HIYA! Remember us. This is the stuff we have had floating around for the 19 years it has been since the last issue. You might of read some of this before. You will just have to find the new stuff. Babies have been born. Hearts have been broken. Dreams have been crushed. We are back.

Geez, I have no idea what this wrestling is anymore. Fuck if any of this will make sense or being even close to humorous. Y’all should be used to that now though. It’s probably for the best that the first tape I found was part this hodge podge of wrestling I once got from Alfredo (HEY! He still has tapes so at least that hasn’t changed). I already reviewed the Hamada UWF that was on this tape which is disappointing so why not review some baffling New Japan that Meltzer carried on about for lines and lines and lines. Oh yeah, joint cards bring the funny.

The show starts with Ricky Chosu ambling out in his flip-flops to say a few words. I think I officially snorted milk out my nose when the production crew decided that it needed the close up of said flip-flops.

Oh and I am guessing that since I believe this is the commercial tape version expect clippage galore.

DEAN MALENKO/SHINJIRO OTANI/SATOSHI KOJIMA vs. EL SAMURAI/TATSUHITO TAKAIWA/YUJI NAGATA
Yup – this is joined in progress with Malenko trying to make El Samurai tap and since this is New Japan juniors, five seconds later Samurai is piledriving Otani for no particular reason. Since this is 1993, Takaiwa has to full set of hair and you wonder, well you are nowhere near the creepy dick you will become. Yuji Nagata is light about 50 pounds and the kiddie porn mustache. Oh and since Breathe Right hasn’t been invented, Kojima looks... odd. Anyway, when the match is joined, the faces are getting worked over, mainly Takaiwa with some Samurai tossed in just to mix it up a little. Nagata gets pretty much all the offense for his side, throwing about two kicks and a nice overhead suplex. Kojima never sees any action so he might as well been off macking on the ladies. Takaiwa transitions to offense – no, no, no, not by kicking someone in the jimmy – but by rolling through on a cross body block by Malenko. Sure why not. Katie bars the door or something to clear the ring of everyone but Malenko and Takaiwa. Takaiwa fails to get the win with a Russian Legsweep and why should he since I don’t think Takaiwa translates to Armstrong. Malenko blocks a missile dropkick, applies the Cloverleaf and we call it a day.

BRUTUS BEEFCAKE vs. BLACK CAT
Oh sweet Jesus. This might as well be a training match. Poor poor Black Cat. If I was more awake, I would seriously question if Beefcake was the worst wrestler that Black Cat has ever been within 5 feet of. Brutus has the ridiculous mask to protect his face. Even more absurd is that the match plays out like a glorified squash, complete with Beefcake winning somehow with a thumb to the pectoral. Oh yeah – Hogan was pulling strings all over this card. One only wonders how much was actually clipped. (The answer, of course, is not enough.) I guess the parasailing accident bought Beefcake a free pass from the “wrestling” heart attack.

TIGER MASK III (KOJI KANEMOTO) vs. BLACK TIGER (EDDY GUERRERO)
Yup, these two wrestling under masks in their tinier days. The Black Tiger outfit includes the red tassels from the wrists so you can see where Dean’s Eddy obsession started from. The match is right there in the middle of all wrestling. It’s one of those matches that people will fawn all over since its Koji Kanemoto and Eddy Guerrero. It is rather disappointing, if you forget to remember that neither of these two incarnations of these wrestlers is really what you want to see from their career. Give me Kanemoto vs. Guerrero from like three years ago and then we are talking. (Adjust for the appropriate time period since I am too lazy to do any sorts of research and since y’all suck anyway.) What can you do? III weirdly sells a lot – when he is deciding to sell. There is a lot of listless selling of submission moves – from both men. BT is the aggressor for a giant chunk of the match and at least has some fire behind his strikes. TMIII tends to wait around until it’s his time to do a pescado. Hey, can’t believe I wrote those words about Koji Kanemoto. Nope, can’t at all. That’s what this is. Its basically you standard Indy spotfest of the early 90s and what the annoying Indy spotfests of the 00s evolved from. It’s shocking that there was no mirror sequence or two count rollups. BT finish wins with a tornado DDT out of nowhere. Yup.

JURASSIC POWERS (SCOTT NORTON/HERCULES HERNANDEZ) vs. AKIRA NOGAMI/TAKASHI IIZUKA
JURASSIC POWERS~!!!! Ooof.... Hercules is probably at his peak gassedness right in this very match. How his heart didn’t explode while no selling shoulder blocks is baffling. Speaking of “wrestling” heart attacks; how the fuck has Scott Norton not had one yet? If you squint enough this might as well be The Rockers vs. Twin Towers. Norton and Herc no sell everything that isn’t some sort of double team that involves a dropkick off the top rope. Nogami and Iizuka pinball themselves enough to prevent you, the viewer, from vomiting on your shoes. Since the Jurassic Powers are the IWPG tag champs, you, the viewer, do have to suffer through every second of the match. Laugh at the most homoerotic sunset flip ever as the little Hercules is stared at lovingly by Iizuka for far longer than anyone should. 

MASAHIRO CHONO/MANABU NAKANISHI vs. RICKY FUYUKI/TATSUMI KITAHARA
AWESOME!!!! Kodo Fuyuki has potentially the greatest jeri curl perm in the history of guys with ridiculous hairdos in wrestling. He even grinds his junk for the ladies like the world’s portliest Japanese Elvis ever. Of course, Kitahara’s weird pink and black exploded lava lamp pants are right now in the Win category for outfit of the evening. On the other side of the ring, we have the non-surly Masa Chono and the amazingly young Manabu Nakanishi. Nakanishi has the early developed body and lush hair that I can assure you lead to many a night where he would arrive at apartments carrying a boom box, looking for the ladies who had “called the cops”

Poor Nakanishi is brutally worked over as neither Fuyuki nor Kitahara are holding anything back. Hey, this young Manabu is fun. I even dig him remember how to try and block a cross armbreaker. The rest of the time, it’s him remembering “Fuck, getting hit straight in the nose hurts.” Chono wanders in every once in a while with a look of disgust. I believe the thought is “Geez, why do I have to save your ass again?” 

