Terry Funk vs. Stan Hansen, AJPW Super Power Series - Day 14, 9/11/82

This was the main event of the last of the Super Power Series run of shows in 1982. 

This feels like a big deal. Besides the fact that it’s these two — I mean, *it is* these two after all — it was, by my account, the first time these two ever locked up in a singles affair, and they’re doing it in what is essentially a pseudo home promotion for both of them (more so for Hansen than Funk, as time passes). 

They’d met earlier in the year in a somewhat disappointing bout where the Funk’s worked together to take on Hansen and his sometimes partner Jimmy Snuka. The Funk’s scored what was billed as somewhat of an upset victory over Hansen/Snuka. 

Terry would continue to make tours in Japan throughout the year while Terry focused seemingly mostly on his commitment to the Eddie Graham territory, Championship Wrestling from Florida, for the majority of 1982. 

That brings us to the Super Power Series string of events. Earlier on in the two week period on 8/26, Hansen teamed with Outlaw Ron Bass to defeat Terry and his partner, Ashura Hara. A few days later on 9/8, Hansen now teamed with Blackwell to take on Funk, and someone a little more imposing than Hara…Giant Baba! With Baba’s help, Funk was able to beat Hansen and his partner. It’s important to note in the same day of the event, Ron Bass squared off with Jumbo Tsuruta, explaining why he wasn’t tagging with Hansen. And on this show tonight, while Hansen squares off with Funk, Bass is teaming with The Destroyer to go against the super team of Baba/Tsuruta. 

And that brings us up to date! We get the first singles meeting between two of the best Texans and best gaijin to ever grace the squared circle. 

Going back to earlier when I noted how this felt big, if everything I just explained isn’t enough for you to get that “Big Fight Feel”, just watch the match. Funk is MOBBED on his way to the ring. And I don’t mean people just rushed to the guard rails hopping for a hand slap or a hug. It was one of those cool clips you see in wrestling documentaries where the fans are literally ON TOP of the wrestler, making it almost impossible for him to move and enter the ring. I’m still relatively new to a lot of the Japanese scene, and I haven’t seen too many crowds like this so far. 

Funk enters the ring to a great ovation and chant of “TER-RY TER-RY!” Since this is the main event, all the young boys are out as well as the geisha girls with the ceremonial bouquets of flowers for the competitors. A nice scene. 

And that scene is immediately thrown to hell, as Stan Hansen storms into the arena like a bull in a china shop, destroying any and everything in his path. When he gets in the ring, he destroys the entire ceremonial set up and chases out all of the extras, because him and Funk are gonna do some FIGHTING. 

What follows is a fantastic brawl. Not the greatest I’ve ever seen. But you need to watch matches like these through the lens of its time. Funk keeps stalling to avoid the vicious onslaught and eventually it leads to Hansen going after him on the floor and into the crowd. Chairs are being thrown around, fans are in harms way — this is stuff that’s sort of watered down and commonplace nowadays, but in the early 80’s this is insane to see! 

Hansen gets Funk in the ring, and while Funk is squirrelly early on, Hansen hits him with some slams and drops to daze him, and then focuses his work entirely on Funk’s neck. Funk keeps finding ways out of it, heading to the floor, but then remembering how brief those reprieves tend to be when you’re facing Stan Hansen. 

At one point, Hansen fumbles the lead and Funk starts making a fiery comeback. Sensing that delaying this any longer could result in serious damage, Funk goes for the kill shot almost immediately by trying to lock on the Spinning Toe Hold, but in the set up, Hansen delivers an errant kick to Funk’s neck which he sells incredibly with a delayed spin and collapse. 

Hansen is back in charge and brutalizes Funk with strikes, eventually sending him to the floor. The ref tries to keep Hansen from going out, and Funk tries to recover quick. Out of desperation, he grabs one of the fans chairs in the front row and just tosses it backwards hoping for a lucky strike, but as luck would have it:

Incredible. 

The match starts to wind up when Funk reverses an Irish whip attempt that sends Hansen barreling in to the referee, knocking him down and out to the floor. The two men continue to brawl, and the outside official comes in to try and maintain order. Funk grabs him and tries to move him out of the way, in a way only the Funker can, but Hansen has a more barbaric approach, as he simply lariats the officials head clean off his shoulders. 

With both referees down, this allows Hansen’s buddy OUTLAW RON BASS to make his way out for a dastardly two on one attack. What I loved about this attack was, it wasn’t just these two aimlessly throwing shots. They came in with a purpose, like this was the plan all along. They beat Terry down, and then Bass holds Funk up by the legs from behind so Hansen can hit Funk with a lariat, that then sends Funk collapsing backwards with an awkward arch over top of the kneeling Bass. Think of the Simpsons episode where Homer became a chiropractor. 

