aoyagi comes in and one is thinking that he may be the weak link. Quite possibly the weak link. By all accounts, the weak link. Williams procures the abdominal stretch and keeps trying to do something with the weakest link. Scorpio comes in and they take turns doing weird matwork on his arm. Saito comes in and Williams starts FEELING IT. He hits the FUCKING BEAUTIFUL Cravate With Added Kicks Directly To The Face. Scorpio tags in and hits like the Hayabusa 97 Finishing Sequence with four highflying finishers- moonsault, rolling guillotine. Saito kicks out and they opt for Saito to stomp his way to transition and Saito just fucking MAULS Scorpio for a minute. Aoyagi tags in and starts feeling it himself with the lowgrade Bukoh Dojo offense and Low-Ki Kick To The Chest Sequence. Williams tags in and they elbow Aoyagi in combination alot and Scorpio hits a big splash for two. Scorpio hits the Old Fat Guy Moonsault for the pin on Aoyagi and that was kinda fun. 

Jun Akiyama/ Yoshinobu Kanemaru/ Makoto Hashi vs Yoshinari Ogawa/ KENTA/ Kotaro Suzuki: 
Awwww Kotaro Suzuki sucks. The other five rule the fucking world so here we go. KENTA is your daddy and looks like he should have played keyboard in the Mops in 1969. Kanemaru and KENTA start off and you LOVE it. They kick each other in the face and provide the HATE- so you actually give a shit about the wrestling. Kanemaru is soooo the Best Possible Honaga Ever, doing his King Rudo selling as KENTA and Ogawa pulverize his shoulder. Hashi gets the advantage of being in with Ogawa as he apes Steve Corino in his old school selling and bumping. Kentaro tags in and his weak shit is smoked by Hashi. By Hashi. Yes, smoked. By Hashi. Jun Akiyama tags in and I hate him for not beating the living dogshit out of Suzuki and you hate Akiyama because you also wanted him to beat the living dogshit out of Suzuki. Instead, Kentaro drives him into the corner and Akiyama doesn't sell any of KENTA's kicks- which sez 2 ME "Fuck this bullshit." KENTA finally knocks Akiyama to the ground and Akiyama counters with an Exploider and then tags in Hashi. Hashi doesn't smoke KENTA. No. KENTA is not smoked by Hashi. Not by Hashi. Ogawa throws really nice Eaton-esque punches and I'm digging him more and more that I see him. Hashi plus Ogawa is gold- as Hashi makes the headbutt and Mongolian Chops SING! Akiyama comes in with Ogawa and the match finally goes full speed. Kentaro Suzuki goes on offense with Akiyama and FINALLY Jun Akiyama beats the shit out of him by punching him in the stomach twice. SCHOOLYARD AS A MOTHERFUCKER! Kanemaru stomps the shit out of Suzuki and they all tak turns beating his taped up ribs into a delicious cream sauce. Hashi's headbutts SING as they splat against the small of Suzuki's back. Ogawa and Akiyama hit the ring again and Akiyama makes Ogawa's DDT look like two Peterbilts smashing into each other. Ogawa and Kanemaru then do the last five minutes of every Eddy Guerrerro vs Dean Malenko match from 1995 to 1997. KENTA tags in and applies his stiff, nasty fucked-up offense to the face and neck of Kanemaru and goes for the TOPROPE FINISHAH! Kanemaru blocks it and Akiyama KILLS KENTA and then the other two kill KENTA. KENTA fights out by hitting that cool ass Dropkick Shining Wizard thing he does. Suzuki comes in and hits a T2P submission which was as out of place as a Stephanie McMahon run-in in this match. As a result they beat the living holy dogshit out of Suzuki and pin him and we got to watch. I would have like this more if Akiyama would have sold for KENTA and if Kentaro Suzuki didn't suck so much cock. Still good though.

Tamon Honda/ Akira Taue vs Kenta Kobashi/ Masao Inoue:
HEY! A Japanese Paras Terriblas (or whatever it's called when the switch tag partners for a match). Tamon Honda is Japanboy Jesus and he proves it five seconds in when Kobashi wants to do the Road Warrior Hawk versus Kenta Kobashi in 1993 no-selling of chops and clotheslines spot- as Tamon Honda SELLS every chop by Kobashi. And then he takes him straight into the STF. Honda Clutch on the toprope makes me scream E-C-W! E-C-W! at the TV screen and then they bring in Taue- so I'm already stoked. Inoue looks pretty good in this for a minute, being smacked around by Taue and trading forearms with Honda. They trade forearms for a while until Honda can procure the Tarantula-like toprope HONDA CLUTCH! And then he does the elevated vertical suplay and we all wish that this match happed in 1988 so that it could get sold to a 3rd rate video concern in Florida in 1991 and we could have heard Gordon Solie call this match. Kenta and Taue have a fun section as they in. Kobashi with the Stretch Plum and Honda with the Rufus R Freighttrain Jones Headbutt save. Taue smacks Inoue right in the face in the corner and Hotshots him and this is Alabama 1987 and I love it. Honda is sooo Tajiri Inspired with the over the toprope choke out over the toprope on the ramp and then HE TAKES IT TO THE RING AND CLUTCHES THE MOTHERFUCKER LIKE TAMON HONDA WILL CLUTCH THESE DAYS! Taue and Honda are in complete heel mode as Honda distracts the ref and Kobashi as Taue throws Inoue into the rails. Honda tags in and hits the fucking Horsemen As A Motherfucker Facebuster off the apron and does a choke out to get the crowd to get behind Kobashi's save. Taue with the BEAUTIFUL Released Inverted German. Inoue gets off a running German to make the hot tag and Kobashi beats the hell out of Taue for a minute. Taue fights out of the Tequila Sunrise Suplex and hits TAUE NODAWA NUMBER 1~! Honda tags in and he and Kobashi are MAGIC this year. Honda with the fucking BEAUTIFUL Honda Clutch into a ROLLING Honda Clutch- just like motherfucking Preston Quinn's Rolling Cobra Clutch. Kobashi makes the ropes and fights out of a suplex to hit a GNARLY Tequila Sunrise Suplex that Honda sells like a Geo Metro driver being T-boned by an Expedition. Inoue procures the comical Argentinian Backbreaker that Honda beautifully Yamazakis into a head lock. Honda then KILLS Inoue with the German Superplex. That's a good batch of the pro wrestling to show up on the TV screen. 

Yuji Nagata/ Takuma Sano vs Mitsuharu Misawa/ Tsuyoshi Kikuchi: 
I love or have loved all of these guys at one time or another (like my relationship with the band Poison! HAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHA!). What I'm looking for in this match is Kikuchi and Nagata beating the living dogcrap out of each other but I get the feeling that that isn't going to happen- as old and broken and no longer great Misawa is right there to hog the Nagata time and swerve the selling. But, fuck me, who could be sure? The actual match starts promising enough- Nagata and Misawa wrestle a Dennis Condrey vs Randy Rose singles match from 1985 and you love it. And then Nagata does a spinning heel kick into the corner and Misawa LEANS DIRECTLY THE FUCK INTO IT. Then Nagata starts kicking him more and my fears are allayed. Misawa brings the motherfucking STIFF with the teeth powderizing forearms and I love this so far. They trade Capture Suplexes and Misawa flees the ring and the PSYCHE is set. Nagata hits the Skinny guy tope and Sano is in with Nouvelle Kevin Sullivan toprope Double Stomp. OH FUCK ME RUNNING, KIKUCHI AND SANO IS THE GREATEST 2 MINUTES OF WRESTLING IN THE NEW MILLENIUM. I'm bleeding hardway just watching. Then Sano tags in what I want to see- Nagata vs Kikuchi- AND IT IS FUCING GREAT. I've seen buildings collapsing that are less stiff than this. Misawa tags in and elbows Nagata in the chinlock right across the nose- just like motherfucking Dick Murdock. Then he tags Kikuchi back in and he and Nagata BRING THE MOTHERFUCKING HATE and it reminds me of why I motherfucking love Professional Wrestling. Sano tags in after Nagata and Kikuchi beat the living dogshit out of each other and goes straight into a Mexican Ceiling Hold and that's fine. Kikuchi elbows out of Indian Deathlock and procures a ankle lock and they are doing a great job of cooling things down for the next bout sheer hellish ass-stomping. Nagata tags in and he is a COMPLETE cock to Misawa and Kikuchi and the NOAH fans and I LOVE THIS MATCH. Fuck, Misawa and Sano finally square off and THEY beat the shit out of each other. Nagata looks great in the destruction of Misawa- BURYING the knee to his face in the corner, killing him with the toprope Capture Suplex. Kikuchi tags and hits the Spider Suplex that is questionably sold. Kikuchi leans into some fucking NASTY kicks to the face and takes an Exploider directly on his neck TWICE before tapping to the Nagata Lock that useta be called the Rings of Saturn. GREAT fucking match. 

Takeshi Morishima/ Takeshi Rikio/ Naomichi Marufuji vs. Yoshihiro Takayama/ Bison Smith/ Takashi Sugiura:
Takayama + Takeshi Morishima + Takeshi Rikio = Dean's Blazing Puroresu Hard-On. Yes, you should rejoice. The other three are the pinnacle of my personal wrestling indifference. Actually, Sugiura and Morishima's opening section is pretty fun in a Juniors Match When You Want To See A Takeshi Beat The Shit Out Of Takayama kind of way. Morishima's section with the.... problematic ... Bison Smith was less rewarding. Luckily, Rikio tags in and reels Bison in and they go straight to the knucklelock. Bison powers Rikio into the corner and he and Takayama opt to beat the shit out of Rikio. Takayama taunts me with the chinlock but Rikio gets back to the vertical base and tags in Morishima and JESUS FUCKING GOD IS IT MOTHERUFKCIN GREAT. Morishima and Takayama beat the living goatpee out of each other and then they tag in Rikio. Rikio squaring off with Bison is soooooo not as motherfucking great as Morishima and Takayama beating the hell out of each other at this juncture in the time continuum of professional wrestling. Sugiura wrestling Rikio is an even lower return. Marufuji and Sugiura wrestle a while and it's Tumblingtastic and everything. Morishima tags in and Morishima is the best wrestler in the world today. God, he makes look all so ultrafine. Rikio beats the hell out of Sugiura for a while and you and I both await Morishima and Takayama to square off again. En Lieu, Mafifuji and Sugiura keep wrestling. Sugiura bumps big and Marufuji is gotten pretty good past his highspot and blah blah blah blah. Bison tags in yeah yeah yeah yeah. Marifuji sells big for Bison and that's good. Marifuji stays in the ring and Sugiura tags in zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. FINALLY, Takayama tags in and hits the Dusty Rhodes level elbow drop and maybe Bison shouldn't throw an elbow drop directly after it- as his would be to Takayama's what Brian Lee's elbow drop is to Abdullah the Butcher's. They triple team Marifuji for a while and YES! Morishima tags in and he and Takayama have the wrestling section IIIIII wanted to see. Morishima throws his Gordy lariat into the corner and... fuck... they tag out. Bison threatens the Claw and I weep for Rikio having to sell it at some point. Bison is soo Brian Dyett 2004. Marufuji is nifty in the roll-ups and Sugiura is the toughest junior ever and I await the hot tags. The hot tag never comes and the Shooey-Newie by Marifuji denies me more Takayama vs Morishima. I am distraught but I blame the attitude I brought. Okay, mom. Perfectly fine wrestling.

Get this tape.

KONDO&CO vs. Manabu Kataue:
This was your traditional Puro rookie match. A pair of guys in black trunks throwing dropkicks and putting on boston crabs. I have seen some better, some worse, nothing to see here keep it moving.

Naoki Tanisaki/ Manabu Murakami/ Koichiro Arai vs. The Japanese Salsa Band: 
This was actually pretty fun, I haven¹t had a chance to get sick of these guys yet, and some of this guys seem to have fun spots. Kochiro Arai is our first mini sighting, and I am amused that in a country of such short folks that Ultimo has found a bunch of short guys markedly shorter then the shorts guys which are already in his promotion. I mean how tall is regular Arai? 5'6? What is midget Arai? 4'11? Murakami was the best of the face team as he was working a Thai kickboxer gimmick as wasn't afraid to bring the fun shootstyle offense and the kneeing into the face. Salsa band seemed to be a fine mediocre rudo trio. They could probably have a fine match with the Megas in IWRG or something. The Salsa band busts out a guitar shot for the win, continuing Ultimo's Gerwitzishous booking.

Murcielago/ Lambo Miura/ Berlinetta Boxer (Super Car Trio) vs. Skayde/Brazo de Plata Jr./ Brazo de Oro Jr.: 
I dig me some Jr. Brazos, plus I always enjoy glimpses of Skayde, I have also liked Belinetta Boxer when I saw him before, so I was excited about this match. Unfortunately it sucked balls. Super Car Trio didn't look ready for OVW TV, and as much as the rudo team tried to save their bacon this fell apart hard. These Tory X guys must be crazy short because the Jr. Brazos were towering over them, and those guys are Mexicans for crimineys sake. Skayde looked cool, especially his gangster whitewalls Magistral variation. Brazos tried some stuff too, but trying isn¹t doing. 

TARU/ Mini Crazy Max (SUWAcito/ Small Dandy Fuji/ Mini CIMA w/TARUcito) vs. Henry III Sugawara/ Kei Sato/ Jun Ogawauchi: 
This was totally freaking confusing, first TARU was working in this match, not mini-TARU, although we thought he was mini-TARU and Tom and I spent alot of time wondering why some Japanese midget would get all those tattoos just to look like an indy undcard dude. Then there were a pair of twins in jumpsuits, and we couldn¹t tell they were twins until the middle of the match. Plus I wasn¹t sure Henry III Sugawara was Henry III Sugarwara or Henry III Sugawaracito. Then we had a freaking middle match heel turn, that's right a heel turn on a debut show, GERWITZTASTIC!! Outside of all that mishigoss the match had its moments. SUWAcito is worthy of the name and had some really nice spots with a jumpsuited twin. I dug Mini CIMA more then I have dug Maxi CIMA lately. If they had toned down the Total Nonstop Action a bit I would have dug this match some.