The match falls apart – which was probably to be expected. I got a mafia kick and Nakanishi got a two count to the delight of the crowd. Then Fuyuki delivers some embarrassing lariats and the worst cradle belly-to-back suplex with a bridge suplex in the history of guys doing Ricky Fuyuki tributes. Nevertheless, it ends the match. There ya go.
 

12-PACK OF STUFF PEOPLE HAVE SENT ME TO REVIEW
(by RAVEN MACK)
(BEER ONE) Gangsta-ass old school new cans of Old Mil, kicking it icebox cold. Mad tapes that peeps have popped into my PO box over the months, peppering my life with those joyful adrenaline bursts when I peer in that tiny window in the tiny post office of my tiny town and there’s that yellow cardstock slip saying, “MOTHERFUCKER, SOMETHING WAS TOO BIG FOR YOUR CHEAP-ASS POST OFFICE BOX!” And I go into the lobby past the asbestos warning, and the nice lady who drives one of those annoying yellow VW beetles says hello and goes back without even asking for my box number, and comes back with some haphazardly packaged shit some other wrestling nerd has sent my ass, plus she’s got a Tootsie Roll for me to take home to the kid, and the guy behind me hunts with a mullet, and never mullethunts, though he doesn’t call it a mullet, he just calls it his hair, steps forward to buy money orders for bills. I go out, get in my shitty Tercel, and ride on 13s with the fake chrome wheel covers, burning oil like a Spyhunter smoke screen heading up the hill before the laundromat at the edge of town, to get back to the compound, and see what the Gods of Wrestling have blessed me with. Tonight, me and the Old Mil are gonna point our eyeballs at some of this small-scale independent American style sacrament to those Gods of Wrestling. The WWE is a Presidential Election, while this indy shit is a Tuesday night county Board of Supervisors meeting where fat black women get up and yell about things and petite white ladies of the churching kind read from a handwritten prepared statement about things and that’s government in action, for real, put your hands on it and sink your voice into it, and I’m a grass roots type of man.

Rev-Pro Rudos Dojo Battle Royal – 11/29/03
Most of these cats are already in the ring, but The Human Tornado’s entrance is highlighted, and for good goddamn reason. You take some skinny black dude with the confident swagger of a man who gets mad pussy, slap him in a suit that would make J.J. Evans proud, and he’s got his nickname straight from a Rudy Ray Moore routine. Bell rings and we’ve got ten green dudes, with all the standard indy gimmicks (gangsta, big white guy, masked men, scrawny white dude wearing long trunks with geometric designs down the sides). It’s a battle royal, so obviously, I can’t tell shit right now and have to wait for this to settle down a bit. They do a weird connector thing where one guy grabs another in a hold, like they do in three-way dances usually, but all nine guys hook up one by one in a daisy chain of simulated combat, and then the gangsta dude splashes the middle guy causing everyone to crumble like dominos. They throw this one guy in the corner, and everyone takes a turn running across the room and hitting a move, except the next to last guy moves, so they all go back into the other corner against the Biggie Biggz, who never got his turn. One guy gets another in a suplex, but it’s blocked, so another dude lines up for the two-on-one suplex, still blocked, and this goes on back and forth till six of the seven remaining guys are opposed and interlocked, and The Human Tornado comes in, exuding charm, and the four flip the three. We’re down to four, and they get to have a tag match next month, but, as the announcer says, “Tonight…there must be a winner!” The Human Tornado fuckin’ rules it with a springboard dropkick upside Charles Mercury’s mush as he sits on Ronin’s shoulders. HT gets pinned by Johnny Paradise though, ruining my hopes for a happy ending to this. (BEER TWO) Mercury, a little guy, wraps an arm of Paradise, a big guy, and hits a nice belly-to-belly over-the-top suplex into a bridge for a pin attempt broken up by Ronin’s foot to Mercury’s ribcage. Mercury is in the aforementioned Lance Storm in ECW geometric long trunks, and is a non-descript little white dude, like most indy wrestlers, but he’s not bad. Of course, Ronin is way better because he has a mask and looks like an evil samurai ninja. It’s Ronin and Johnny Paradise in the end, forearming each other center ring. Ronin blows a lucha move, but saves face quickly by switching to rolling up the big man into a leghold, saving anyone from chanting “You Fucked Up!” Ronin goes for a lucha roll-up, but Johnny Paradise just sits down, acting like he’s Super Porky, and that is that. It was a battle royal, and The Human Tornado is great.

New Jack vs. T. Rantula - IWC television ‘04
My man Shirley Doe sent me some IWC TV goodness from earlier this year, and even if big Shirley is straight edge, he’s got the proper sense to understand you ain’t motherfuckin’ metal if you don’t have longhair. This IWC telly stuff is in a community college gym, and all the lights are on, and that disturbs me as I’m of the belief that the wrestling card is a theatrical performance of good vs. evil where even if evil cheats to win in the main event, good triumphs in the least by being true to self, and standing center ring to the cheers of the properly preached-to choir, and all this is done with the house lights down low and the ring well-lit, and then the house lights come back, psychologically reaffirming good’s victory over bad with light filling the darkness. New Jack is in the ring, cursing and such, and calls in Norm Conners, IWC’s resident relatively well-dressed weasel manager guy. Another fine New Jack promo, even though the mic is hard to understand, but I hear him talk about being hassled by security at the airport and punching people. T. Rantula hits the ring to save Norm Conners, and his leather jacket has a patch of the American flag with a peace sign over it. T. Rantula looks like the type of guy who’d take a young wrestler out after the show, and tell him he could either do coke, weed, and whatever else all night, or get a blowjob from the Amazonian skank stripper who’s done porn. A good student would choose both. T. Rantula looks like Jos LeDuc and acts like Rod Price, which meshes well with New Jack’s desire to stick a fork in a motherfucker’s head. New Jack’s bloody as fuck, and T. throws him into the padding on the wall (this is a basketball gym), leaving a nice red mark the size of a cantaloupe; wrestling is so fuckin’ awesome. More wrestling matches should involve small scythes on chains. Jack chokes out T. Rantula, and then chains him down to a table by a door, and of course New Jack climbs up to the top of some entranceway, carefully makes his way across the top along the framing, and dives and gets the pin. New Jack’s old theme music from ECW is way fuckin’ old and annoying; he should start coming out to Trick Daddy’s “I’m a Thug” and pump that instrumental for twelve minutes while he bludgeons people and pushes little kids out of his way.