Only there was more searing leg pain for Funk, as he lay on the floor almost completely motionless, save for his hands and legs twitching like his neck was broken.

Bass hightails it to the floor as the official gets in and, unbeknownst to Hansen, starts counting Funk out. Hansen’s too busy yelling at Funk from the ring to get up and fight him. Funk is OUT. Hansen realizes the ref is counting Funk out, so he quick pulls him in under the bottom rope and tries to pin him, BUT IT WAS TOO LATE. The ref has counted out Funk. 

An irate Bass and Hansen go to continue the beatdown on Funk, BUT TO TIE EVERYTHING TOGETHER HERE COME BABA AND JUMBO OUT TO CLEAR HOUSE TO A WILD REACTION. The heels bail out and the faces help Funk up. 

The war was not over. Because in three months time, both men would do away with the temporary allegiances they’ve made in AJPW throughout 1982 and focus on “who brought them to the dance”. Both men would enter the Real World Tag League in December, and they would meet once again. But this time, Terry would bring back his brother Dory Jr, and Hansen would make a call to none other than Bruiser Brody. And the Real World Tag League Finals explodes in one of the craziest brawls in wrestling at the time. What a scene. 

Overall, as much fun as this was, it was basic set up to get to the super blow off match in December. Not to mention, the feud would pick up and continue in Spring of ‘83 leading all the way to Terry’s first and famous retirement in August of ‘83 (FOREVER! FOREVER! FOREVER!). So in reality, if there’s a modem set up, this match would’ve taken place on RAW or SmackDown or Dynamite to set up the next leg of the program. And there’s nothing wrong with that when it’s done right, and this was done right. 

MATCH RATING: ***

Hacksaw Jim Duggan vs. Ted DiBiase, Houston Wrestling, 7/29/83

 

This was a Street Fight. The feud itself belong to Mid-South, but this specific show is a Paul Boesch Houston Wrestling promoted show, with co-promotion by Watts and Verne Gagne’s AWA. 

So, how did we get here?

In 1982, Duggan came into the UWF as a heel, working a paid assassin style gimmick, under the employment of Skandor Akbar. Soon thereafter, he joined up with fellow heels Ted DiBiase and Matt Borne to form “The Rat Pack”, the top villainous act in Mid South at the time. Running side by side with DiBiase’s rather famous feud with JYD was Duggan feuding with newcomer Butch Reed over the rights to the Hacksaw name. 

As time passed, Borne left the promotion, and the Rat Pack and its allies drifted. DiBiase, needing a new direction, took on Skandor Akbar as his manager. DiBiase wanted Duggan to join them, citing their friendship and Duggan’s past allegiance with Akbar. But a lot had changed in the world in that short period of time. The US is freshly removed from the Iranian hostage crisis, and Ayatollah Khomeini was labeled as Public Enemy #2 (after “The Russians”, see: all). Duggan, citing his patriotism and the fact that he “lost a family member in the hostage situation” (no, he didn’t. Pro wrestling, baby!), had no interest in aligning with Akbar. Akbar wanted DiBiase to attack Duggan, but he refused, citing their friendship. DiBiase made a pact with Duggan that they would remain friends and have each others backs, but they’d do business separate. And all was well. 

Until it wasn’t. 

Duggan, while never attacking DiBiase, made it a point to make Akbar’s life and those in his Army’s lives a living hell. Akbar pleaded with DiBiase to take his friend out, offering “many great riches”, but DiBiase continually refused, saying there was NO PRICE for him to attack his best friend. 

Until there was. 

Because apparently…everybody’s got a price. Nice! (Fuck you!) During a match where Duggan faced Akbar’s protege, Kendo Nagasaki, and continued to embarrass and humiliate Akbar, DiBiase finally bought in, attacking his now former friend with his main weapon: the dreaded loaded coal miner’s glove!

And thus, another Mid-South blood feud was born. 

These two spent the first half of 1983 trading victories back and fourth, mostly with Duggan on the winning end, but with DiBiase and Akbar exacting their revenge at all the right moments. That brings us to July 29th, 1983 in the Sam Houston Coliseum. 

What I loved about this “match”, if that’s what you want to call it, is how real it felt. No, not because of any sort of aura of it being even close to a “shoot”, but in the entire match aesthetic and layout. DiBiase and Duggan show up “as they are”, in regular street clothes and boots. No gear, no merch, nothing wrestling related. There’s no big introductions. And the minute the bell rings — one of the few wrestling moments over the next ten minutes — these two throw themselves at each other with every bit of force they have. 