Taiji Ishimori vs. Super Crazy:
 Ishimori is the pushed Tory X guy and I ain't buying. This match was bad for lots of reasons. First Super Crazy was working the match for the GAORA cameras not the crowd, they were chanting for him the whole match, and he still worked hackneyed rudo, including a freaking fish hook. The crowd wasn't buying Ishimori; they should have switched up the match some. Plus Ishimori sucks- he flips around like Ric Blade or something, and blows a nice batch of spots. Super Crazy ain't Fuerza and he can't save this particular useless flashy technico. The elbow drop which finishes this thing would make Ruckus snort milk.

Crazy Max (CIMA/ SUWA/ Don Fujii) vs. Los Temerarios (Shu El Guerrero/ Guerrero del Futuro/ Black Terry):
Now this is what I am talking about. Temerarios are a trio of old school rudo kingpins who get turned face against the evil Crazy Max. Shu starts out and breaks out some super slow and deliberate funky mat stuff. Then Black Terry and SUWA tag in and start beating each others asses. CIMA spends the whole match doing really amusing comedy bumps, meanwhile Terry and SUWA are pounding on each other. Crowd is super hot for the oldsters, and CRAZY MAX works with that fact well. Black Terry- who is 52- finishes the 619 forever by busting out a nice one (Buelah killed the top rope rana, Mo killed the moonsault, Black Terry kills 619). And then isn't afraid to take CIMA's Air Raid Crash right on his brittle old neck. This match was worth the tape right here.

Ultimo Dragon/ Brazo de Plata/ Shocker vs. Pierroth Jr./ Violencia/ Nitro: 
This is a weird choice for a main event of a show aimed at Japanese TV. Do the Japanese hate Puerto Ricans too? They couldn't have chosen the match for the wrestling, cause this sucked it. This was mail-in city, with nobody doing dick. Pierroth Jr. always sucked, now he can¹t even take a bump. Shocker said, "fuck it", and just threw Yakuza kicks, and Ultimo hardly even tagged in.
 

1st Australian Wrestling Supershow (12/21/02)
(by RAVEN MACK)
I remember being a shitty little kid in shitty little Farmville, Virginia, and I’d spend all my shitty little allowance on wrestling magazines at the Drug Fair. Of course, the Apter mags ruled the roost, but those Ringside/Wrestling Revue ones were good for the gore, and then you had the oddball third party numbers that would show up. I got this one a few times, I can’t even remember the name of it, but it was this old dude (I’m assuming from his old style sports journalism slant) and he did reports of EVERY TERRITORY ON EARTH! It blew my little mark-ass mind. All I knew for sure from my TV box was Mid Atlantic, but reading stuff about Spike Huber beating Tully Blanchard, eight falls to seven, in a Texas Death match in Missouri, that was exciting. All those territories, with all those TV shows, and all those wrestlers – it was mind-boggling.

The international report was full of kooks as well. Who knew there was a wrestling scene in New Zealand, much less one that wasn’t ruled by Jonathon Boyd? Or Malaysia? Or Germany? Even today, we’re pretty set into the basic triumvirate of the Wrestling – Japan, America, and Mexico. The other places pop up now and then in the Observer results or people go, “Wow, British wrestling must rule because Jody Fleisch is stupid insane”…
Wait, wait, wait. I’m trying too hard. Jumping into this Death Valley Driver Video Review nonsense is slightly intimidating, because I’ve been reading these things for a few years now. I’m not the greatest analyst on earth, because I don’t live by analysis. To me, life should be magic, and wrestling is life. I don’t care about things I probably should care about to be considered a smart mark. I hate Paul London matches, love Sabu, and would rather drink beer by myself in my car in the parking lot of an indy wrestling show than stand around and trade tapes with people who I’m just as nerdy as, yet still look down upon. I got off work today, and Bobbi’s Country Store in Rosena, Virginia, had no cold Old Milwaukee six-packs, so I got Natural Lights in the bottles. The only other choice I cared to pay for was Busch, and I’ll never drink another Busch again as long as I live, because they used “Simple Man” in a commercial. To me, that's as blasphemous as using Jesus to sell Pepsi for a Christian, or using Ric Flair to put over Vince Russo for a wrestling fan. My man down under, Dangerous Dan Lennard, sent me this tape of an Australian super-show, and it featured the punk rock dude who was on a WWA pay-per-view I was stupid enough to purchase one time, and that’s all I knew from the line-up. Dangerous Dan also sent me some Australian porn, which I in turn passed along to others, as my wife has found my secret cache of porn materials multiple times, and I fear the worst should her feminist Ani DiFranco ass stumble across any Weapons of Mass Stimulation again.

Anyways, the wrestling review…

This was actually a show combining a few different promotions where different groups got together to try and make Australians care about domestic wrestling. 1300 people barely filled ringside in a cavernous arena. Michael Shiavello is a fat, balding announcer, and everybody has accents like Chopper. Schiavello is Danny Devito in appearance, and his partner is Psycho Tyrone Townsend, wearing a dog collar chain, bad leather jacket, wifebeater, and smoking a cigarillo. He looks like Sid Vicious’ (the heroin addict, not the fibula snapper) older brother who, in grief, completely co-opts his brother’s style after his death. 

CHRISTMAS CARNAGE 20 MAN OVER THE TOP BATTLE ROYAL
A parade of indy characters- featuring bad shirts, feathered boas, ICP facepaint, hockey masks, goatees, and more pleather than you could shake a large order of kangaroo gizzards at- comes out, overwhelming me. I mean, I’m really overwhelmed. An Aboriginal looking dude breaths fire, some big dude with orange facepaint smacks his belly like Kamala, and some skinny dude in black jeans shows off his shitty jailhouse tattoos. I imagine there’s lots of jailhouse tats in a continent of penal colony descendents. The two big guys in bad facepaint and orange jumpsuits are a tag team called Dark Carniez, and I am putting my rooting power behind them. Some guy named The Big Chief makes a late entry and does the toss-seven-guys-in-a-row bit, to thin down the herd. Hockey mask guy is wearing a bloody apron as well, morphing all horror classics into one bad gimmick. The goofy guy with bad tattoos has just posed during this whole terrible battle royal- even when people hit him, he completely no sells, then smacks himself. And he’s like 180 lbs. Hockey mask guy is eliminated and I learn his name is Crimson Mask. Judging from the indy characters displayed in this smorgasbord of nonsense, I’d guess that heavy metal is still very strong in Australia, and hip hop has yet to really take root. A big gothic looking dude called The Cremator does a giant chokeslam. There’s four guys left – one of the Dark Carniez, a longhaired dude, some ICP looking kid, and Mikey Whipwreck’s down under doppelganger. Carney exposes his belly from underneath his jumpsuit, and does a corner bellysmash. The longhaired kid, Stefan Cool, wins, and he wears shiny leather shorts and has a personal stylist named Julius, and they celebrate in homoerotic cheap heel heat ways.

ROB MATRIX vs. BILLY COLE with Madison
Two out of three falls this is, and Australian basketball league scores run across the bottom of the screen. The Adelaide 36ers and Canberra Cannons are all knotted up at halftime, and I wish I could change the channel for a few minutes. If you used a morphing program to combine the looks of Devon Storm and Julio Dinero, it would create Billy Cole seven times out of ten. Cole follows Matrix into the corner for one of those deals where the first guy would kick out straight to go over the incoming ducking guy to do some crazy suplex or something, except Matrix only kicked up like a foot and didn’t really extend his legs, and Cole runs headfirst into Matrix’s ass before they force themselves to finish what they were supposed to just do. “Billy Cole was rated the #1 wrestler out of 200 in Australia this year,” says punk announcer guy, and I hope there’s a Sheepherder cage match on this fuckin’ tape somewhere. Maybe Tarras Bulba will show up. Actually, thus far, this tape is exactly what I’d expect if Memphis wrestling that runs today were still being held in the Mid South Coliseum, or more likely The Pyramid, and it’d be shitty indy wrestling with seven rows of people barely paying attention in a giant empty arena. Cole wins the first fall with something or other while I wasn’t really caring. Cole’s manager/valet does the dropkick off the top rope while Cole holds his opponent, and- in accord with all of wrestling history- it backfires. Madison has a nice pooch belly and a nice, wide ass that would be well complemented by a lower back tattoo, preferably something tribal in an oval shape. Matrix wins second fall with a schoolboy, and Madison is banished from ringside, giving me a chance to go get another cold beer. Damn, they’re still wrestling when I get back. Cole hits a moonsault, and the announcers hype it the hell up. My eight-year-old cousin hits a decent moonsault off the sectional sofa at my aunt’s house nowadays. Matrix wins with a sharpshooter.

SCARECROW/DEMENTOR vs. JAG/HAVOK vs. SPIKE/MAD DOG
Scarecrow and Dementor are from The Carnival of Carnies, and looking at them and the previous guys tonight, I’d like to amend my hip hop not taking root statement to not include Insane Clown Posse. They are, I’m figuring, way hotter than 50 Cent in Australia. Scarecrow even has an ahnk tattoo on his neck, which makes him the classic-style year 2001 indy wrestler. Contrary to what the names conjure, Jag and Havok are two non-descript dudes in boring singlets, and Spike and Mad Dog are two bald skinhead dudes in blue jeans but with wrestling knee pads over top. Spike has a tribal wings tattoo covering his whole back, plus a little Superman logo on his arm, which means he can be in my money mark tournament. When I get rich, rather than slowly waste my money on wrestling promotion, I’m gonna pay eight guys, preferably a few semi-famous ones, all with Superman logo tattoos, to enter an early UFC style tournament, no holds barred, single elimination, where you run brackets both ways, losers and winners, so not only do you have a champion at the end of the night, but you have two guys who have not won facing off, where the loser has his Superman logo tattoo removed by laser surgery post-match. Think of the match-ups possible – Shaq vs. Mad Man Pondo, the Goofball Weightlifting Guy at the gym vs. Mad Man Pondo – it’d be great. Jag gets crotched by the bald dudes, and the commentator says, “OH! He found the ol’ John Smalls of Jag in the corner.” Dementor is horrendous in every aspect of the professional wrestling. They set up a lucha move on everybody to the outside, and Scarecrow does a shitty cross bodyblock, then Spike ups it by doing a springboard corkscrew plancha thing which isn’t bad, and then Jag does a super-sized moonsault to the outside in Chris Daniels mode, with the body arch and arms out and everything. Jag hits a Death Valley Driver to set up a frogsplash elbow thing, then his partner Havok does the unwanted tag in, and proceeds to toss his own partner out the ring, which was great, because the three guys not in the ring were sort of laying in a pile, not ready to catch anything at all, and Havok just tosses Jag out the ring on top of them. Havok pins the bald dude, to steal all thunder.

HAVOK vs. JAG
This is a super-show, so screw running angles, let’s have an impromptu match. “Havok has the flashier outfit; he deserves the pinfall.” This punk color commentator guy is starting to grow on me. “And now Jag is in a whole world of bother.” Again, he slays me with slight twists of language. Perhaps all this is normal nonsense down under, but foreign is amusing to me. Jag wins while I read Fortean Times.

ANGUS MCCLOUD vs. DEAN DRAVEN
McCloud is the Australian Raven, from the IWA, in black skirt, pentagram tattoo, goatee, and he takes a beer from ringside drunkards and guzzles it in a way to soak his facial hair with alcohol, Heineken even. Draven emulates Chris Benoit, and is from the UWA. The announcers have hyped up this INTER-PROMOTIONAL FEUD seven times already. My rooting weight is behind McCloud because he looks like he knows where the loose women are and where I could find some hallucinogens, while Draven looks like he has a bunch of wrestling tapes. “Draven’s a weird-looking guy, isn’t he?” Punk color commentator strikes again. I watched like 34 seconds of Raw last night, and heard Jonathon Coachman doing commentating, and I can tell you Vince McMahon would not be stupid to set that guy on fire and hire the punk rock dude from Australia. Score updates along the bottom of the screen, and the Adelaide 36ers have really pulled away from Canberra in the third quarter. I think Dean Draven might actually be wearing some old Chris Benoit WCW Crippler tights that he found at a thrift store. Ahh, they call McCloud “The Highlander,” so his skirt is probably part of a grungy Scot gimmick. Wait, just as Draven takes over, Santa Claus came out ringside. If wrestling has taught me anything, it’s that a ringside Santa Claus is always nefarious in nature. Yep, sack of goodies hits McCloud, and he loses. Then Santa takes off his fake get-up to gloat, then another Santa runs out and shoulderblocks fake Santa. Second Santa doesn’t ungimmick himself, and celebrates in all four directions with the young, drunk, fake Scotsman, and “T.N.T.” by AC/DC plays, and I think Australia must be great, even better than Mexico.