Cutthroat Josh Cody vs. Eric Darkstorm – Southern States Wrestling – 01/30/04
Josh Cody ripped me off for twenty bucks on some tapes last year, so he’s got that going against him. But he’s also got some whore named Alexis seconding him, so I can only hope he used my twenty dollar bill to snort long lines of meth off the end table in a cheap hotel room in Myrtle Beach one weekend. (BEER THREE) From Roanoke to Macon, Myrtle Beach is the Southern Man’s destination of decadence, at least until you actually get into Florida, and then your average drywall drunkard is more likely to head down to Panama City. This SSW tape is one stationary camera pointed at the ring with like seven people on the other side of the ring. I’m not sure what’s going on in east Tennessee wrestling, though I know at one point some dudes took over SSW from Beau James, and this was, in fact, the first ever SSW show with no Beau James. But I think this became some other promotion, and Beau James is back doing SSW, and there’s another two promotions in east Tennessee, and they all hate each other, yet everyone bounces back and forth…I don’t know. There’s mad drama in independent wrestling, mostly because there’s only so many rat dollars (as well as pussy) and hole-in-the-wall gymnasiums to go around. The bad guy and good guy is immediately established by the fans, because they are real wrestling fans, and not chant-happy cult members. Cody’s a classic Southern heel, as he’s got stars going down the side of his trunks and in the last thirteen seconds he’s jolted his head emphatically to make the ref believe his hair was pulled and he’s done the old bare knuckles old man circling of the fists taunt at Darkstorm; I expect him to get out the ring and threaten to leave any second now. Sometimes, I sit here doing one of these stupid twelve-pack reviews, and my heart’s sort of not completely into it, because I’d rather be masturbating or cutting open buckshot to put in with the goat feed so that they can be chemically enhanced to be even crazier, and then I take a slug, and it’s just like when Ronnie Dobbs did that shit in that movie when he was with that guru guy, and Ronnie Dobbs goes, “I got my beer goggles on…I’m starting to see clearly again,” and I feel like that and start to get into it. Wrestling is the only thing that could give Tommy Rich a lifetime of attention, and who am I to be a dick and get bored with that? I’m nothing. Tommy Rich has probably gotten more women to give him blowjobs that he couldn’t come to than women I’ve looked at in pornographic images in the last five years. Tommy Rich has probably fucked an underage girl or two, in the last couple of years, in the handicapped stall of a bathroom in some VFW Hall, all because of wrestling. (BEER FOUR) I sit here and watch tapes, making me a bitch. You sit there and read me talk about watching the tapes, making you twice the bitch. It’s fuckin’ pathetic, isn’t it? Anyways, Cody is stalling, but the crowd is actually cheering Cody, even though he’s an asshole, both in the real stealing-my-twenty dollars sense as well as the playing-the-heel-role-in-a-wrestling-match sense, so Tony Givens, who took over SSW from Beau James and is the guy who actually sent me this tape, comes out to give Darkstorm daps and help the crowd understand who’s the face. One thing Tony told me about this match is that at one point, some kid calls out Alexis, who is sporting some nice chubby rider cleavage, and she turns and the kid flicks a quarter right between her tits, down her shirt. That kid is more Tommy Rich than you or I will ever be, and I bet he can do half-gainers off of rocks into the river at spots you’d be afraid to wade into, much less dive into. My biggest gripe with cigarette companies targeting young people in the late ‘80s and on is that it didn’t allow redneck kids to grow as tall and big as they would’ve otherwise, so now we’ve got a lot of short, wiry dudes wrestling, and the big, cornfed volunteer firefighter types are nowhere to be found at your local indy show. Darkstorm has been controlling this match, and Cody’s taken some hellacious bumps here and there. Alexis grabs Darkstorm’s leg on a rope run to allow Cody to nail a DDT and turn the tide. Darkstorm hits a couple of fancy-lad finishers that Cody kicks out of, and the fifteen minute time limit expires after about nine human minutes, but Tony Givens gets in the ring and starts a “five more minutes” chant. As Cody ponders whether to accept this or not, Darkstorm monkey rolls across the ring, springs up and kicks Cutthroat in the head. Match on, with Tony Givens putting on the ref’s striped shirt. Alexis distracts the ref, tosses a chain just long enough to wrap around one’s knuckles twice to Cody, and he punches Eric Darkstorm like any man wearing trunks decorated with stars should. Darkstorm kicks out though, and we’re back to one minute left, according to the P.A. guy, in like two minutes. Somebody needs to explain to that guy that injury time applies to wrestling as well as soccer, because as he’s counting down from ten, over the P.A., Cody is setting up a superplex on the top rope, but Darkstorm counters it into some weird and dangerously reckless looking flippy DDT thing, and both guys almost get paralyzed for a stupid fuckin’ draw. Post-match, confusion reigns, and Eric Darkstorm’s trunks are awesome because it makes him look like he’s wearing a fanny pack, which only wrestlers and lesbian hippies actually wear anymore.