I’m assuming most of your reading this have seen some kind of physical, real fight in your life. There’s real anger and even hatred that gives it an almost surreal feeling. That’s what this match oozed from the very beginning. This is a fucking fight, and it sells itself as such. 

I’ve oft been a critic of modern hardcore based wrestling as being too unrealistic with its weapons choices. The WWE’s incredibly lazy leaning on Singapore canes, constant contrived table spots, and the use of weapons that simply just wouldn’t be available in an actual fight. While those matches are certainly not without their charm, after 20+ years of seeing the same cookie cutter weapons spots across a very popular sub-genre of wrestling becomes boring. In this match, there’s very few weapons used. But the ones that ARE used mean something. It’s practical use of practical weapons. Whipping each other with their belts, wrapping the belt around your first to get a solid punch in with the buckle, even some light use of the chairs that doesn’t look so choreographed. Hell, one of my favorite bits is that the heel of Duggan’s cowboy boot legitimately snaps off on a spot, so DiBiase quick grabs it and uses it as a weapon to bust Duggan open. Fantastic! 

Akbar played his role perfectly at ringside. Coaching on DiBiase from a distance, but staying far away from Duggan at all costs. He finally does get himself involved when Duggan is starting to really mount the offensive, and Duggan is finally able to get his hands on Akbar! He lights him up in the corner, bites him repeatedly, and even shoves the referee away so he isn’t stopped. DiBiase quick grabs a chair from earlier to stop the mauling of his manager, but:

The gif can’t convey it, but the crowd went apeshit there! Big punch from Duggan and that’s it, he gets the win. 

Short and sweet. Less than ten minutes, and that’s not a bad thing. Sure, maybe these two have a 20+ minute hardcore style epic in them, I’d believe that. But this feud didn’t need that.I mentioned earlier how the layout and aesthetic of this match actually added more to the stipulation rather than detracting from it, and the same goes for the length the match went. These two HATE each other, they want to hurt the other one and get out. And that’s exactly what they accomplished. It’s not a feud ender, and it leaves the door open for rematches. It checked off every box it needed to check. 

There was ONE actual wrestling move the entire match, and that was DiBiase’s standing fist drop. I’d highly recommend watching this match in order to see what two greats were capable of without needing a 1/3 of an hour, 20 different unbelievable weapons and a ton of crazy spots. 

Again, as charming as those types of matches can be, when something like a street fight can be striped down to the bare minimum like this and STILL over deliver? That’s beautiful pro wrestling, baby.

MATCH RATING: ***1/2

Terry Funk & Dory Funk, Jr. vs. The Road Warriors, AJPW Giant Series 1986 - Day 16, 10/20/86

 

This is a match I can’t even call a dream match, because it’s something I would’ve never even considered to exist. 

Plus, to be a dream match, I think you have to like all of the participants, and I could really take or leave Dory Jr, if we’re being honest. But that’s not with this reviews about!

Again, AJPW’s production value and overall “feeling” feels so much bigger than pretty much any other American promotion at the time outside of obviously the WWF, and maybe Crockett. So to have this whole, complete package PLUS an insane match like this? Hell yeah dude. 

Terry & Dory make their entrance and, well, just look…

Terry’s flavor saver era is absolutely unhinged. Meanwhile, Dory looks like a school bus driver who’s fled to the Far East to avoid catching a charge. 

And now the Road Warriors come out, AND HELL YEAH. 

The match begins and it’s not completely clear who’s working what role at the start, but I think once they got a feel for it, the Funks decided to work heel although not overtly. As a side note, Terry looks to be in the best physical shape of his career, but standing next to the Road Warriors at the peak of their steroid usage makes him look like a sickly, old man. 

The Road Warriors dominate early on. Standard fare, nothing you wouldn’t normally see. A cool moment was Hawk hitting Terry with a piledriver, and Terry no-selling it like Hawk would normally do, and Hawk actually sells being spooked a bit by that! 

Dory tries to work an actual match with the Road Warriors, and I don’t know man. I know I’m hard on Dory, but I just don’t get how this man got away with spending his 40’s and 50’s working like he was in his 60’s and looking like he was in his 70’s. He never really changed up his style, and sure, he’s a seasoned vet, former World Champ — it’s clearly worked for him. I think I just compare him too much to Terry, who obviously changed with the times constantly and, in my opinion and I’m sure others, made him way more of a legend than Dory. 