“The Real Deal” STEVE O’NEAL vs. THUG THOMAS vs. CHUCK E. CHAOS vs. “Mr. Big Time” JOHN SIMMONS
A four man hardcore match, with an ICP/Baseball Furies hybrid (O’Neal), a drunken soccer thug Brit brawler (Thomas), the little punk rock guy from that WWA PPV (Chaos), and a Fit Finlay looking dude who walks down from the empty arena first tier (Simmons). Simmons wears some hardcore belt, which is nicely adorned with actual barbed wire. Where the fuck is Trent Baker? I’m putting my rooting weight behind the little soccer thug drunkard guy. This hardcore match is very reminiscent of the WCW Hardcore title days when The Sandman was Hardcore Hak and Fit Finlay was thrown into the mix because they didn’t know what else to do with him. Chuck E. Chaos pulls a ladder from under the ring, which they might’ve needed to set up some banners or something; but Simmons pulls out a baking sheet. The only reason I could ever imagine a cookie sheet needed under a wrestling ring is maybe Tommy Rich got booked a few more times to hide under the ring like that Mayhem in Memphis match, and he figured the best thing to have while getting drunk under the ring in the dark for four hours while waiting for the cue he’d miss was to take a little Coleman stove and those pre-made cookie dough joints from the store, and even then, he’d also need a knife to slice the dough, so I’d take that from under the ring before a cookie sheet. Anytime Chaos gets hit, he ducks out the ring to hang low beside the apron for a few minutes. Then he gets caught in the ring, getting ready to take a powerbomb on the ladder, but he just drops out of it, completely dogging it. Pumphandle slam on Thomas by Simmons, and Chaos is hanging outside the ring again. Australian ladders are weird: they have hooks at the top, and X-shaped stabilizing bars on the non-step side. Simmons attempts a slingshot toss of Chaos into the ladder in the corner, and again Chaos dogs it and falls to the side. Fuck that guy. Somebody should beat the fuckin’ shit out of him on principle; if he couldn’t do the match, he shouldn’t have came out. John Simmons pulls a car door out from under the ring, and throws it against Thug Thomas’ back. A tombstone piledriver on the car door, and Simmons seems to be in control of this thing. All of a sudden, Chuck E. Chaos is up and at ‘em, and sets the ladder down on Simmons for a springboard moonsault, but just sort of flips over him, pushing his arm on the ladder. Really lame. The two guest referees are pro boxers, and they start knocking people out for John Simmons, then get him a table. O’Neal is laid across the table, and Simmons does a shaky fall splash off the top of the stupid Australian ladder. Simmons wins, and the non-funny commentator says “Good Night, Irene” for the fourth time tonight.

LOBO vs. TNT
This is not the Jersey hillbilly Lobo guy, but rather an Australian Nova. He is challenging for TNT’s AWF Heavyweight title, and he’s really young, and dressed like shiny outfit post-steroids Nova, in contrast to Lobo’s non-shiny superhero days Nova outfit. We have two forms of Novas past, conjured up down under in a squared circle, and they’ve invented the piss break for me. The child in my wife’s belly is moving around, and I hope he’s a boy so I can share the professional wrestling with him, unlike my daughter, who I would like to not point towards ragged whores as role models. The Novas are still doing battle, with shiny Nova inventing a reverse neckbreaker, then a reverse suplex. Shiny Nova hits a corkscrew recklesser across Superhero Nova’s ankles, and gets a two-count. Referee bumps himself out of consciousness, and shiny Nova goes for a plastic steel chair. Superhero Nova hits a legdrop across the plastic chair, and a second ref shows up just in time for Shiny Nova to throw the chair against Superhero Nova. Superhero Nova invents a hurricanrana on Shiny Nova, for just a two-count. “Lobo was just a nanosecond away,” according to punk rock color guy. Hey, it’s a second ref bump, making this “super-show” even more like late ‘90s WCW. Shiny Nova TNT wins, as first ref suddenly realizes it’s time to bring it home and comes in to make the count.

JASON HELTON vs. MARK MERCEDES
This is billed as the State of Origin War, with both guys being seconded by rugby legends. Jason Helton is accompanied by Wally Lewis, who is old and legendary to people I’ve never met. Mercedes comes out to Taz’s ECW music, and is accompanied by rugby superstar Mark Geyer, who I know nothing about, but he looks like he’s mean in nature. This is for Mercedes’ IWA Heavyweight title, and Mercedes is very Rhyno-like in appearance. They’re actually testing the ropes and building up for once tonight, and they do the ol’ armbar switch-off, legdrop, let’s make this technical biyotch beginning. Even grudge matches should descend into terrible things, not just jump right into it. Foreplay is very necessary for satisfaction, even within the homoerotic confines of the professional wrestling ring. Mercedes is not afraid to kick Helton in the kidneys, and Helton is not afraid to give extra jerks to Boston crabs. Helton gets kicked to the outside, and evil rugby thug Geyer guy gets in a kick. This is, by far, the best match on this card, and it’s still like a WWE syndicated programming main event, just without lots of people and all those stupid signs people carry nowadays. They fight up the aisle, and suddenly it’s announced as a Falls Count Anywhere match. Back in the ring, Helton catches Mercedes in the “Japanese Tarantula”, then points at Geyer, who chases Helton. Geyer is bigger than any wrestler on the card, and Wally Lewis, the anointed King of Rugby, has done nothing yet. I am not stupid, and I can tell you Geyer will get his ass kicked by Lewis at some point, then Helton will do something for the win. Mercedes does an “Oriental Tarantula,” which is just like the Japanese one, just executed with more emphasis on seeming real. In the end, there’s no chicanery, just Mercedes hitting a sharp piledriver for the victory. Then Geyer takes off his shirt and nails Helton with an elbowdrop, and Wally Lewis doesn’t really do anything but stand there and be a celebrity.

Boy, that was tough. Were I a money mark though, I’d hire that color guy and Dragon Dan Wilson to be in the announcers’ booth at my Superman Tattoo Tournament.
 

LETTER TO PHIL SCHNEIDER 
Regarding the New Japan "Ultimate Crush" Tokyo Dome PPV 5/02/03

Hey Phil,

One can only hope the lesions die down before the bikini waxing season. I'm glad it hasn't interfered with your act. 

Anyway, I got the tape you sent with the New Japan Dome show on it and I thought I bring up some thoughts I had about it:

The Josh Barnett vs Jimmy Ambriz match was pretty horrible- basically because Ambriz looked like an 1997 ECW "mutant" with the fat and the Jersey/New York Northern creepiness, but without the comical hat and sufficient helping of pants. I'm sure he is perfectly fine as a person and lowgrade shootfighter but I couldn't help but think that he was going to break out a "she's a crackwhore" chant. Plus Josh Barnett has that disturbing jiggly skin which looks like he was morbidly obese at one point but never got around to donating the excess skin to a burn victim unit once he got down to a healthy weight. That doesn't make gay does it?

Of course, that match looked like Tamura vs Kosaka compared to the ultra shitty Kazuyuki Fujita vs Manabu Nakanishi SHOOT bout. This was sooooo not even close to being as good as Marc Mero vs Savio Vega Brawl For All. God, I hope to God that this was a shoot because I would hate to think that they worked a match to look as boring as Ken Shamrock vs Dan Severn.

Enson Inoue isn't very good at all but Kazunari Murakami saves this match by being the Fit Finlay of shootstyle fighters. When he realizes early that Enson is a pro style load of shit, he quickly SUWAs into taking the blade and spewing his blood all over the Tokyo Dome. When he actually wallows in a pool of his own blood, I knew that Murakami understood professional wrestling 10 times more than any one else in New Japan. I also loved how he stood there and had legit Shooto shooter punch him right in the face to get over to the crowd the pain inflicted by Inoue's punches. Little shit like that make Murakami great.

Kenta Kobashi and Masahiro Chono match I liked because it was a Chono match and thus was far more psychologically rock solid than your average Kobashi match. Chono let his gray grow out helped the story of Chono being old and wiley and Kobashi being young and too strong. I didn't really like the ending because Kobashi isn't afraid to fuck up the dramatic points of the finish. I eman, I dug the Tenzan part where he is trying to throw in the towel to save Chono but Kobashi doesn't build from that dramatic point. Kobashi is so the best possible Lex Luger.

Yoshihiro Takayama vs Yuji Nagata wasn't Chono vs Takayama or Rikio vs Takayama and it looked more like they were trying to do a redux of Takayama vs Nishimura. I don't like Nagata for his matwork and this should have been a true ass-stomp. But it wasn't.

Anyhoos, I look to your response and kiss Raoul for me.

Love,

DEAN.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hey Tom,

Hey did you make it home last night? Last I saw you, you were making out with a skinhead girl with a cleft palate, her brother with the lightning tattoos didn’t look like he was happy with you polluting her with your Judaic DNA. 

Man that New Japan was pretty hit and miss, Jimmy Ambritz v. Josh Barnett was short enough not to be offensive. Ambritz looked too much like the Blue Meanie for my tastes, it made me want to find the fawning Wrestling Classics posts about how great it was he beat Tanahashi.

Nakanishi v. Fujita was pretty awful. I don’t think it was as good as Barry Williams v. Danny Bonaduce for a match which really was worked similar. Nakanishi’s bloody nose had a real Jay McIreney novel, feel to it, I almost felt like Nakanishi was going to describe his moisturizer to me.

Murakami v. Inoue was match of the show, which is pretty amazing considering how utterly useless Inoue is. This was the single most impressive one man performance I have ever seen. Inoue really has no business working a match and Murakami busted out the blade and the intensity and drama, and made me love the fuck out this match. The part where he tosses away his bloody mouthpiece, licks the blood off of his hand, and then lets Inoue sloppily punch him in the face, was fucking godly.

I dug Kobashi v. Chono more then anyone else in this chain letter thing Dean though up. I was actually pretty impressed with Kobashi here, he was working rudo which he does pretty well. He wasn’t afraid to take Chono’s back suplexes on the top of his head, and be a mean fucker at the end, where he keeps picking Chono up on the half nelson suplexes. Chono looked really done in parts of this match, but still delivered like a motherfucker when the chips were down.

Takayama v. Nagata was on the mat a lot, which I didn’t mind, but it was smoked by the previous matches which had a lot more fire in them. Takayama is really clearly the better matworker, which is interesting. He totally carries Nagata in all the mat sections. I am hoping the G1 delivers the super great Takayama, cause his post injury matches have had their moments, but nothing which has blown me away like his pre-injury stuff.

Well hope your are okay, if you need bail money call Rippa

Phil 
 

ALL JAPAN PRO WRESTLING TELEVISION (4/12/2003)
(by DEAN RASMUSSEN)

Kendo Ka Shin vs Carl Contini:
Carl Contini is Carl Malenko and Goddam does he still fucking rule. Ka Shin is ever the underachiever in the Pro Style ring- but Contini should be up his alley- what with his fucked up BattlARTS-cum-Nouvelle-Carny stylings mixed with his rockhard old school psychology. Ka Shin kinda goes inside out- the NJ Junior psyche and the legit MMA that never translated like it should. Ka Shin sinks in the Cross-Armbreaker and Carl hits the ropes as a perfunctory ode to the style and then they go completely Pro Style, with Ka Shin hitting the SWWEEET toprope Flying Cross Armbreaker that Carl reverses into his own. Then it gets kinda Lucha as they do these long string of reversals leads to a Ka Shin headlock. Ka Shin says FUCK THE MIXED MARTIAL ARTS and starts pounding on Carl as if Ka Shin is the undersized masked version of Iron Mike Sharp. Carl Muy Tai's him in the mush a few times but Ka Shin sinks in the CAB and IT'S OVER? What the fuck? That's it? What the fuck? What was that, like 6 minutes? What kind of A-Train versus Frankie Kazarian on Velocity kind of booking is this? This kind of match isn't gonna reach a level of lowgrade BattlARTS without SOMEONE taking an ass-beating and I know for certain that BOTH of these guys are willing to take an ass-beating for the Cause. Instead we get this New Japan Jr Exhibition match with a slight theme of BattlARTSIANA. No good. Not this week, Sparky.

Toshiaki Kawada/ Masa Fuchi vs Kojima/ Keiji Mutoh: 
This will be a good indication to see what everybody has left in the tank. Kawada was out hurt AGAIN. Fuchi came back to earth after the first initial hot run as Defender Of The All Japan Remainders Crown. Kojima has been all over the world and all over the place ringworkwise as of late. Mutoh is back to being lazy and useless. Let's see if anybody gets inspired, shall we? Joined in progress and I am filled with hate. Kojima and Kawada start beating the shit out of each other and I remember why you and I both love Kawada- he'll kick you in the face and dare you to try and match his tightness. Kojima does the Better Than Even Kawada's Delayed Sell of Kawada kicking him in the face and I weep at the homage. Mutoh tags in and decides to do absolutely nothing. I'm trying to figure out if Worthless Muta is worse than Worthless NWO Bryan Adams. Eh, Mutoh has the Powerdriver and that saves his bacon in that comparison probably. But you look at inspired Mutoh and it irritates you when the blah blah blah blah. If Mutoh was my mechanic and he had this work ethic, I'd start taking my car to Merchant's Tire and Auto. Adams sells better and moves better. Fuchi comes in with the Dangerous Backdrops and Mutoh sells them like Rob Van Dam channelling Rick Steiner so I'm guessing this isn't going to be a mat classic. At least Kawada crushes Mutoh's head like a melon when saving Fuchi. Kojima comes in and works on the leg leading up to Fuchi fighting like a motherfucker to withstand Kojima's chops. Kojima looks great throwing punches and breaking Fuchi's calcium deficient legs. Kojima is quite the Owen Hart DiBiase to Mutoh's Yokozuno in this Nippon version of whatever the fuck the WWF called it. Kawada makes the hot tag and Mutoh takes a couple kicks but you ain't gonna mistake him for the manly visage of Kensuke Sasaki in the same situation. Kojima and Kawada throw manly elbows to the jaw and my interest in this rises. Kawada highkicks Kojima's lariat arm and then Kojima hits the lariat and sells it like Kawada kicked his lariat arm and he then hit a latiar with the same arm. So it rules. Kojima hits a lariat in the corner to set his Macho Man Toprope Elbow Drop and you are suiably stoked. Fuchi Pearl Harbours Kojima and Kawada and Fuchi hit a SWEET looking double Enzuguiri to Mutoh. Kawada hits a HORRENDOUSLY NASTY Stuff Powerbomb on Kojima and then CRUSHES Kojima's spinal cord with a German and I am loving this. Kojima powers out of another powerbomb attempt and Kawada starts selling his knee really big for some reason. Mutoh comes in and starts working on the knee with some suitably nasty looking Dragonscrews. Kawada takes a Shining Wizard into the corner. Fuchi stops Mutoh before he can moonsault and Kawada spindles Mutoh aging neck with an Enzuguiri, a German and Stretch Plum. Mutoh sells a little here and makes the ropes, Fuchi tags in and starts suplexing Mutoh again. Mutoh then decides that he isn't selling and jumps up and beats on Fuchi. This match sucks. Your reasons: Kawada just selling the knee big just so Mutoh would have some concept of what to do in the match. Mutoh selling like Road Warrior Hawk right after selling like 1990 Scott Norton. What the fuck? Kojima fires off a lariat and Fuchi doesn't lean into it and it's for two. Kawada leans into one after a particularly shitty looking sequence where Mutoh no-longer remembers how to run the ropes. Fuchi doesn't take a lariat like a man AGAIN for two. And another for the pin. Boy, that sucks. P-U! Kawada vs Kojima could be fun and Kawada/Fuchi is fun tagteam but Jebus Fucking Alonzo did this suck a mighty engorged penis.