Maverick Wild & Dr. Heresy vs. Kid Krazy & Frankie Armadillo vs. The Elements of Suicide – Eastern Wrestling Alliance – 02/22/03
This is a TLC match, and Left-Eye’s legacy lives on, for the EWA tag teamitude titlehood. (BEER FIVE) There are two refs for this match, as should be the standard for every tag team match in wrestling, but our legislators just don’t want to clean up wrestling. The Elements wear black tees and camo shorts and they have some bouncy, peppy chick with them decked out the same. I love how EWA has a stage with a ramp and their lighting system seems to me to be two Radio Shack strobe lights sitting on the ground at the top of the ramp on each side. WE’VE GOT TOTAL CHAOS! The announcers’ table has been busted up; brawls everywhere. Frankie Armadillo and Kid Krazy are going out the door and getting snowballs to throw at their opponents. Krazy throws popcorn at Dr. Heresy, and he shakes and stumbles about – that is fuckin’ stupid. I might be enjoying this more if they weren’t doing two cameras at once, broken down into little boxes, with a giant blue marble background on the screen. I’ve only got one set of eyeballs, motherfuckers, just decide what I should watch, one camera at a time. See, that’s why we need dictators, because when you give people choices, it just confuses them and makes their life more miserable. The only thing I really enjoy in this match so far is the fact Maverick Wild is bleeding on the side of his face in one of those deals where you know it wasn’t done on purpose. Kid Krazy drops an elbow off the top of a tall ladder on Heresy, and his partner Armadillo comes up and they do the whole 1979 afterschool special slap hands, connect forefingers and thumbs in the shape of you both holding a joint, they take a fat fake puff off their invisible joints, look around, throw them down on Heresy, and then stomp out their fake left-handed cigarettes on Heresy’s face; that is, without a doubt, great as fuck. They’ve got one shitty aluminum ladder and one barely nicer aluminum ladder where you can walk up either side. Maverick Wild does the over-emphatic selling, and if I were to hit the megamillions lottery, instead of being a regular money mark who had a wrestling promotion, I think I’d just hire Maverick Wild and Otto Schwanz to travel by bus to local fairs and we’d set up a wrestling ring and I’d pay local workers to have a tag match with them, with Wild and Schwanz winning of course, then I’d take the mic and challenge any pair of men in the audience who thought they could take them on for five minutes without quitting to step forward, pay twenty bucks apiece, sign a waiver, and go for it, and if they won, they’d get their money back plus a hundred bucks per man to boot. Then I’d get to watch Wild and Schwanz goofily beat upon chip-shouldered workingmen feeling tough after getting beat down by shitty jobs for years, town after town, and we’d ride down the back roads of America, in our 1966 International school bus full of wrestling ring and electric Kool-Aid, living the Dream of seeing this great, big, beautiful, one-of-a-kind country, all without spending a goddamn dime of our own money. It’d be great fun, and I’d finally start to understand why some people who aren’t epileptic thirty-something women think Journey is good music, and the true spirit of the carney wrestler would live on again. (BEER SIX) Maverick tries to superplex the Elements of Suicide girl, but he gets thrown off instead, and she does a top-rope hurricanrana, meaning for a brief flipping second, Wild’s nose was pointed into her camo cooch. God Bless America. The crowd actually chants “E-dub-A!” for a second after one suicidal element (maybe americium) kicks a chair into the forehead of Maverick Wild. The Elements of Suicide get the belts off the rope and win the match, and that whole match seemed to be lacking something to me.

Piloto Suicida vs. Shamu Jr. – Rev Pro – 11/29/03
This is for the Mexican Lucha Libre Heavyweight title, as defended in the City of Industry, California. Fluid lucha libre is like sexual intercourse – even if it’s a touch slow, as long as it’s continuous, it feels good as shit. Suicida has a double swank mask, and Shamu is a big fucker who, as appropo with the lucha, still does the dives and rolls and flips. I don’t know who the heel announcer for Rev Pro tapes is, but he really fuckin’ sucks, with his cookie jar Piloto Suicida bullshit. I’m not some PC bitch who thinks stereotypes can’t be funny or anything, but you can’t compensate for shitty abilities as an announcer by saying shocking things. Every time Suicida does a great move, the shitty heel announcer ruins it with his schtick, and then Shamu wins the match with a sit-down powerbomb and there’s no fuckin’ drama or excitement about it because that shitty announcer killed it all.

A.J. Styles vs. Homicide – IWC TV ’04 – JIP
Indy darlings collide, and A.J. puts his feet out to catch Homicide for a rana, but then Homicide drops Styles accidentally, but runs his own head into the corner, and the commentators struggle to explain the confusing-looking segment. Homicide’s methodical dastardliness and Styles’ spastic flippiness complement each other well. Styles locks in an Indian deathlock, but can’t get the submission because of his paleface genetics. (BEER SEVEN) They do a nice extended suicide dive tease, and I appreciate when the wrasslers fuck with your expectations. Then they bust a brutal suicide dive a few minutes later, with no waving the crowd away like the first time – an escalation which seems like nothing but builds the crowd. Wrestling is like sex, and that whole dive sequence is like sitting there with your pants undone, and the chick sitting to your left in her panties and blouse runs her hand around in little circles across your chest and down your beer belly and into that exposed area from your pants being undone, and you’re thinking “Aww yeah, my dick is next,” but she swirls back up to your shoulder and kisses you with her eyes smirking, and then, after a couple more sly kisses, her hand grabs your dick and it’s so much more satisfying than had she just done it with the initial swirling hand motion. A.J. Styles is great and all, but he’s sort of the new school Christian Rob Van Dam with his overdone kicks and flips. A lot of the things that made quality indy wrestling great have now become goofy – especially the slapping stiffness and multiple kickouts of super destructive finishers. Homicide kicks out of the Styles Clash because Styles rolled him over for the pin slowly; and then Styles kicks out of the Cop Killa because Homicide took a second to pump his fist in celebration. I am, in both wrestling and sex, a firm believer in the escalation theory, and the big finish should never be used as foreplay. If I suck a girl’s clit between my lips as far as that little thing will go into my mouth and start rubbing it with my tongue, that’s the finisher (of the first fall at least), and if she doesn’t orgasm, then fuck it, she’s frigid. The same can be said with Styles or Homicide kicking out of the other’s penultimate finisher – if that can’t pin them, then fuck it, I don’t have the time to wait around and see what can. And if I do wait around, it better be worth it, rather than just sudden. Homicide goes for a cradle after Styles misses a 450, two count, and Styles rolls forward for the follow-up pin attempt, one-two-three, sudden ejaculation of a match that cheapens all that wonderful teasing build-up. I seriously think the fact that a lot of the good indy wrestlers today are tape marks and are more motivated to watch quality wrestling themselves rather than just fuck some self-esteem lacking wrestling whore all night has helped to kill the psychology of an above-quality wrestling match.