LOD continue to dominate using sheer power, but eventually the Funk’s are able to wear them down some and start working a regular wrestling match. However, it’s clear via their displayed strategy that they’re working on the fly and have to work quick, because they know that their kill shot is going to come from a technical wrestling maneuver. So with that, they break down and start trying to FIGHT the Road Warriors, even going dirty trick for dirty trick with them, as shown by this:

And that’s where this breaks down! You think okay, hey, they’re going to the floor, they’ll do a quick brawl and that’ll be it. Double DQ or whatever. 

But what follows is an absolutely INSANE arena brawl!

As you can see in the below gifs, what starts out as throwing fists turns into Funk throwing a guard rail at Hawk, and Hawk throwing Funk into a randomly placed desk. AND NOW THE REAL FURNITURE STARTS GETTING THROWN!

This was CRAZY to watch at just after midnight, I got all pumped up. It was one of those moments where, for a second, I go “Okay I’ve watched wrestling for 30+ years, I know this is a work, but…” because this looks like a LEGIT brawl. 

But then you’re brought back down to earth by remembering that Hawk and Terry Funk are two of the most certifiably insane people to ever wrestle, and they both fall into a pro wrestling schtick coma when they’re at their best. And I will always love that. 

Match ends in a double count out, the crowd is a mix of loving it and kinda horrified, and that’s that. 

This was not a great match. But it was a fun as hell spectacle, and I would strongly recommend this if you’re having a few beers or maybe just need a pick me up. Pro wrestling 101, baby. 

MATCH RATING: ***ish

GUNTHER vs. Dominik Mysterio, WWE Raw 3/4/24

This was a non-title match. 

When I was thinking about more matches from 2024 that I could write about, a few had crossed my mind, but most of them have been covered ad nauseam at this point since I’ve waited so long. But whether this one has or hasn’t, I was willing to make an exception. 

I was looking forward to this match from the moment it was announced over the weekend leading into RAW. And boy did it deliver. 

Now, there’s been a lot of discourse on Twitter over the past year or two regarding Dom and if he’s actually good or not. Most of it, on the Pro-Dom side, was perpetrated by my comrade Simon (@ElHijoDelSimon on Twitter / Handwerk Reviews linked on side bar). I’ve never really gotten into a deep discussion with him about that, mostly because we’ve known each other for over 15 years and I don’t know if we’ve ever actually exchanged any words with one another (kidding, of course) (?). BUT, I’d have to believe that Simon’s original point (which was in regard to Dom being better than a specific amount of the G1 field in that specific year. Classic thread) may have been made partially in jest, but with seeds of truth planted within that then began to grow with more evidence over time. Because I dare say that at this point, Simon’s opinion has become even more prevalent. 

And Dominick Mysterio *IS* actually good!

Now, I mean look, he’s not rewriting the how-to on pro wrestling just yet, but he’s way better than people were giving him credit for, and over the last 18 months has really found himself not only in character work, but in his in ring work. He doesn’t need to emulate his father’s move set (other than for the obvious heat grab), and he’s developed a new move set that suits him well. 

Turning him heel was brilliant beyond just for the reasons regarding his character, but also because of how easy it is to come along in this industry with a solid heel run underneath you first and foremost. You ask a large majority of wrestlers who’ve been on weekly TV, and I believe a good amount would back up the idea that working a basic heel style is so much easier than anything else in the industry. And for someone who was being judged harshly on his in ring work because of who his father is, this has been the perfect style for Dom’s development. 

What this turn has done is not just sharpen his basic fundamentals and allow him to grow into his move set, but it’s begun preparing him for the inevitable face turn, working as an underdog babyface going against bigger heels, ala his father in his prime, Spike Dudley or Sami Zayn, etc. 

When the report came out that originally Dom was set to face Brock Lesnar at Elimination Chamber in February, it struck a lot of people as odd. Why do what would’ve been a glorified squash on a major stadium PPV event? And the more I’ve thought about it, especially after this match with Gunther, the more it’s started to make sense in relation to my aforementioned point of them preparing Dom for the next step in his career. “Let’s see how the kid fares against our biggest and best monster, and we’ll go from there.”

Just watch this match against Gunther. On the surface, it would appear Gunther is the situational babyface for the evening due to commentary, Dom’s storyline, and the overly ridiculous enhanced crowd boo’s that they pump in for Dom. But when you break down the way the match was worked, this was Dom as the plucky, brave, underdog babyface trying to find a way to step up to this unstoppable monster Gunther and bring him down. 

Never once did Dom truly back down or try to backtrack on the words he said to Gunther in the previous weeks promo segment. He worked a SIMILAR style you saw someone like Gable work, and I reckon that you’ll see Sami work at WrestleMania. 