ARASHI vs Shinya Hashimoto:
For the Triple Crown! ARASHI! Ex-WAR lumpy heavyweight does good! Jesus Christ, he has to look better than frickin Mutoh looked in that last match. I'm trying to figure out which physique I should shoot for- lose a little and go with Arashi or eat more fries and go with Hashimoto? Hash starts by kicking Arashi directly in the throat continuously and Arashi stands there and leans into them like a man. Arashi pretty much sucks in this match after that. He looks dead on his feet and they edit out about 10 minutes so nothing is good on this. Arashi does hit a decent powerbomb and a fun fatboy frogsplash. Arashi makes funny childlike faces while procuring the crossface. Hash hits the ropes and I need a beer. They completely fuck up the ending and this is touching on Mabel vs Koji Kitoa as shittiest match ever released by a major Japanese TV station. When Hash can't beat a good match out of you, I... shit, I've never seen Hash NOT beat a good match out of someone. I am at a loss.

All Japan Pro Wrestling TV 4/12/2003 is one of the biggest turds to ever defile my VCR. I would not recommend you watching it. 

Abu Colossus vs. Babyface
Mickie is in the ref stages of her career, and her long hair was so lovely, now shorn to Gothic shortness, showing how this disgusting wrestling world is already hardening her heart. Abu Colossus comes out first, to Ludacris, a tattooed brother from Nebraska with a visor on sideways, straight midwest pimping, and he’s facing off against some kid called Babyface who I assume is the good guy. He’s has a wicked indentation on his back and his lower chest, and I wonder if he’s been shot or some shit. The guy I work for has ghastly wounds like that, from getting shot when he was a teenager, doing the old run from the house of the girl he was boning deal. Girl’s dad asked “Who is that?” and fearing getting in trouble for late night visiting, my man Money Markum ran and took a rifle shot in the leg and back. He wears polo shirts while we paints now, so he ain’t hard at all, but he did promise to start paying me in those fat new twenties with the peach coloring. I’m all about being able to match my bills to my t-shirt. Colossus is a big, chunky dude, reminiscent of Papa Shango Mustafa Godfather back in his indy days when he was a voodoo gangbanger called Baron Samedi. Colossus is nifty enough as a minor monster heel, and with the help of some asshole fast-talking manager to take my eyes off of Colossus as he huffs for air, he could be interesting enough. Babyface is one of those tiny dudes in funny pants that makes me think at any second he’s gonna rile up and either do crazy monkeysaultmindspring sentons, or he’ll kick Colossus in the kidneys a few times in a row. Blockbuster neckbreaker by Babyface to slowly turn the tide of this here curtain jerker, and this is one awkward fucking match, with both guys going different ways on relatively normal spots. Hey, Babyface gets the small package roll-up from nowhere for the quick win, and that is that, thank Satan. 

Simon Sezz vs. Gavin Starr
Man, that beat to “Simon Says” is sicker than fuck. I’ve never seen this kid, Simon Sezz, some grungy-looking kid with the sick Pharoah Monch entrance music. Apparently, according to some white kid who sent me an angry email one time, Pharoah Monch is the greatest fuckin’ mic controller of all-time, and I am stupid for not letting him rape me then kissing his black dick afterwards. I think white kids who send emails don’t know shit about Mcing. Whoa! Gavin Starr is wearing a furry hat and star-bedecked long trunks and would fit perfectly within a Continental wrestling ring fighting for the U.S. Junior title. Wait, no he took his hat off; he looks like a kid who hangs at the mall in a Linkin Park t-shirt now. Simon Sezz is awesome as the indy rock-tinged kid, doing classic heel stall techniques after an atomic drop, and Sezz simulates a groin pull for a good four or five minutes. (BEER TWO) Starr’s neck is level with the top rope, and he should immediately go to Mexico where he could be a mini-Stone and get mad brown pussy, cheap painkillers, and watch the donkey sex show in TJ whenever he felt the need to see that type of thing. Gavin Starr seems a little more reluctant than Sezz, but star trunks go a long ways in my mind. IWA Mid South commentary is great, as all the guys are part of Ian’s cult of wrestling, and all of a sudden they’re talking shit about Bob Starr, some shitty indy wrestler from somewhere who I’ve never heard of and could care less about. Nice “aurora borealis” suplex by Starr, but Sezz takes back over and is actually concentrating his efforts on one arm. They’re doing fuckin’ imitations of Beavis from Beavis & Butthead on commentary now; fuckin’ ridiculous, but it is early on, so they’re just getting warmed up. Starr favors his arm the whole way through, all the way up the ropes to have his rana attempt busted up by Sezz, who nails a swank frogsplash, and I like this Sezz kid. I bet he drinks malt liquor and understands how awesome Queens of the Stone Age are. 

Rollin’ Hard vs. Tracy Smothers
Rollin’ Hard is out, and I am a motherfuckin’ mark for the KILLIN WHITEY SINCE BACK IN THE DAY t-shirt. And Tracy Smothers comes out to “If The South Woulda Won” by Bocephus, and the Wild-Eyed Southern Boy always brings the motherfuckin’ best ring music. If you don’t know shit about country, just get everything Tracy Smothers comes out to in his whole career. And he’s barefeet sporting, like a fuckin’ hippie covered in confederate flags. Sometimes I think that a certain wrestler is the most awesome wrestler in existence; then I see Tracy Smothers. His small perks, like the stalling arm slap at first lock-up, how he turns around sideways for the collar-and-elbow, the cheap face clapping…he’s an old school professional. I also love how, post FBI in ECW gimmick, Smothers has all those goofy little dance twitches he does. Tracy is beating the shit out of Rollin’ with thrusts and forearms, and I dig Rollin’, but he’s struggling to keep up. (BEER THREE) Awesome! Smothers is ringside with Hard, and misses a forearm, and rather than bullshittingly ignore it, he overdoes the next three or four forearms smashes and migraines Hard up. Then Steve Stone knocks out Rollin’, and that’s why this was third because it was gonna be a screwy. I can respect them putting it here. 

Jayden Draigo vs. Steve Stone
Jayden Draigo is out for the next match, and he looks like half the kids drinking Zima in semi-rural North Carolina at the club on black music for white people night about four years ago. Steve Stone is out next, and he’s supposedly a metalhead, as he’s got the Samhain t-shirt and leather jacket, but he’s got the black stocking hat of new metal, and this whole midwest metal resurgence of short-haired guys bothers me. But I also don’t like the watered down long hair with shaved sides hip hop with day-glo lights under your Civic’s car seats style of Draigo. It’s hard to figure which sub-culture I’m more down with. There’s certainly more Draigo’s where I live, and the Stones seem as pussified and weak as punk rockers to me, so I’m not down with that. But metal, even by today’s false metal standards, is still better than riding around rattling some Luda with your tweeter kick trunk in full effizect. I can safely say the Draigos of the world roll better blunts than the Stones; however the Stones of the World are less likely to feel uncomfortable as you zip along back roads doing 85 while turning around halfway to ask them to dig another Miller out the box for you. Actually, no they’re not; new metal is false metal, mad headbutts for all shorthaired bitches claiming metal. If Stone had long, dirty hair, and instead of a stupid leather jacket with a punk rock stencil he probably bought at Hot Topic, he came out in a jean jacket stained with bongwater and sporting a Kreator backpatch, then I’d be down. I’m not super-metal fan numero uno or anything, but I do know that King Diamond would’ve won three World Cups if he was as good a soccer player as he is a singer, and I know that Metallica died when Cliff Burton got crushed by that bus, and I know the white sneakers that metal guitarist wear aren’t Adidas shell-toes. Both guys get-ups are all black-and-white, adding to the aesthetic beauty of this battle of today’s sub-cultures. Stone’s goofing off, slapping Draigo on the head, and it’s comedically entertaining. Wait, I just realized the Cro-Mags were skins when they did The Age of Quarrel, but they’re the exception to my metal standard rather than the rule. Although, I guess now they’re the rule, and my way of thinking is the exception. Fuckin’ getting old sucks, because the World gets all stupid to you and you’re not allowed to beat the shit out of everyone like you’d like to. Or if you decide to try anyways, somebody comes along and beats your ass. Stone catches Draigo coming off the top and has a little sit-down powerbomb with him, for a two-count. Draigo goes for a belly-to-back suplex that I think Stone thought he was supposed to flip over on, so he lands on his forehead. Then he returns the favor, and Prazak calls it “dueling eyeball busters”. Rollin’ Hard sneaks out and nails Stone with a chair, which staggers him into a Draigo superkick, and that’s the match, and young, longhaired hip hop stoner kids who pimp shitty cars is your winning sub-culture. Word life, kid.

Jimmy Jacobs vs. Alex Shelley
“The Barbaric Berserker”, Jimmy Jacobs, the mini huss, is out, putting the fur of his boots on the line against the hair of Alex Shelley. Okay, I hate small wrestlers because they make wrestling seem stupid and not dangerous. But I love Jimmy Jacobs, because he oozes adrenaline, and plus, who the fuck doesn’t enjoy smacking their thrusting wrist and yelling “HUSS!” Shelley has that same insane hyperactivity in the ring. This is gonna rule. (BEER FOUR) “Ladies and gentlemen, this next match is hair versus boot hair… ” Wrestling – a mother fuckin’ beautiful thing. Collar and elbow struggle goes into the ropes, and Jacobs claims Shelley pulled his boot hair. And then Jacobs obviously pulls hair in the next step of this struggle, and your ref used to play guitar in .38 Special. They’ve got an absolutely ruling test of strength, multiple two-count bits with bridges and borderline lucha nonsense. All sorts of nice segments are going on, and I love this fuckin’ match, but especially Alex Shelley. (BEER FIVE) They have mad submissatory and chain wrestling goodness, then suddenly, after like the third center-ring stand-off, Jacobs ups the violence with a few vicious forearms, and this is the escalatory part of the showdown. I can dig it. Shelley goes for a ringside dive onto Jacobs, and catches the ropes and sort of ricochets into a furry boot to the chest. Jacobs then goes for a plancha, but also catches the ropes, him being miniature, and Shelley hits a gutbuster, which might’ve been him just catching Jacobs’ fall, because both men sell being victimized rather than being the criminal robbing innocent motherfuckers everytime. The reverse neckbreaker across the top rope by Jacobs was FUCKIN’ AWESOME! I imagine, from the looks of Shelley’s head bobbing on that one, they won’t do it a whole lot more, but I’d say go for it. Maybe they could get some shitty wrestler, full of himself, to come in and have little, tiny ass Jimmy Jacobs paralyze him to teach him respect for the industry. Were I to give matches star rankings, I’d give this one Vega in summertime, bright in the constellation Lyra, because this motherfuckin’ match is as good as everybody tricked me into believing the new Outkast double CD is. They punch the fuck out of each other, then Shelley does this deal where he kicks away a Jacobs’ punch and continues his spin into an enziguiri. Usually, I try to recap the highlights while I drink, but there’s too much crazy shit going down, so I’ll just stay here and drink like Haggard. Holy shit, Jacobs with that off the top rope back on the other dude Dick Togo thing, but Shelley puts his knees up in full Christoper Reeves-creator mode. I could basically just type GODDAMN about seventeen times in a row for commentatory. Well shit, Jacobs “loads” his boot, but misses by a few inches on the kick, and the bad pinfall causer taints a thirty-seven star match, but luckily, they have a head-shaving to cover that up. Shelley does a good job of selling the disgust of losing his hair, even while Prazak announces, “It’s just hair, man, it’ll grow back.” C’mon, sell the fuckin’ angle. I’d be more than willing to buy a snazzy purple-trimmed blazer and travel the un-yellow lined side roads of America, to be a gimmick hair shaver for matches like this. All I’d ask for is a case of Old Milwaukee, a back yard to pitch a tent in, and ten bucks for gas. I do love Jacobs talking shit while shaving Shelley’s hair, sort of giving him a white man’s boxcut. The Barbaric Berserker is actually giving him a decent haircut; Alex Shelley could still get pussy at the Steak-and-Shake afterwards.