Ray Idol vs. The Super Destroyer with Clarence Clippenback – SSW – 01/30/04
My wife gets up early on Saturday mornings to go sell hand-painted silk scarves over at some farmer’s market near a mountaintop subdivision where the people are made of white skin and fat wallets, and she has to get up in like two hours, and I’m still sitting here drinking beer watching the stupid wrestling, and it’ll embarrass me to be sitting here doing this when she gets up to hustle some money for our family unit, but fuck, it’s still Friday night where I’m sitting. (BEER EIGHT) The Super Destroyer is big and awesome and in a black mask and black singlet with stars on it, and Ray Idol comes out to “Shake Yer Tailfeather”. Your special ref is a face wrestler who immediately starts pushing around The Super Destroyer and pointing into his face, suggesting a certain impartiality. This is America, and The Super Destroyer is innocent until proven guilty, and if the judge, or ref as in this case, automatically assumes guilt, then what the fuck are we dying for in Iraq? I love how special referees either wear black shorts or cut the sleeves off of the striped shirt to show that they’re not a regular referee. The Super D is concentrating his attack on the lower back of Ray Idol, with my favorite attack move being him turning Idol around face first into the corner and giving him repeated shoulder drives into the kidneys. Some guy runs into the ring to break up an Idol pin attempt, and Idol does one of those toss-around powerslam deals, and I’m sure the little dude was scheduled to run out because Idol couldn’t pick up Super D’s big ass. Wait…ref bump, and Josh Cody’s in the ring, and other guys now, and the special ref hasn’t specially DQed anyone yet, and there’s piledrivers and clusterfucks, yet the ref still counts a pin. And still, Ray Idol kicks out at two. Then he gets chokeslammed and loses. And as confusing as the whole SSW stuff was for me to watch, the Clarence Clippenback promo in the concession stand at the end, with his stable of wrestlers behind him, made me think that if it wasn’t just one stationary camera, I might enjoy this shit better.

John Walters vs. Steve Ramsey – EWA – 03/22/03
Walters is some kid who I’ve never seen, but I know he was in ROH, and everybody probably loved him to get him there, then they hated him. Yeah, he’s cut like a He-Man figure, babyface looking, and oiled up – perfect for homo-erotic fantasies. I think ROH’s appeal is the closeted youngster, not old enough to feel confident in his inner-desires, because most of the good ROH matches I’ve seen feature well-built men beating on each other for a while, then hugging. Now, I’ve got no problem with homosexuality (hell, I was homosexual myself for eleven months back in college), but if you’re going to be gay, be gay. Don’t turn it into self-punishment or some perverted pleather-clad abuse-laden theatrics on videotape. Walters was probably some young, naïve kid who loved the wrestling, got buff, enhanced himself with supplements, and got abused by the insidious and unwholesome type of homosexuality that permeates wrestling. This’ll leave the young Walters with his own doubts about his own sexuality, strictly because of the sexual abuse he’s probably seen firsthand, but even those thoughts are perverted notions rather than a nice, wholesome gay partnership. We’ve painted a couple of gay couple’s houses this year, and I’ve, in fact, got an open invitation to go swimming at one of their houses anytime I want. I’ve only taken them up on that offer three times, and Ben and Chuck have a push-bar that they take out poolside, with a drop cord running to the dorm fridge under the bar; it’s great. Ben and Chuck are comfortable and country conservative, and I feel at ease around them, because you can tell they love each other and have no eye for me. The other house we’ve painted – Bobby and Logan’s – it’s different. Not because I think they have an eye for us, but because their house is weird. There’s a TV in every room connected to the satellite, and they’ve even got a TV as big as mine in the shed, that one only hooked up to an antennae, and all the TVs seem to be on all the time. Logan’s nice, but Bobby seems disturbing. One of the greatest moments of my housepainting life came at their crib, as the dude I work for is a sexual predator always trying to trick women into sleeping with him, and Logan’s room had a big walk-in closet that dude I work for was painting the trim inside of. Well, I was joking on him, quietly, about being in the closet, and we were laughing, quietly, so as to not seem like assholes. A few minutes later, as dude I work for had shut the slatted door to paint the backside of, Logan walks in and asks, “Where’s your boss?” I say, “In the closet.” Obviously, the dude I work for was uncomfortable with this, because he was never gay in college like me, and he opens the door to step out. Logan looks at him and says, “Doesn’t feel so much better to come out the closet?” And me and Logan laughed and laughed, while the dude I work for did that type of laugh you do when you’re not really trying to express your own joy so much as stifles everyone else’s. The building this match is taking place in looks triptastic with weird bright-colored tarp things stretched everywhere, causing me to imagine it’s some sort of outdoor equipment store or something. (BEER NINE) Seeing John Walters and knowing he was an ROH dude, and knowing other ROH dudes and their build and height, shit, ROH is the short man’s WWF, but with stiff wrestling rather than goofy gimmicks. Both feature sexual perverts in important positions and muscular-to-the-extent-of-unnatural-looking wrestlers. Walters hits a wicked diving headbutt (not mad wicked though), but Steve Ramsey kicks out. Walters hooks up a sit-down jawbreaker, which doubled as an atomic drop, and it wasn’t much. Multiple interferences and a fat ref getting clotheslined unconscious has made this match pretty shitty. Good guy from the past in street clothes slams down Walters, and Ramsey wins the prestigious EWA belt. He gets ice dumped on him in celebration, and all the fat women cheer.