Spyder Nate Webb vs. J.C. Bailey
Crazy Pipe Guy is the living embodiment of a Scooby Doo bad guy, visually. Tables galore ringside, covered in barbed wire and light tubes, and this is the battle of crazy little motherfuckers. Spyder Nate Webb, the teenage dirtbag who’s as old as me, with a nice stripper named Lollipop on his back, and I like how the camera man in the crow’s nest does a close-up on the go-go shorts going up her ass. I hope CMLL was watching. Lollipop the stripper dances with Crazy Pipe Guy and Nate Webb wears a shirt yelling BEER CITY and I realize there is a God and he thinks about people like me. Lollipop shakes her ass, and has the slight pudge factor that any self-respecting stripper should have to get those fat tips. (BEER SIX) J.C. Bailey is out, and this motherfuckin’ dude is nuts. He looks like the type of kid who could get regular pussy and work a landscaping job and get by happily, but instead he’s gone nuts, abandoned his promoter dad who hates Ian, and gone to IWA to be hardcore as shit and wreck his body. I, for one, fully endorse this. Meltzer is always talking shit about how people ruin themselves for no money, but that mother fucker thinks too much about business. This is about legend. This is your modern day double face showdown, which back in the day would lead to one dude piledriving the other dude ringside to turn heel. But with tables covered in light bulbs and barbed wire laying around, I don’t think that’s gonna happen tonight. Slow, consistent, wrestling start, but the crowd is silent because they’re sitting there looking at gimmicks galore ringside, awaiting some carnage. Bailey fights a tornado DDT into a barbed wire table, and then does a Ric Flair toss of the Spyder into our first busted dealey. (BEER SEVEN) Bailey then pulls around the light tube table and teases the same tornado DDT, but Webb blocks it, and rather than just toss Bailey into the gimmick, he does a rana. That ruled. Webb goes for ringside pinfall, and you can actually note the ref trying to find an unglass sharded spot on the concrete to slap his hand. Those six-foot fiberglass yellow ladders don’t come cheap, I can tell you that. Were I wrestling promoter, they’d be busting up cheap-ass aluminum deals like Sabu and RVD against the Eliminators did. You couldn’t climb the wrong side of those. I hate in ladder matches when someone starts to climb up the reinforcing side rather than the regular side, about half a minute before the other guy in the spot does his part. It exposes the business, and we all know how detrimental that can be. Fuck business. Let’s get drunk and smash each other. Bailey gets dropped neck first into the fiberglass ladder, which, not only expensive, are thick and tough. Both these guys are gonna be just as crippled as Sabu in a few years, but for far less money, and I say hell yeah motherfuckers. I’ll smoke a bowl and split a pint with your dumbasses if I run across your hobbled ass somewhere. And there ain’t no promised future, so fuck it, live fast and die young, or if you can’t do that, live fast and wreck young. It makes for better stories when older. Bailey sets up a table in the ring, and then they trade headbutts. The headbutt is a wonderful thing because basically you are using your brain’s protective shell in a violent way, but you enjoy the psychological benefit of preparing yourself for that brainshell trauma. My dad, god rest his soul, taught me when I was ten, if you get in a fight, make your first punch to the other guy’s nose, because if it breaks he’ll have trouble going on, and if you don’t feel his nose break, try to follow up with a headbutt as hard as you can, because that’ll not only hurt him, but it’ll scare the shit out of him. Usually headbutts aren’t practical in a streetfights, so they go a long way for wrecking someone’s confidence when you can pull one off. Bailey senton off a ladder onto Webb through barbed wire table, all in a SpongeBob Square Pants shirt. Bailey does a tope through the ropes over the hardcore tables to hit Webb. I wonder if Nate actually talked Lollipop into fucking. I wonder if a chick like that hangs out in the locker room and ends up hooking up with someone, or a few someones, or just acts like she’s too good. I know in southern Ohio, where demolition derbies are stronger than they are anywhere else in America, it’s hard to find late model Plymouth stationwagons anymore, because they’ve all gotten bought up for destruction. I’d imagine family reunions have the same problem finding tables with folding legs in southern Indiana. Nate does the double foot stomp from the top of a six-foot ladder in the ring to Bailey’s tummy on a table ringside; very nice. (BEER EIGHT) Two barbed wire tables stacked, and Bailey and Webb go up onto the “Spyder’s Nest,” which is cinderblocks with a plywood roof. Michinoku Driver through the set-up, crazy shit, these guys are nuts, but in a fun way. Again, I reiterate, you kill yourselves, I’ll smoke you out. I bet both these guys have gotten more pussy than millions of men richer than men, proving it’s not all about the money, motherfucker. Bailey won. Both guys lay there forever, in what I suppose is meant to sell their exhaustion, but I’m sure both those dudes would’ve loved to just lay there and rest for a bit regardless. Nate’s eyes are pretty dilated, and you can’t work that, unless you’re Mongolian. Ahh, wonderful Smart Mark Video, with your evil slow motion replays of the most horrific bumps, how I love you. 

Brad Bradley vs. Corporal Robinson
Brad Bradley is out next, accompanied by Eryn, with her super-long hair, and we used to instant message each other. I might’ve tried to have aimsex with her, but I think she was too sweet and innocent, at least on aim. Corporal Robinson is fighting this dude, and it’s a first blood match, and shit, Corporal could choke on a one-hitter full of homegrown and lose, with that Puerto Rico forehead. Eryn is so hot with that long hair, and Bradley has to avoid the stubby forehead scars with his elbows. As Corp goes for a piledriver, Eryn scratches his back, but not as deep as she’d scratch mine. This is actually pretty nifty, with Corp as the underdog since he could start bleeding against his own will at any second, and he has to work extra hard as the underdog face to make Bradley bleed. Corp punches Bradley with a chain-covered fist, and Bradley tastes the blade, and after losing, DDTs Robinson on a chair for severe IWA juice. As Eryn smacks Robinson while Bradley holds, blood splatters on the camera lens. Wrestling is awesome. “Sexy, hardcore bitches, I like it a lot,” says Steve Stone, and I suddenly don’t hate short-haired metalheads as much, but then I remember he probably finds bitches with fringe cuts hot, and they wear bomber jackets and drink Mickey’s and fuck that. “I’m afraid of white people who want to be black,” says Stone and he won me back. Heels rule.

Michael Todd Stratton vs. Ian Rotten
Michael Todd Stratton fuckin’ rules, comes out and immediately makes with the “you’re a retard” mockings of first row knuckleheads. You put Todd Morton and Tracy Smothers and me in a car, give me a video camera and a thousand dollars, and I guarantee you, Jesco White would look like a bitch-ass pussy. Stratton has fat bitches in sweat pants pissed, and children too. I love some shit like this, where he pisses off people, then backs himself into the ring, knowing if he’s perfect, he’ll have to fight his way back to the exit, and if he’s less than perfect but all-star, he’ll have motherfuckers so mad in their seat they’ll want to set fire to his children if they knew which rat-escorted tikes throwing nerf footballs in the corner had his DNA. The fat, pissed off bitch is kind of hot, in a plumper porn sort of way; I bet Morton got her pregnant somewhere a few months ago and she’s pissed because he didn’t kick in his half of the abortion fees. Man, this is awesome as well. IWA is the king of setting up legitimate feuds to make you understand why guys are busting each other up into homemade horror movie extras. Morton grabs a broom to use, and actually does a couple of sweeps, which is funnier than shit, because he thought to do that right before he hit Ian with it across the back in a weak move. I love the motherfuckin’ wrestling. If I had to choose between beer and wrestling for the rest of my life, I’d probably choose beer because if I went to someone else’s house and watched wrestling, it wouldn’t show on my breath or in my blood. “I’m sweeping up the trash, daddy,” says Morton, and usage of “daddy” in conversation is always commendable. Stone is going for cheap racism heat. As Morton/Stratton busts Ian in the head, you can actually see the blood splatter further across Ian’s face. That’s quality wrestling. (BEER NINE) This guy used to be a second-rate Rock-n-Roll Express dude, Michael Todd Stratton. Ian has bled like a pig already, and he goes down for a second gash while Stratton tries to start fights with more crowd members. Steve Stone is actually pretty entertaining as a color commentator guy; and that’s the thing about an IWA tape, you never know who’s gonna get thrown into the booth. Ian is suddenly concentrating on Todd Michael Morton Stratton Esquire’s leg, and crotches him as well on the ringpost. Both of Stratton’s taped fists are covered in blood. Rotten hits two shitty double underhook DDTs, but pulls Stratton up both times, and calls for chairs, so I figure the shitty nature of the DDTs was a work. Yep, nice spike piledriver where Stratton bounced upwards nicely, but again Ian pulls him up at two. Watching the angle they have, face front on Stratton’s part, it’s hard to figure out how he can work that bounce upwards to sell the piledriver. It’s not like he can stand on his head for a second and spring upward with his neck muscles to sprawl his body a few feet away, so I figure Ian Rotten is actually killing him. That’s a victoire for Monsieur Rotten, and Stratton holds his head and venusmania.com women want to kill him. I love the hobble of old ECW mainstays like Ian Rotten and Sabu and Terry Funk; if I could make it happen I think nothing would be better than a charity three-legged sack race with all those old ECW guys who aren’t overdosed yet, hobbling across a freshly bush-hogged field for Delilah Starr’s kid’s benefit. Except Tommy Dreamer – he really creeps me out. Stratton gets loaded up in full-on “his neck in injured” mode, on a board they stole from some local hotel. 

B.J. Whitmer vs. Jonny Storm vs. Jerry Lynn
We’ve got a three-way match, and B.J. Whitmer is your first man to enter the ring, and I’ve never dug B.J., as he’s very boring charisma-wise, which overrules his athletic ability in my simple mind. Jonny Storm is your second fool in the match, from Britain, and small. I don’t think it would be insulting to have a mini-division like they do in Mexico, with all these completely bad-ass shorties like Storm and Jimmy Jacobs and Gavin Starr. Jerry Lynn is your third motherfucker, and I’m a Lynn mark. Match does stuff, and we’ve got Storm and Lynn doing a double headstand thing, teasing some face slaps, but Whitmer dropkicks both of them, as receipt for the double dropkick they gave him to leave him ringside selling, giving them time to do their non-B.J. thing. (BEER TEN) Whitmer gets eliminated when Storm does this oddball DDT pin switch on some Whitmer offense. So it’s Lynn and Storm, and I was just starting to dig Whitmer for the first time. And I’m not loving on some Lynn like I usually do, as he almost seems overrated a lot of the time, living off his past workrate excellence. He’s great at the counter/stand-off parts of matches, but he doesn’t sell worth a shit a lot of the times, unless you count wrapping his ribs in tape. A cradle piledriver from the second rope by Mr. J.L. and he’s your winner. Whitmer comes back in the ring for the three-way indy handshake and hug ceremonies, which gets applause just as cheap as talking shit about the local football team. 

Mad Man Pondo vs. Axl Rotten
And it’s main event time in the motherfuckin’ IWA Arena, with Mad Man Pondo getting out the back first. I used to hate Pondo, as all the major injuries of dudes I thought were cool – Necro Butcher’s arm, Mitch Page’s ear – they came in matches with Pondo. But he’s just a goofy bastard who doesn’t care. Does he take the same punishment he dishes out? I don’t know, but I don’t really care; he’s got a hot-ass little Japanese wife and he gets free plane tickets to go wrestle in places and that’s better than me. Axl Rotten is his opponent, and the KISS tattoo is amazing. Axl talks on the mic about blood showers, and then Pondo works the microphone like a carny trying to get you to give him two dollars while he somehow guesses your weight. This starts pitiful, with Pondo calling for crowd cheers before he pushes a wheelchair into Axl. Pondo lays over a table and obviously gashes himself about seven times, and I’m sure this’ll be the money shot goriness. This is a fans-bring-the-weapons match, and someone brought an Easter basket full of plastic eggs, each one is full of some terrible thing, mostly thumbtacks, but also salt and shit like that. Now, they’re using a cheese grater like Candido uses suplexes. Axl wins this bloody busterfuck and that’s over, suddenly and not very satisfyingly. Preacher Ian gets up to the pulpit post-match, and he talks the gospel that has convinced so many to believe in him over the years. And the great thing is, Axl Rotten is getting talked into coming back to wrestling regularly for IWA aka Ian, by Ian working the mic in proper loving fashion, with an echoing choir chanting in unison, and Ian’s a first-rate motivator. The tape is done, and so is my beer.

EPILOGUE
FIRST STAR OF THE TAPE: Alex Shelley. I had always overlooked him in the hazy goofiness of Jimmy Jacobs, but this motherfucker can wrestle, can flip, and ain’t a midget.

SECOND STAR OF THE TAPE: Tracy Smothers. There is no other, word to your mother.

THIRD STAR OF THE TAPE: J.C. Bailey. The kid is seeking legendary status, body be damned, and I, for one, commend him. Fuck a bank account; people talking about you in awe when you’re not there is way better.
 

NOAH TV (7/1/03)
(by DEAN RASMUSSEN)
Tim Noel gave me this tape and HOLY FUCK is the main event fucking great.

Kenta Kobashi/ Tamon Honda vs Takeshi Morishima/ Naomichi Marufuji: 
Don't get me wrong. I got no beef with Marufuji. Really. He actually wrestles wrestling matches now instead of just stringing together fabulous highspots. I just want him to stay out of these matches. He starts well with the Dragonscrew into a Figure Four and he's a good little wrestler- but so is Shannon Moore and this is way too much like Brock/ Shannon vs Angle/ Benoit. Morishima makes a CLUBBING FOREARM save and it RULES. Morishima and Honda trade forearms and I weep. Morishima punches out of the armbar to reverse it and Honda headbutts out and tags Kenta Kobashi and THIS IS ON! Kobashi vs Morishima is FUN FUN FUN. Kobashi goes all Road Warriory with the running shoulder block and Morishima trades punches to the mouth with Kenta chops. Honda comes back in and they fight for the Vertical Suplex- with younger Morishima winning and starting the onslaught on Honda. Marufuji hits some nice things but Honda's headlock is the coolest headlock since Johnny Valentine's so you can see what young Naomichi is up against. Marufuji's legwhips and dropkicks to the knee are the things about Marufuji that I really dig. Honda reverses a kneebar and Morishima cuts him off by stomping a mudhole in him. Kenta Kobashi tags in and sells all of Marufuji's Frankensteiner like Steve Regal selling for Ciclope. So it ruled. Honda hits the floor and starts beating on Marufuji's ass- literally. Atomic Drops on the Apron to set up Atomic Drops in the ring to set up Kobashi's Davey Boy Smith Extended Vertical Suplex. Marufuji goes up way high on the Honda backdrop and all I can think of is Spanky vs Kurt Angle. Marufuji is a great face in peril though the Japanese rubes don't know how to have fun with it by getting into his comeback. Kobashi is actually pretty fun as the rudo- yelling "BREAK HIM! BREAK HIM!" to Honda as he tags out. Kobashi should DEFINATLEY go the Masa Chono mid-life evil motherfucker route because- as he showed in the Chono vs Kobashi match- Kobashi is a natural heel. Kobashi just fucking PULVERIZES Marufuji and Morishima is going apeshit to tag. After a hot tag (that wasn't set up very well. Ricky Morton should hold a NOAH clinic), Morishima and Kobashi beat the living crap out of each other and we get to watch. Honda tags in and he is HONDA CLUTCHTASTIC! Morishima counters by trying to kick Honda's eyes out of his head and the double teaming begins. Kobashi and Morishimi go out to the floor and Honda does the cool ass Alexander Otsuka slow deadlift German Suplex that Marufuji sells like a second story porch fell on him. Morishima comes in and slaughters Honda with a Dangerous Backdrop and A bunch of finishers later leads to Honda CLUTCHING WITH HONDANESS young Marufuji and you have a fun little match. But the finish was as obvious as a Shannon Moore/Brock vs Angle/Benoit match. 

Daisuke Ikeda/ Kotaro Suzuki vs KENTA/ Ricky Marvin: 
HEY! It's Ricky Marvin! Jesus, do I hate Ricky Marvin. KENTA is a sexy motherfucker and he'll punch you right in the face, so imagine my delight we I notice that KENTA and Ikeda could be squaring off. My heart is going to be an open book for Kotaro in this. Marvin does a SWEET headscissors after a bit of awkward stuff leading up to it. They kinda do some lowgrade lucha sequences and KENTA tags in starts kicking Kotaro in the stomach, thus bringing my interest to sharper focus. KENTA does the Slingshot Guillotine Legdrop and makes it look NASTY. Ikeda tags in and suddenly this match fucking rules. Ikeda motherfucking MAULS KENTA and KENTA shows FIGHTING SPIRIT and fights back like a motherfucker. Ikeda with the completely dickish knees to the face that make you remember why you get the Japanese wrestling tapes. Ikeda's toprope Lariat is TO DIE FOR. KENTA dropkicks to offense and multiple Pescadas flourish around the ring. Ikeda doesn't try his Space Flying Tiger Drop and I am as disappointed as you are. Ikeda starts beating KENTA with a chair and it fucking RULES. Ricky Marvin comes into the ring with Ikeda and I don't think he read the tip sheet- "Ricky, he will kick the living fuck out of you." and he does and it rules. Kotaro does those annoying Paul London backflip dropkicks but he does sell KENTA's assbeating like a man. Marvin does the fruity embellishment Stone Cold Stunner and Michinoku Driver II on Kotaro for 2 and then hits a Pedrigree for 2. Kotaro kicks to escape and Ikeda has sell Marvin's comical offense for a minute before killing young Ricky with a Muscle Buster. Ikeda vs KENTA would be a quality match. Marvin vs Suzuki would probably be a fine match. In this match, the second match got in the way of the first match, so my love is diminished.

Takuma Sano vs Donovan Morgan:
Sano- at 76 years old- held his own when Misawa, Takayama, Rikio and Morishima were gauging the stiffness. Here, Donovan Morgan mat wrestles with him for a while. Sano does start stomping on him pretty good a few minutes in. Morgan goes on offense with some awkward combinations of moves and perfectly fine midgrade suplexes. Sano kinda mails it in but does make with the wicked Double stomp into a Northern Lights Bomb to end a match I have already forgotten about.

Takeshi Rikio vs Jun Izumida: 
Oh Izu! Will you ever have another good match? Rikio could be the one to have it with, so imagine how torqued I am. Rikio tries to make Izu's kneecap pop out and fly into the 3rd row early on. Izu doesn't sell very well and just kinda starts going on offense- as he seems to be shooting for that WAR heavyweight 96 offense we all fell in love with the first time around. Izu does do the fun diving headbutt to nowhere. Rikio lariats the fuck out of him in the corner a few times and it's NODAWA CITY FROM HERE ON OUT! Izu fucks up a roll up and Rikio decides to cut his losses and just lariat him to death for the pin. AWWWWWWWWW IZU! MAYBE NEXT TIME! LIL FELLA! 

Yoshinari Ogawa/ Masao Inoue vs Scorpio/ Michael Modest: 
I am ever unimpressed by Mike Modest's tenure across the pond. Scorpio has his name written into his hair and it looks like if BamBam Bigelow had a continuous epeleptic seizure the whole time he was getting his scalp tattooed. Ogawa is grimy and sleazy- the way you like him. Scorpio gives Ogawa a DOUBLE titty twister early on and I no longer have much hope for this match. Ogawa responds by picking up Scorpio by his junk and there is no caring loving God. Scorpio and Ogawa have a fun lucha libre roperunning section and Scorpio can still get up in the air when he isn't channelling Vader. Ogawa throws the Southern punches and Scorpio keeps accidentally fouling Ogawa and we laff and laff and laff at the genital comedy bone-anza. Modest and Inoue hit the ring and Inoue hits some sub-Farooq clubbing forearms and Modest responds with the Bryan Adams Chinlock Driver 91. Inoue elbows out and hits the ropes and goes into the sleeper. Modest does some People's Elbows and my hatred of NOAH Modest is shared by the editor- as they skip to farther into the match. They do a four man head scissors and I can truly say that I loathe this wrestling match. I await my main man, the Samurai TV editor, to SAVE me. Scorpio does fly into the chairs with gusto. Ogawa stomps Scorpio with vigor. Modest with a Northern Lights Suplex on Inoue and then he throws Inoue to the floor. This is just a fucking mess. Inoue reels off the worst backbreaker you will ever see. They do stuff and it goes on for a while and Ogawa cheats to win with his feet on the ropes and I SWEAR TO YOU, my sweet beloved gentle reader, YOU NEVER NEED TO SEE THIS MATCH. Scorpio is better as a lil Vader than as Big Stoker Ichikawa. I said it. I'll stand by it. 

Mitsuharu Misawa/ Tsuyoshi Kikuchi/ Mitsuo Momota vs Akira Taue/ Yoshinobu Kanemaru/ Superstar Steve: 
Superstar Steve looks different than when he was in Puerto Rico- looking more generic OVW trainee than anything else now. I have no idea how he will hold his end up in this match but that's we watch the matches and not just read the matchlist. Kanemaru and Kikuchi beat each other upside the head and hit fucking beautiful highspots- especially the Kanemaru Super Calo Ankle lock Rana. Mimota hits the neckbreaker and takes a bunch of forearms to the face and continues to take surprisingly good forearms by Superstar Steve when he tags in. Misawa tags in and starts crushing Steve's throat until Taue tags in. Taue is all about the Big Boots and Taue offense until Misawa does picture perfect Super Astro In-Ring Run-up-the-ropes Tope to tag in Kikuchi. Taue pokes the newly tagged Kikuchi in the eye and Kanemaru comes in a kills Kikuchi with the legdrop across the rail. Steve and Misawa have a little wrestling match and Steve is perfectly fine in the ring, getting his ass beaten by one of the greatest wrestlers that ever wrestled. Mimota tags in and Mimota gets beaten to death by Taue until Misawa can tag in and hit the heavyweight offense on the heavyweight that is Taue. Kikuchi tags in and starts PASTING Taue with forearms and I realize that I do love Kikuchi as he is talking shit to Taue as he is crushing his skull with forearms. Taue facebusts to make the tag and Kanemaru and Kikuchi have at it. And it just kinda keeps on like this. Nobody really stays in long enough to get an actual story started. Steve takes the Spider Suplex but pops up to hit a neckbreaker. Kikuchi sells the neckbreaker while hitting an enzuilariat so I can't turn on this match yet. Misawa and Taue wrestle a few seconds with Taue hitting a DYNAMIC boot to the face. Mimota and Kanemaru are in the ring and this is like a fucking Onita Pro Scramble match sans Goro Tsurumi and Viking Taniguchi. Superstar Steve sells the Mimota DDT like RVD and I'm on my last thread of hating this match. They have some finishers and some saves. Kikuchi hits some neato locomotion Germans to set up the Misawa Rolling Elbow To Steve's face to set up Kikuchi crushing Steve with a fabulous SCREWDRIVER~! Eh, I didn't hate it but I really didn't like it either. It should have been 1000 times better because I KNOW 5 of those guys can tell a story and none of them could be bothered in this match.

Yoshihiro Takayama/ Shinya Makabe/ Takashi Sugiura vs. Jun Akiyama/ Akitoshi Saito/ Makoto Hashi: 
Makabe HATES YOU! THE FANS! "FUCK YOU!" he says! Takayama hates the fans too. Hashi is pissed at Makabe being such a roided out New Japan dickhead and gets all up in Makabe's shit pre-match. Now we're talkin'. Saito is wearing his classring on a chain arouund his neck and his hair is just motherfucking perfect, the smell of his line of bitches wafts off his junk and terrifies the opposition with it's manly display. Makabe storms out of the ring and starts beating on Jun Akiyama and they brawl like fucking motherfuckers. Makabe will punch you right in the face right after killing you with a chair. Then Takayama starts beating on Akiyama and this is becoming my favorite match ever. Sugiuara and Makabe drop twenty elbow drops while Takayama holds him, and then Takayama just starts TEEING off on Akiyama's face with HELLISH kicks to the face. Makabe is a fucking AWESOME dick, flipping off Hashi and Saito and then burying his fist into Akiyama's face. Hashi comes in to make a save and Takayama actually kicks him so hard that he flies off the ground. Akiyama flies into the ringpost and into the guardrail as Hashi and Saito are bludgeoned trying to make the save and it's so fucking FIERCE that I overlook the fact that Akiyama should have bladed by now. Makabe does these fuckiing GNARLEY knees to the stomach of Akiyama that just HAD to just suck. Hashi is fucking BALLS OUT with the Flying Headbutt off the apron onto Makabe on the floor after Jun Akiyama gets in a high knee to drive Makabe to the floor. It was just fucking spectacular- a highspot that looked crazy and dangerous and also more importantly looked like it really fucking hurt Makabe for taking it. Akiyama and Takayama are just the fucking funnest wrestlers in the world right now and they fucking FEEL it in this. Saito FINALLY gets into the ring legally and Saito works as stiff as he can but doesn't reach the level of greatness that Makabe, Akiyama and Takayama reach in this. Hashi is fucking fired up in this and he also leans directly into Makabe punching him in the face and also leans directly into Takayama kicking him straight in the face and DIRECTLY in the throat. Goddam, I fucking love this match. Hashi's comeback is so superbabyface- as he fights three guys like a motherfucker, filled with hate and hopelessness. Makabe is fucking ELECTRIC as King Asshole of Fuck Mountain, punching a dead Hashi in the face and elbowing him in the teeth. Takayama gets in to get him some of Hashi's fat ass and the ref tries to save him with an 8 count but unfortunately for Hashi, he makes the count and takes a- fuck. Let me stop the tape and try to describe this. Takayama kicks him so hard in the face, I wouldn't have been surprised if all of Hashi's teeth didn't fly across the second rope into the guardrail. Hashi headbutts Takayama in the knee and makes the hot tag to Akiyama and Akiyama is fucking AWESOME trading punches with Makabe and being the surliest Ricky Steamboat that he can be. Takayama comes in and beats the fuck out of Akiyama and they take it to the floor. Hashi headbutts Makabe 30 times to knock him down and hits the diving headbutt for ONE. Hashi is fucking Japanese Jobber Jesus for just fucking THROWING his chin into Makabe's Superkick. Makabe hits the German for two and then CRUSHES Hashi with a lariat to get the win. GODDAMN IS THIS A GREAT FUCKING MATCH. GODDAMN. GOD. DAMN. HOLY FUCKING GODDAMN.

I can't even remember how shitty any of the other matches are. The main event is motherfucking GOLD. Postmatch, Makabe wants Kobashi to come into the ring and eat his ass. Goddamn. Makabe and Hashi were the Superstars. Akiyama and Takayama were the superstars. GODDAMN. 