Super Dragon vs. Taro – mask vs. mask – Rev Pro – 11/29/03
Taro is skinnier than my sister after two weeks of being awake. There’s a fat montage of Taro vs. SD, and they really love stomping on each other, amongst other things. I try not to be pre-excited, but I am expecting this match to kick my drinking into overdrive. Super Dragon comes out to a Kool Keith song, which makes him even more great than I already thought he was. The ring dude does introductions, and I am geeked up to expect super destruction. Then some dude comes out and does the intros again in stupid Jap-talk. This ain’t Osaka…it’s the City of Industry. I bet Frank and his sons drive Dodge pick-ups, not no fuckin’ Hirohito crap. I’ve never been quite sure why the smarks hate on Super Dragon, because he kicks people hard like smarks like, he’s stylish like smarks like, and he’ll also lay there for a few minutes if someone spike DDTs him on his mask tassles like smarks expect. At the same time, I think it’s great, because obviously he’s built this persona for himself that he’s a dickhead, even within the context of today’s “Hey, I’ll email my favorite wrestler about his latest website commentary” standard, and the smarks hate him, and it’s all a gimmick…a well-concealed gimmick, hidden behind the safety of a mask. AWESOME! Taro dives through the ropes onto SD ringside, SD catches him and just tosses him over his head onto some chairs, and not the foldable kind. (BEER TEN) Back in the ring, Taro rips open Dragon’s mask, like any good mascara contra mascara match should have happen. Ahh yes, the ripped mask was to allow the flow of crimson, and SD is wears a mask, yet still bladed, and motherfuckers still hate on his game. Forearms are awesome, but have you ever thrown one? It’s pretty easy to bruise your bone, and that shit can ache for weeks. Elbows never bruise; they just scrape. I HATE THE YELLING COMMENTATOR IN THIS MATCH AND WANT HIM TO GET THROAT CANCER! He’s maxing out the levels on the mic recording constantly, like a pawn shop four-track David Crockett. (BEER ELEVEN) Taro gets a number of two-counts, but no winfall. I can see part of the Super Dragon hatred, as he’ll be dead like a shotgun-blasted zombie, then jump up and amphetamine reptile nail some brainbusting nonsense, like he just did when I was paying attention. SD pulls up Taro at two though, waving his finger, taunting fate and the crowd all at once. But now, Taro’s mask is compromised as well, like any good mask vs. mask match. Taro holds his arm up on the third try, then SD stomps him from the top rope. Still, Taro hangs in there, because he’s skinny…holy fuck, nice haymaker punch upside the head by Super Dragon. I wish I could punch my friends like that. He does it again, and that’s three, and Taro loses his mask, not literally, but he has to take it off and expose his ugly-ass face to the public. Dragon and Taro hug because they are high school friends who flipped across each other’s backyards, and one is a famous and sought-after independent contractor of a wrestler, while the other has a bad neck and must retire at age twenty-something. The crowd chants “Thank you, Taro,” and if this was properly produced, like any lucha show, they would’ve scrolled Taro’s real name across the bottom of the screen.

Shirley Doe vs. CM Punk – IWC TV ‘04
In the battle of straight edge punk vs. modified corpse-paint metal, I’ll always choose metal. Ian MacKaye is great and all, but he couldn’t dream about being King Diamond even if he fell off his self-righteous wagon and grew some hair on his head and balls. Shirley Doe is very Mick Foley as Cactus Jack in his lumbering yet lovably violent style. (BEER TWELVE) Punk has a Pepsi tattoo and girlfriends. I thought original straight edge was no drugs, no drink, no sex, no caffeine. I guess it’s a matter of convenience. You know what? I’m straight edge, even though I drink. I don’t do drugs anymore, ever, unless sometimes. My straight edge is straight enough, you dig? I think I’ll get fucked up tomorrow afternoon and homemade tattoo some “X”es on my hands. Some other dude comes out and helps CM Punk to win, even with the extra-super-power of Shirley Doe’s hair coming out of the ponytail holder. And then some other dude in an Iron Maiden t-shirt with the sleeves cut-off comes out and beats Shirley Doe, too. I don’t understand why Iron Maiden ever made white t-shirts. That type of shit led to people having crewcuts thinking they were metal.

Ian Rotten vs. Cash Flo – IWA Mid South TV ‘98
They come back to a match joined in progress with an Eddie Gilbert picture, remembering the Hot Stuff. Ian is as stiff as he is now, but it’s highlighted by Cash Flo’s excellent wide-eyed selling of the pain, as well as Les Thatcher talking the Marv Albert position. Ian wins, with Sherri Martel as his second. I should change the tape, but why should I?

Sting & Chris Adams vs. Eddie Gilbert & Terry Taylor – UWF flashback on IWA Mid South TV ‘98
Jim Ross is commentarying, and Sting is young, and Eddie Gilbert is alive and kicking, as well as eye-raking. The bell has rung like the beginning of an AC/DC song, but the carnage continues. Eddie Gilbert has a mullet, or short and long as we call it, before mullets were trendy and internet-worthy. I wonder what Eddie Gilbert would think of the internet? Probably that it’s great he could order hydrocodone with Missy Hyatt’s credit card. Adams hits Taylor with a keg of beer, but Gilbert evens it up. Sting is in there, pre-Jesus, because motherfuckers tend to find Jesus when they get rich because they have the convenience of being self-righteous.

[At this point, I realized my wife was getting up in like ten minutes, so I went to bed to pretend I had been sleeping and not up all night drinking beer like a fool watching wrestling, but I was afraid to move the covers and wake the baby, so I just laid on top of the covers in my cut-off jean shorts that I write in because I like to live my wrestling commentary lifestyle like Balls Mahoney used to wrestle, and my wife was already awake, so I helped with the baby, figured I’d lay there for ten minutes, and then go and drink the rest of that beer plus one more for an Alcoholic’s Dozen, but it wasn’t to happen, as the cool pillow grasped my drunken head and gave it nice, easy rest for five full hours before I had to get up. The wife didn’t sell no damn hand-painted silk scarves at the farmer’s market, so ginger tuna steaks on orzo and olives had to job out to going to the river and splashing water on the kids then stopping off at the I.G.A. for a generic half-gallon of vanilla ice cream. America, motherfucker, will always survive because people like me, who usually don’t care about “issues”, also can hardly ever be exterminated. And wrestling, motherfucker, will always survive because people like me love that stupid shit.] 
 