Kamikaze vs. Jaimy Coxxx
A black cat named Mike McMahon comes out, your color commentator, claiming to be Vince McMahon’s illegitimate child. People are doing all sorts of talking but the camera is just panning the crowd, and there’s a weird chandelier hanging, the type that- if Vincent Price movies have taught me anything- will fall on top of seven fans over there, killing them. The McMahon announcer claims he’s a scout for WWE, and your first motherfuckin’ match is Kamikaze vs. Jaimy Coxxx. Kamikaze does the Japanese martial artist gimmick, looking like a former roadie for Y & T, and apparently was former partner of the one-legged wonder Zach Gowen. Coxxx looks like three hundred other indy wrestlers, complete with well-tribalized long trunks and a bad tattoo on the meaty part of his upper arm, and I bet he smells like Brut. Kamikaze is very forced with his moves, and has a beer gut, but I love him because he would hold some kid up by the ankles for a keg hit. The blasting popularity of the AMERICAN HYBRID indy style sucks because now guys who have been wrestling for twenty-seven days, like Coxxx, are doing thigh kicks and dropkicks to the knee and all that stuff that looked so awesome when it was well done when it first started happening, but is now played out like Cross Colours, but Kamikaze hits a German suplex by way of 11 Mile Road, Japan, and gets the win, and the “security” protecting Coxxx from any fans looks like he’s be holding a piece of cardboard saying, “Who’s Got My Boomers” at a Widespread Panic show. 
Andy Muscat vs. Frankie The Face
As Andy Muscat makes his way to the ring ins ome stylish overalls, the McMahon guy talks about Vince’s affair with an African-American woman in Detroit in the ‘70s, and Frankie the Face is the opposition, wearing anarchy signs on his trunks. Oh, Muscat’s stylish overalls are a snow suit. Face gets clotheslined out the ring after being dominated early, and he stalls before doing the old eye rake takeover once back in the ring. (BEER TWO) I kinda enjoy this Frankie the Face – he doesn’t suck at the wrestling. Muscat traumatizes Frankie with a spike DDT upon his crowd favorite comeback, and your crowd is not very hot right now. Frankie hits some violent European uppercuts and hits a stand-up powerbomb for the victory. 

Gutter/CK3 vs. Alex Shelley/Gavin Starr vs. Truth Martini/Anthony Rivera
Next match is a three-way dance for the IWR tag titles. Gutter & CK3 are called Rags to Riches, and CK3 is a wigga kid with two manager/assistants in full indy Cena mode. CK3’s partner, Gutter, comes out, and is ragging on his own partner, ahhh, because he cost them the titles last month. “I know I can be a hard pill to swallow sometimes,” CK3 is awesome, wearing furry bunny ears as a gimmick. They agree to team, and god, this is taking forever. Alex Shelley & Gavin Starr are team two, playing the rolls of fan favorite. And the champs are The Threat – Anthony Rivera & Truth Martini, accompanied by Bubba McKenzie. These guys all have shitty in a good way tattoos and Rivera & Martini have long hair, and this motley assortment of tag teams excites me as it’s bound to produce some killer nonsense of the athletic variety. Martini has giant faces tattooed on both arms, and wait, this isn’t an elimination match, but a 3-way threat. The pack of guys does a nice second guy throws crab on first guy, then third guy slaps on abdominal stretch to second, then fourth guy does full nelson on third, and fifth hit sleeperhold on fourth, and then Gutter just sort of smashes up against the whole pile boot first. Gavin Starr is so tiny- yet he and Truth Martini have a furious segment. CK3 tags in, catches Martini in a bearhug, twists his head down for a weird chinlock/ bearhug lucha-looking thing, bounces his way towards a corner, to hit an over the head suplex from that position; very good shit. And then Starr and Shelley hit some dandy tag beatings of the Truth as well, and it’s odd your heel tag team would have their more vocal half being Ricky Morton for ten minutes, but I can love on it. And Rivera- upon being tagged in- busts a sleeperhold on Starr, and when Starr breaks free, they bounce the ropes, and again with the sleeperhold. I love that bit. Martini and Rivera start doing the old school abdominal stretch on the face where the outside guy pulls the hand of the inside guy while the ref is distracted, and that’s motherfuckin’ approved by me. Shelley and Starr play fair with a turnabout of the same cheatery, and Martini gets gutterslammed, but always kicks out because he is Ricky Morton and Dennis Condrey and Perry Saturn’s tattoos all rolled up into one. Martini and Rivera are fuckin’ awesome- with hand clap tags and actual team moves that don’t involve goofy submission pairings, just simple team goodness. CK3 chops the fuck out of Martini, who seems to be the resident abuse-taker, then Gutter comes out to hold him for a CK3 clothesline, which of course didn’t work. CK3 finally turns on Gutter in the middle of the match and his manager, Danny Hoch, cheers. Shelley and Starr start going at it on Martini and this already makes me wish that it had just been them and the bullshit CK3/Gutter sports entertainment turnings. Bubba McKenzie gets involved with an old ankle grab, and Martini beats on the tripped up Shelley ringside, while Rivera gets a dastardly pin on Gavin Starr in the ring, and this Threat is pretty fuckin’ awesome. From my grainy viewpoint, I think Martini has Johnny Cash and Black Bart’s faces tattooed on his arms. (BEER THREE) Gutter and CK3 have fought back through the curtains, into camera view, and as soon as Gutter takes the advantage, Danny Hoch nails Gutter with what looks like a piece of gutter, and we get heelery that open mic complains about shitty Eminem music- which gets the cheap heat since, according to my inside Detroit source, this place is within bus-riding distance of Eminem’s mythical trailer park of old.

Klunk The Clown/Bahdunkadunk vs. Gigolo Mark Gjoka/Miss Natasha
If Doink the Clown of wrestling fame was Bozo inspired, then this Klunk the Klown is wrestling’s Shakes the Clown parallel. Gigolo Mark Gjoka is Klunk’s opponent and Miss Natasha is his valet- looking good in her leather pants, but Klunk’s Bahdunkadunk ain’t bad in her Catholic schoolgirl’s skirt, and when they have a pre-match catfight, she gives the wonderful wonderful panty shots that make women’s tennis watchable. Klunk is wearing the Doink mask, which has a chin strap, but with no face paint in what is THE MOTHERFUCKIN’ STYLE! Klunk is wearing a wifebeater too, plus bad tattoos, and all these shitty tattoos and long hair in IWR so far, not to mention hot chicks, coming from Detroit, just like Insane Clown Posse and Ted Nugent and Alice Cooper and the Stooges, man, there’s mad white trash culture, a lot of it with face paint, coming out of Motown. Klunk wins and Klunk is awesome, but not as much as Natasha’s giant leather pantsed ass. 

Truth Martini vs. Primetime Tommy Johnson
Wow, this is not the indy commentators’ schedule sheet, but Bubba McKenzie is gonna invoke his “49% ownership” and WE GET A BONUS TRUTH MARTINI MATCH, against Primetime Tommy Johnson, a stocky black man with lots of pep. (BEER FOUR) Truth goes right to the double knife’s edged chops, and Tommy Johnson is built like Rufus R. Jones at about age 38 but yet he’s immediately visibly agile as a motherfucker, an anti-Nana almost. Martini hits an eyerake, then sweeps the legs for a pinfall attempt with the foots on the ropes, but ref catches him, and Martini mule kicks Johnson in the Johnson and does the Negro Casas roll-up for the victory. Fuck Steve Corino’s way-too-talkative ass – Truth Martini is the new King of the Old School. 

Jumpin’ Jimmy Jacobs vs. Chris Sabin vs. Elvis Elliott vs. Amazing N8
We’ve got a four-way elimination match, with “Jumpin’” Jimmy Jacobs, not “Barbaric Berserker” Jimmy Jacobs, out in his furry boots to wrassle. Chris Sabin is next, the young super-hyped lightweight sensation who has gotten more pussy, I can guarantee, in the last year than in all the rest of his life. Elvis Elliott has the greatest robe in all of indy wrestling history, plus “Paint It Black” as entrance music, and I thoroughly drink to the back-first emergence from the curtains to show motherfuckers just how sweet your robe is. Amazing N8 Mattson is your IWR King of the Indys champion, and Elvis Elliott has a goatee that screams, “Dude, no one can fuck with Slayer.” Match starts with four-way showdowns with everyone lurking in the ring, and it apparently is gonna stay that way, as N8 and Sabin stumble into a ringside chopfest while Jacobs and Elliott do the in-ring thing. I wonder if Jimmy Jacobs has a hirsute fetish? Elliott hits a top-rope superplex on Jacobs, then N8 does a frogsplash with the legs kick legsplash on Elliott. Sabin interjects, and hits a double underhook piledriver on Elliott for the first elimination. Sabin and Jacobs have a beautiful indy-tastic super-counter of teased destruction piece, culminating in Jacobs running up the ropes with Sabin’s head and nailing a blockbuster. N8 kicks Jacobs out the ring, and hits a swinging neckbreaker hooking the leg on impact for the pin. Jacobs and N8 are all that’s left, and Mattson starts working on the knee of Jacobs, who- as a “Jumpin’” billed guy- will surely be disadvantaged by such maneuvering. N8 is ruling, but Jacobs pulls his hand back to compress two amazing vertebrates into the barbaric knee, then yells “HUSS! HUSS!” and hits the mini-furry boot of finality for the victory, and Jimmy Jacobs holds a belt claiming him as King of the Indys, even though Reckless Youth had no doing in the matter.

The Deathdealer vs. Homeless Jimmy
This is an awesome tape in that it’s three weeks of TV (half hour shows), but it’s all one night. The Deathdealer is actually murdering the ring announcer with chokes via kendo stick. Deathdealer has the mic and is asking if anyone else wants to come in while the announcer taps like a bitch in submission. Now some old guy who is some guy named Brimstone’s father, gets beat up. This is sort of ridiculous, but it’d be great on public access TV, as long as it didn’t pre-empt the alcoholic street preacher who carries the giant cross on his back down actual city streets while talking about the impending Armageddon proven by the existence of the flawless red heifer, which was genetically engineered by the Jews to speed up the rebuilding of the Temple on the Mount, where the anti-Christ will expose himself, purported to be George W. Bush himself, and yet with all this anti-semitic hatred tag teaming with Dubya, the drunken street preacher condemns brown terrorists as misguided angels lost in a world of false religion. I don’t get it anymore, and I watch these guys more closely, because I’m not sure who I’m supposed to be paranoid of. It was easier when the CIA and the Bush monarchy were two tentacles of the New World Order, not opposing factions leaking on each other and doing jobs in the media. (BEER FIVE) And it’s not like a Yankees/Red Sox game, where instead of choosing sides, I can root for earthquakes- because the only political earthquake within reason that could destroy the CIA and the White House would be more radical Islamic terrorism, and I can’t root for those dude. I do have to admit, it’s hard to disapprove of some of Saddam’s fedayeen that were getting mangled early on in the so-called war, because dudes who have rusty pick-up trucks with anti-aircraft guns mounted to the bed and concealed by a flea market tarp, well, they’ve got some of the same ideas in weaponry I’ve often had. You have to work within your budget. But fuck Islamic fundamentalism, and fuck all fundamentalism of religion, holding onto the words in spite of the spirit. I guess in a perfect World, according to my thinking, guys like this here Deathdealer, and the Necro Butchers and King Diamond fans and lost metalhead stoner types of America would have anti-aircraft guns on our pick-up trucks, mine would probably by the Plymouth Arrow my dad conned my mom out of and he hand-painted an American flag on the hood of it, even though he also wanted to give me assault rifles after 9/11 because of this conversation he had with a former CIA agent who got my dad to fix his lawn mower and told him some stuff that my dad would never tell me because he didn’t trust saying it over the phone; and we and our anti-aircraft guns on pick-ups would be working towards what that wizard with eyes of fire Uriah Heep preached about wanted – no pain and people being free, not binded by law or job or debt or neighbors’ thoughts or seeing this week’s “can’t miss” movie before anybody else we talk to does. But also in a perfect World, according to my thinking, Sabu would get signed to the WWE, then freak out on TV and throw a fireball in Vince McMahon’s face and stab Stephanie’s hideous fake bosoms with that gutter nail until they went to commercial. Ain’t none of that happening. The blind lead the blind, and those with sight hate to talk, and it’s not a human race it’s a rat race. The other day, I was spinning some bullshit on the Numarks, and I dug into get a Bob Marley record out to blend with Leon Russell’s “Out in the Woods”, but inside the Marley sleeve was a picture. I thought maybe this was my wife’s record, so I pulled out the pic, and it was just some white people, dressed-up, sitting on a couch in what I’d pop culture carbon date to be 1981. The weird thing about the pic was in the background on the wall was a velvet painting of a matador fighting a bull, almost identical to one on the wall in the room I was actually in at that moment because I’m a velvet painting mark, just reverse imaged. My wife didn’t know what the picture was about either, so I guess it was randomly in there all that time while we had this LP from a used record store. My gay buddy Scan gave me a picture he found while working as a dormitory cleaner one time of some rock-n-roll fratboy type, standing at the top of some stairs, butt fuckin’ naked, pointing and doing some sort of loud singing at the camera holder. I tucked it in a record I sold one time, so somebody has that right now and will find it and be even more confused than I was with the velvet matador coincidence. Anyways, me and the Deathdealer aren’t gonna drive a Plymouth Arrow with a grim reaper on the hood and blow up Jerry Falwell’s church one Sunday because Homeless Jimmy, former XPW SUPERSTAR, comes out to challenge The Deathdealer to a hardcore match. Other than Homeless Jimmy’s raggedy flannel shirt, most of his clothes look pretty clean and cared for. (BEER SIX) Wait, it’s also a loser-leaves-town match, which would seem to fit Homeless Jimmy’s character better. He’ll probably end up in Richmond, standing outside the Texaco on Belvidere Street, trying to get my change to fill the empty anti-freeze jug he has with gas since his wife has brain cancer. Weird, Deathdealer flips over into an ankle lock and is moving around on some submission stuff on Jimmy, which you usually don’t see from guys dressed like goths carrying a Sandman stick. Homeless Jimmy really does suck. Jimmy spends half an hour setting up a bingo table, and goes for a hurricanrana from the top, but guess what? Deathdealer turns it into a powerbomb for the duke. Brimstone, I now see, is some former wrestler in a wheelchair ringside, and Deathdealer beats him with a stick, and it takes a special man to sit in a wheelchair when not fucked up enough to sit in one. I once lived in a place where the computer, the first computer I ever used where I read the rec.wrestling.pro.dumbass posts about the Public Enemy putting tables on fire and murdering Terry Funk in Philadelphia, that place’s computer chair was a wheelchair. In fact, it was the best chair in the room. We found another and used to have wheelchair races, in teams, with one person pushing another person. There’d always be people who’d find that fucked up and would refuse to sit in it, so props to Brimstone for having a metal gimmick and sitting in a wheelchair all night to further his gimmick. It’d be even more proper if he was actually paralyzed. I know a dude back home who’s paralyzed and he once told me a story about watching his friend get in a fight at a party and he, the paralyzed, had to hold back dude’s pit bull who always attacked anybody threatening his owner, all while the paralyzed guy was tripping and blood was splattered and it was crazy. I was lucky enough in my experiences to never crossbreed violence with hallucinations. (BEER SEVEN) Deathdealer is so crazy that he even hits the Widespread Panic ticket-wanting security guy. As Jimmy leaves the ring, Deathdealer is back, and they high five and hug like drunks at a party for one of them going to jail, and I enjoy that far more than the standard handshake. 

Stevie Lee vs. Bryer Wellington
Whoa – there’s the actual fifty-fifty raffle going on in the ring. But nobody claimed the ticket, and we move to our main event, which is awesome, because the crowd just got ripped off on a raffle, but won’t complain, because it’s in memory of Yukon Braxton. Is that the guy who lost his ear to Fritz Von Erich’s iron claw? Stevie Lee has long hair, psychedelic crosses on his trunks, and brings out Sabin, Starr, and Shelley to watch his back. The IWR champ is Bryer Wellington, part of Bubba McKenzie’s army of chicanery. I enjoy this Wellington – he’s like a midwestern Rocky Reynolds, and the two would make a great tag team if tag teams still existed. Wrestling completely abandoned tag teams, because Vince McMahon for a long while would rather have put his tag titles on makeshift teams of guys he was probably promising singles title to, instead of bonafide tag teams. Nobody gives a shit about tag teams anymore, and because of that, no tag teams give a shit to not suck. Instead of Jimmy Jacobs and Alex Shelley being the most god-destroying blazing tag team on the indy scene today, they’re stoked to have a match with each other signed to an indy show. Same for Alex Arion and Maverick Wild, or Chris Hero and CM Punk. Why can’t guys work fuckin’ awesome together as a pair together anymore? Fuck this new-fangled wrestling, with it’s short-sighted blinders. (BEER EIGHT) Lee hits a DDT for a two-count, then a devastating piledriver, and the rest of Bubba McKenzie’s crew comes out to brawl ringside while McKenzie hits Lee with a roll of quarters. Wellington goes for the cheating pin, but the ref is still bumped out, and Stevie Lee gives us our first blood of the night, in our main event- how it should maybe be in small-time indy shows. Bryer Wellington is not bad at all, hitting a standing moonsault, and with his long hair and tattoos; he should try and get a jobbing gig at NWA TNA while Antonio Pena is involved, because Wellington could go to Mexico and be a MOTHERFUCKIN’ KING FOR YEARS! Latin Lover is starring a soap opera anyways, so they need a new top heel. But then Stevie Lee hits a wicked-ass piledriver on Wellington on a chair, and he wins the title. Face bleeds in main event for first blood of the night, and also wins the main title belt off the evil menagerie of bastards who were running shit coming in…perfect. Wait, they don’t know where the belt is, and apparently the bad guys stole the belt while nobody was looking. And your ref shrugs his shoulders and goes home, listening to Weezer. This tape, instead of ending, just freeze frames on a shot of the crowd turning away from an empty ring, and I’ve actually watched it on fast forward for two minutes now. You can’t cut something like that off, because there’s always the promise of undiscovered gems at the end, like maybe Onita getting blown up or maybe the Alan Funk in Finland match or something weird and fucked-up that nobody would admit to putting on a tape but stuff it at the end to try and be clever, like me putting that naked dude picture in a record I sold. And I’ve got a fifth of a beer left.

EPILOGUE
FIRST STAR OF THE TAPE: Truth Martini. This motherfucker has the L.A. Guns tattoos, the old school Southern tag team tape watching moveset, and shitty long hair to boot. I ain’t never been to Michigan, but I know Sabu and Van Dam came from there, and I bought the issue of High Times with them in that little sub-zine in the middle, and to paraphrase a dude I got drunk with in the Charleston, West Virginia, Greyhound station, I can tell by looking at him he likes to party. Martini rules, motherfuckers.

SECOND STAR OF THE TAPE: Elvis Elliott. I saw very little of him as he was eliminated quickly in his match, but his robe is the nicest ring entrace accoutrement I’ve ever seen in indy wrestling, and he was wicked as shit for the minute and half he was in the four-way. God bless him.

THIRD STAR OF THE TAPE: Bryer Wellington. He’s devious and championship-like and your small-time main eventer of note. And that’s perfect. If I could fill a barn in Fluvanna County full of people to watch a wrestling ring ruled by guys like him and Hotstuff Hernandez and the barely-known like who aren’t bad at all at what they do for almost nothing, well, I’d do it, and rip off the wrestlers, but make up for it with a really awesome speech in the locker room beforehand about what we’re all working towards, in the big pictures. When big pictures dominate the attention span, little hands digging deeper into other people’s pockets aren’t so noticeable.
 

Bret Hart/ Davey Boy Smith vs Bob Backlund/ Owen Hart - World Wrestling Federation - 1994ish
(by DEAN RASMUSSEN])
Doug Corti is my boy. I send him wrestling and he sends me Red Green episodes. What we also send each is whatever weird/ cool/ funny incidental stuff we can work into an intercontinental package. I sent him HTS Baltimore Stallions games from 1993. He sent me the Hamilton Tigercats "ARGOS SUCK!" bumpersticker. He also sent me the BEST OF RIOT which I will review something from in the next DVDVR that is coming out next week, hopefully before I run out of Vaseline Intensive Care and raw ground beef because what I like to do put on my green arrow outf... uh.... well.... sometimes I share.... too much. Anyhoos, in the last batch of Red Green the beloved Mr Corti sent me, at the end, is THIS match. I talked to Schneider earlier tonight and he is thinking that this is 1994 and I'm tending to be agreeing. Bret is feuding with Backlund and Owen- Owen who is fucking AWESOME as evil second son want and wishing evil to befall the fair-haired favored first born! Bulldog has all of his knees because he could still work and is on the way up before it quickly went straight to hell soon after his super hot run with Cornette managing him. (I'm listening to "Fireworks" by the Tragically Hip to get in full blown Calgary Stampede Wrestling- Gerry Champagne Morrow Abdominally Stretches Gama Singh mode.) Bret and DBS have sequined and airbrushed jackets that I would wear everyday of my life- including August in Richmond when the humidity feels like cianide in your lungs and you no longer want to live. DBS and Owen start and Owen starts hammering DBS Johnny Valentine-like stiff shots across the nape of the neck. They run the ropes and DBS hits a dozen Steamboat deep armdrags after running the ropes like Johnny Saint in 1978- thus adding weight to the suspicion that Davey Boy hadn't ruined his knee yet. Backlund tags in and eats DBS offense like a champ- bumping big for the armdrags and bumping big for the Vertical Suplex- as well as doing a sweet sell of the backslide with legs a-flailing. Bret tags in and he is completely bad ass, beating the shit out of Owen and Backlund- crushing Owen's testicles and hitting a fabulously stiff True North Western Lariat. Backlund is Arnlike in his gigantic selling of a punch to the stomach and Benoit-esque in his Full Body Utilization for every move. Owen saves Backlund and they start beating the hell out of Bret and this goes COMPLETELY and PERFECTLY Southern tag. Owen breaks Bret's knee in the ring, Bob breaks Bret's knee when the ref ain't looking. Backlund rules. He ruled in BattlARTS. He ruled against Patera and Masked Superstar. He rules here. Bret rolls up Owen in a small package to comeback but Owen beats him down immediately to cut him off. Bob has the SWEET elbow across the nose in the chinlock and Owen comes off the second rope across the knee in the oldest of Old School methods of Heel Legbreaking. Pussies go up top, evil fuckers drop it from the second rope. Bret Hart is a better wrestler than Ricky Morton so he is better than Ricky Morton assuming the Ricky Morton roll in this match. Owen does the Malenko/ Yamada Argentinian Backbreaker On The Knee and Davey Boy charges the ring to make the save. False tags and double teams behind the refs back further enrage DBS AND HE ISN'T HELPING HIS CAUSE! as he won't get out of the ring with the ref berating him! Owen with the Figure Four and Bret sells it like a motherfucking Figure Four Leglock Submission. Bret rolls it over but Backlund is the rat bastard who pulls him back over and Owen stays on offense in the hold. Bret rolls it over again and Backlund comes in and kicks him in the head. Golly. Owen and Backlund are the great lost tagteam of the WWF. Bob tags in and stomps the back of the thigh and twists Bret's ankle in impossible directions. Owen goes up top and drops a forearm across Bret's ankle (because evil fuckers don't care if you call them pussies if they go up top). Owen procures the front chancellory and Bret fights for the corner. Bob comes and drags them back to the center. Bob holds Bret and Owen dropkicks Bret in the stomach- but BRET MOVES! crushing Bob like some kind of psychotic, spastic insect. DBS gets the crowd pumped up and Bret makes the tag. DBS with the Gorilla Slam after not tearing his bicept on Owen and then Owen eats the turnbuckle fullspeed into the sternum like a motherfucking KING. Bob and Owen partake of the Double Noggin Knocker and DBS gets the roll-up for two. Bret drags Bob onto the floor and procures the Sharpshooter while DBS wins with a powerslam. Bret refuses to release Backlund. DBS finally talks him out of murdering old man Backlund with a wrestling hold and- JESUS- do I miss Bret and Owen Hart wrestling. Backlund ruled.

TED DIBIASE vs. CHICK DONOVAN- Georgia, 12/80 or 1/81, looked to be pretty close to Donovan's debut with the promotion
(by ANTHONY GANCARSKI)
A ten minute match, with Donovan getting "pretty boy" heat early on and dominating the bulk of the offense throughout. A highlight: Donovan's falling headbutt from the top rope, which missed, but made Dynamite and Benoit occur to me. It looked like Donovan was being set up as a JTTS with upside, at the very least, so I wonder why his sole competitive match of his WTCG/WTBS tenure was his debut with DiBiase. Strong work here, but the backstory is more interesting than the match itself, which was just the old, southern style match the Superstation once specialized in. [Fans of Donovan may want to check out the road report TomK and I did for Columbus Championship Wrestling -- 9/2001]

EAGLE PRO CRUISERWEIGHT TOURNEY 7/23/2000
Semi-Final: GENTARO (WYF) vs Asian Cougar (Free Agent)
(by DEAN RASMUSSEN)
GENTARO lifted his head up and the sound of the stereo and the cool night air brought a moment of clarity. He was still drunk from the 15 Coors he had just drank and he was clear and drunk speaking out of his fucking head. "I am the SLEEPER. And... and .... WHO will... unleash me. I'm like a Sentinel. Like a Sentinel from the X-men but all the X-men don't interest me anymore. I am Zaxx the Destroyer and for some reason I never actually gave a shit about destroying Thanos. " 
No heavenly choirs for me and not for you 

"I must wrestle Asian Cougar but I can't even think about that now. I'm living a fucking Tom Waits song that I don't even remember the fucking words to. The one where he's in his 40s and being held by his mother as he is collapsing completely- as the weight of the world crushes him. I dunno, how does it go... 'I'm ashamed of the things I've done and I'm ashamed of what I've become'. I dunno. some shit like that. Fuck, I need a clean break from all this."
I'm not sure what happiness is but I look in your eyes and I know that it isn't there.

"I have no earthly idea if what I'm telling myself is the truth and what the actual civilized world is what is happening to me. I should dream about... dream about... this kind of freedom. BUT FUCK THAT! The real world! What the fuck is the real world supposed to be? All the shit that's taking me down, everybody who I have failed and disappointed... would they be there for me? How could I make them happy? I was never there for them, so I'll never know how that deal would have actually worked. If I were a MAN... If I were a MAN... If I were a man I wouldn't have these fears of everyone I know laughing about me behind my back. I would be bad ass and the KING OF THE CITY. Instead, I'm a pussy and spineless motherfucking shithead who can't even be a decent enough Hamlet wannabe."

It's just a fairy tale and I don't believe in magic anymore, Jeanne.
"But after this first wave passes over me and I get over it, everything is fine. It's like that dream you have.... you're 28 years old in your real life but in your dream you've gone in to take the exam for a Sociology class you had when you are 19. Or you are trying to remember the combination lock to your high school locker. THEN GOD HIS MOTHERFUCKING SELF talks to you in your dream. That motherfucker says, 'You are 28. That was all bullshit that you worried about when you were 17 or 19. It means nothing to you now.' And that's this feeling." 

right on the two inch tape The Abstract poet incognito, runsss the cape Not the best not the worst and occasionally I curse to get my point across, so bust, the floss As I go in betweeen, the grit and the dirt 
GENTARO's clarity moves into ultimate clarity or possibly ultimate delusion. "I think about trying all that I tried and how I tried to not whore myself for fat motherfuckers who I hate to look at me as a viable member of society. I think about how I have been generous and loving and truly a man when I had to be. That I can honestly say to myself, I have done this. It's almost like I have given my life so that many others may live- but that's what you are SUPPOSED to do. It's the only redeeming value of living. Yeah, I'm allright. Asian Cougar will pin me, but that's fine."