New Japan "Battlefield Yokohama" 9/23/93 - PART TWO
(by PHIL RIPPA)

SHINYA HASHIMOTO vs. JAKE "THE SNAKE" ROBERTS
While Hashimoto is the IWGP champ, this match isn’t for the belt (despite some internet sites to the contrary. I mean, if I can’t trust the internet, what can I trust?) The fact that this is a non-title match is rather sad as I was all geared up to try and figure out if Jake fucking Roberts in 1993 was the most preposterous person to challenge for the title. Was Black Bart busy? Did Big Bully Busick miss a flight? Did Ranger Ross have prior commitments? Was Van Hammer on tour? Was the Nightstalker unable to get a work visa? I mean this match is so trumps Hash vs. Booker T on the weirdness scale it isn’t funny. How is it possible that Brutus Beefcake vs. Black Cat was not the strangest, how-did-this-not-take-place-in-WAR-or-IWA match on this card? Nope, you get Jake Roberts with whatever incarnation of Damian taking on the current IWGP champ. Of course, the match sucks. I spent the first five minutes or so trying to figure out if the snake bag was gimmicked (by the way, I am leaning on the side of gimmicked). Then Hashimoto backs off from the snake. And then Roberts runs the fake blown out knee spot which goes over like a lead balloon. The highlight/lowlight is Jake using the DDT almost as a throw away spot to no reaction. Ooof… this match goes on and on and on and you start to wonder if maybe this is some elaborate rib on Grizzly Smith. I guess I should mention that SHINYA HASHIMOTO – CURRENT IWGP FUCKING CHAMP has to sell for a good minute so HE CAN RUN FROM THE FUCKING SNAKE after the match. You really can’t make this up. I half expected Ron Bass to charge out from the crowd and brand Hashimoto just for the hell of it. Oh yeah – Jake gets bitten by his snake... again.

JUSHIN "THUNDER" LIGER vs. MASAO ORIHARA - IWGP Jr. Title
Speaking of young guys before they became surly dicks – is Orihara, fully representing WAR with the great cutoff sleeve jacket with WAR down the back (if the jacket was in suede or denim it would qualify for greatest thing ever status). It’s like the early version of the jacket Kanemura wore far too often. Yet cooler. These two were part of one of my all time favorite matches – Orihara/Ultimo Dragon vs. Liger/Koji Kanemoto (Assuming all the baffling dates I have on my tapes are correct, that match was Dec of 92. HEY! The feud has had time to SIMMER~!) This match not even close to being as good. I think I would end up using the word awkward a lot if I did a full play by play. Like “Man, that sliding dropkick looked awkward.” or “Geez, Orihara tried a pescado that looked really... awkward.” Things like this happen when you end up doing more of a leg drop or when you clip the top rope. Hey! Eddie has returned at ringside and I spend far too long trying to figure out what the T-shirt is that he is wearing. (Something about 7 Fierce Battles but honestly it might have said No Fat Chicks. Stupid guard rail.) The simple summation of this match is that Liger stretches the fuck out of Orihara while trying to destroy the bald ones knee cap. Orihara gets little flurries of offense well admirably selling his leg. All that because I already mentioned that there was plenty of awkwardness. Yeesh. The tombstone piledriver spot might have been the icing on the cake. Man – Orihara almost killed himself on that moonsault to the floor. Why isn’t this match over yet? Oh yeah, New Japan juniors. Yup – there we go. Orihara should be dead a few more times but keeps kicking out and you wonder “So basically, he is going to have to fry his shoulder before this match ends” Liger eventually wins in bizarrely laid out match because after all the high spots and two counts, we suddenly go back to leg work with Orihara submitting. (Mind you Orihara has also abandoned selling his knee so he could get to the fancy dancy high flying.) Okay Dokey. Nothing you would regret watching but enough that you could easily get frustrated with. I mean, you knew Orihara wasn’t going to win and there wasn’t that much done to make it seem like Orihara was a legit challenger. Still better than pretty much anything else I had watched today. Black Tiger grabs the STICK~! claims he slept with Liger’s wife and we call it a day. (Okay – part of that might be a rumor from Barnett.)

YOSHIAKI FUJIWARA/YUKI ISHIKAWA vs. TATSUMI FUJINAMI/TOKIMITSU ISHIZAWA (KENDO KASHIN)
Man, Ishikawa is so very young and so very not great yet. What is great is that Ishikawa is sporting one of the all time great wrestling mullets. Aww... many a teenage lady had their cherries popped while running their hands through that mane I would have to believe. I really haven’t been a Kendo Kashin fan in any form. Everyone has the tiny black tights and tiny black boots. And then you think about Fujiwara and Fujinami being older than Dean. And then I get the horrific image of Dean in the tiny black tights and tiny black boots and I no longer want to live. That is going to replace the whale in my nightmare.

HULK HOGAN/THE GREAT MUTA vs. THE HELL RAISERS (ROAD WARRIOR HAWK/POWER WARRIOR (KENSUKE SASAKI))
Because when I am picking four guys to be in the ring at once, I am going to start with Hulk Hogan and Hawk. Ooof... Yeah, yeah, yeah – I am going to ignore all the babbling about Hogan wrestling in Japan and teaming with Muta mainly because I don’t want my head to hurt. Make sure your fast forwards are in good working condition as the intros take like 6 hours. A good sign is that Hogan isn’t gassed walking to the ring. Also amusing to realize that Hogan isn’t the worst worker in this match. Poor little dead Hawk. HEY! We are starting with Hogan and Hawk. Let the crying commence. Actually, I have commenced giggling as MugaHogan (which doesn’t have the ring that MugaTaker does) is really really bizarre and needs to be seen. You know, to his credit, Hogan is fired up for this match. The decision was made that he was going to work like ¾ of the match which actually isn’t laughable as it is easier on the eyes than when Muta and Sasaki decide to lie around the mat massaging each others shoulders... err... applying deadly nerve holds. Finish comes out of nowhere as Muta mists Sasaki; Hogan hits a lariat and gets the three count. Hawk spends most of his time selling his eye. Somewhere Animal wonders where his paycheck is.

GENICHIRO TENRYU vs. HIROSHI HASE
Hiroshi Hase is easily the best wrestler with a pornographer’s mustache works like five days a year. I enjoyed this for its two grumpy guys hitting each other as hard as they possibly can. Who cares that they only decided to sell one out of every 19 strikes? I mean this isn’t going to win any awards or anything. Oh who am I kidding – Tenryu landed on his head from the second rope. Meltzer probably gave it five stars and couldn’t understand why everyone didn’t think it was the greatest match ever. Well actually, the more I think about it Muto wasn’t in the match so I might have to scale back my ratings. But Jumbo was still lazy. Yup. (I mean these two did get 3 ½ stars in a match that took place like 10 years later from Dave so who the fuck actually knows. HEY! The internet didn’t fail me for once. Meltzer gave this match 3 ¾ stars. Okay Dokey. So Dave wasn’t really really delusional back in 1993. That is good to know.) Err… anyway. These two really do beat the fuck out of each other. Granted the entire match is huge variation on the “my turn, your turn” routine. What I mean is that it was “I kick you in the face 20 straight times. You chop me in the chest 20 straight times.” Crowd was into, especially near the end, so there ya go. Perfectly acceptable main event.
 

SAMOA JOE vs. HOMICIDE (6.11.04)
This match had a little Valentine/Wahoo, a little Sawyer/Rich, a little New Japan 1998, a little this and a little that. I had never seen Samoa Joe before this, but thought he looked really credible. He has a charisma that could draw huge in the right framework. I was distracted during this match by a phone call from a Bhopal collections agent. I told him to piss off; I didn't consider India to be a reliable ally of the United States. So a dark cloud was over my enjoyment of this match.

CM PUNK vs. CHRIS HERO: 
Two technically-gifted guys working a technical marvel of a match, who seemed a bit too self-conscious and who really didn't bother to work the crowd. A new-school Funk/Brisco match, with no real heeling from Punk, and not much overt babyfacing from Hero.

This was what, 56 minutes long? It ended abruptly. The match could've been 25 minutes or 85 minutes, and I can't imagine the story would be affected significantly. Despite the credible work, it never seemed like they were trying to kick each other's asses.

Contrary to popular opinion, skilled technical heels like the Funks, Briscos, Dick Slater, Johnny Valentine, Harley Race, Arn, Ole, and Gene Anderson, et al., did NOT forget to work the crowd when working a match. I don't watch enough IWA to be emotionally involved in the product unless the wrestler tells a story.

In the end, what was the story of the match? We can break down sequences and all that, but it really amounted to a bunch of dated control wrestling with a smattering of M. Pro trickery and a few power spots that looked overly cooperative. I respect the effort in this match, but I look at stuff like this and see why wrestling is dying.

It is dying because kayfabe is dead, sure. But also because the "best" workers don't connect with the crowd, draw 200 people, and wonder why it is they get passed over for fifth-rate roidboys like Tomko and the Shane Twins. If I am watching two men fight for an hour, basically, I want blood and screaming and a sense that something real is at stake. 

I didn't see that here. This match was the equivalent of that old classic novel Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. When literary fiction was dying like an addled wino at the end of the last century, he published this monster of a book. 1100 pp, no editing -- as excessive and baroque as anything Stephen King ever did. But it was pushed as art, and aspirant writers like me saw it as a model. Even though it was ironic, affected crap. An Infinite Jest, f'real.

This match is The Best There Is from a vitiated industry where Mavens are a dime a dozen and Bruiser Brody is nowhere to be found. Everyone is pretty and they blow each other or the promoter or the spots. I miss heat, but what I really miss is the way wrestling used to connect with people, who didn't sense with every fibre of their being that their lives were frauds, who accepted fate and bought kayfabe if there was a worthwhile story underneath it. Those days are long gone, though, and what's left is the settling of the cosmic account. -- AG

BLACK WARRIOR/DR. WAGNER JR./BLUE PANTHER vs. VILLANO III & IV & V (12/15/00)
This EMLL match had everything. Realistic looking spots. Molten levels of hatred. The ritualistic symbolic demaskings -- Villanos lost theirs first, but soon enough we saw what Panther looked like. Great double teams. No slowdowns or rest sequences to speak of. A beautiful sequence where Wagner and Panther work over a hapless Villano [Caida 2, IIRC]. Another great outside the ring sequence where Black Warrior makes a Villano his bitch. This is from Schneider Comp 14, which may be out of circulation. Nonetheless, you owe it to yourself to see this match, which epitomizes what lucha means in all its sweat-stained grimy apotheosis-inducing glory. A great match, certainly more resonant than anything any 6 guys on the WWE roster could put together, with the masks blowing this match off the ratings scale. No forced heat. No cheap heat. Just that deep connection between the fans and the wrestlers that upholds and transcends kayfabe all at once.

BRISCOES vs. RICK STEAMBOAT/JAY YOUNGBLOOD [MID ATLANTIC FALL 1983]
A few random thoughts from me and the person I was watching this, in ticker form: This is the best Jay Youngblood match I have ever seen. . . This WRAL studio match is loads better than the Starrcade match. . . . No wonder the Briscoes were my favorite team when I was a kid. Everything here was precise, with the Briscoes in full effect as sneaky tecnico heels.

MIKE GRAHAM vs. RIC FLAIR
In Florida, in 1982, you didn't have to be a big man to rassle the world champ. You could be 140 pounds sopping wet, with a moveset Greg Gagne would call dull, but what the hell! As long as your daddy was the promoter, he'd book you and the champ would make you look good.

KABUKI/TAKASHI ISHIKAWA vs. JERRY LAWLER/JIMMY VALIANT (2/5/85)
Boogie and Lawler are your gaijin heels here, with Lawler and Kabuki exchanging control holds for much of the match. Boogie plays Li'l Jon, yelling out "OK", "Never Skurr", and "Like a Pimp" to a transfixed crowd. Boogie working the nerve hold on Kabuki is pretty nifty, but what's surprising is that for a couple of minutes Lawler and Valiant looked like a damned good heel team. Better than Valentine/Beefcake, but not as good as the Midnights. 

TIGER MASK (MISAWA) vs. PIRATA MORGAN (12/8/84)
This was quite the gropefest, with Pirata Morgan moving like a constipated Kabuki as he worked in and out of Abe Jacobs' more sedentary sequences. Can you tell I went to grad school? Misawa was a very somnambulistic Tiger Mask; Tiger Mask PM, if you will. Just a sexy boy. Misawa's not your boy toy. Fade to black.