Dom ducks, dodges and evades everything Gunther throws at him, not to avoid his punishment — he never once gets cocky during this match — but to wear the Ring General down. A chase ensues on the outside because Dom needs to regroup and catch Gunther in a precarious position, which he does exactly with the wrist spot on the ring post! He’s working the champ over, trying to not only find a weak spot, but try and prevent the big chops and some of Gunther’s submission arsenal by injuring that hand/wrist of his. 

Gunther stays on him, keeps the punishment up, finding ways to work around the hurt hand/wrist and he makes Dom pay dearly. Dom sells INCREDIBLY well here, dying on everything Gunther nails him with, including this fun spot:

Dom continues to kick out. He could easily just lay down and take the pin fall as the cowardly heel he typically is, and the pain would be over. But he wants to prove a point and get this big non title win over the dominant Intercontinental Champion. 

However, Gunther’s too much for him. Big delayed Powerbomb and an extra brutal looking Boston Crab ends it, and Gunther wins. 

Now, I don’t think this was some sort of 4D chess maneuver by the “savior of the WWF Booking Committee” Triple H. But I do think this was a low key covert operation, which was originally intended for Elimination Chamber before Brock’s piss texts, to see how Dom would fare in the next logical step in his career. And I think he passed with flying colors. 

I originally rated this on Twitter (@phillyleotard0) as part of my 2024 Match Rankings Thread, and I will continue to honor that rating. But just know that for a 9 minute TV match, this comes highly recommended, and is — for my money — the best WWE TV match of the year 

MATCH RATING ***1/4

Timothy Thatcher vs. Eddie Kingston - BEYOND Wrestling: Uncharted Territory, 10/10/19

 

Disrespecting Eddie Kingston is worse than any other physical harm you can inflict on him. 

You could work a body part, you could slam him on thumbtacks, you could piledrive him straight on his skull. 

But God help the man who disrespects the Mad King. 

This is a fun match for me because I was really high on Tim for a few years before his WWE run and for his WWE run, and Eddie’s worked his way into the conversation of my top 25 all time in the last five years. So it’s nice seeing them intersect at a point where their careers could NOT be going any differently, working just a straight up mat based wrestling contest, sans any pomp or frills. 

The match itself isn’t anything spectacular, but it’s a good, solid exchange of holds and limb work. Namely, Tim focuses almost all of his attention on Eddie’s arm. Eddie’s selling is, per usual, excellent. They don’t take too many chances or risks with anything though, and playing armchair psychiatrist, part of me feels that it was probably due to this being the period of time where Eddie was seriously going through some shit in regards to his career. I’m probably projecting, but Eddie just never fully seems into some of his matches during this time period. 

At the end of the day though, Eddie only 50% motivated is still better to me than a lot of other guys. 

But back to how I started this review, “Disrespecting Eddie Kingston is worse than any other physical harm you can inflict on him.” It’s my favorite parts of this match! Eddie will be succumbing to Thatcher’s limb work, and being the bastard scoundrel he is, Thatcher often likes to add insult to injury, especially after the middle finger Eddie threw his way early on. 

So anytime Thatcher would have Kingston perhaps moments from tapping, he’d do a little gesture like smushing his boot in Eddie’s face or slapping his head. 

Wrong move, cowboy. 

Each time he does this, it’s almost like it’s Eddie’s power-up, because he finds a way out of the hold and starts laying into Thatcher with big strikes. It’s basic, but it works! And it feels realistic coming from two dudes like this, so extra points added for authenticity. 

In the end, Thatcher is too much for Eddie to overcome. The arm work catches up, and this time, instead of letting his anger get the best of him by insulting Eddie, he uses that momentum to turn his limb work into a surprise crucifix pin to get the three count!

Fun finish, fun story. Again, nothing spectacular or otherworldly, but this would’ve made a fine B-Show tv main event. 

MATCH RATING: *** 

CM Punk vs. Brock Lesnar - WWE SummerSlam, 8/18/13

This was a No Disqualifications match. 

This is obviously a very famous match for both good and bad reasons. More on that in a bit. 

This site is designed for me to mostly review matches and shows I’ve never seen, because I was an overly self-sheltered WWF/E fan for the first like 20 years of my life. So why would I be reviewing this very famous match?

Well, duh. Because I’ve never seen it!

I’ve wrote on this site before about my first foray into the idea of abandoning wrestling altogether in 2002 (The Undertaker vs. The Rock vs. Kurt Angle - Vengeance 2002) and essentially, that period was saved by the product simply getting better and my sophomore year of high school not going exactly how I imagined it due to moving to a new town. 

And then yeah, there were times during my senior year and first year of college where I missed stuff simply because I didn’t have the time or ability. There were far more important things than wrestling. But I always found my way back to wrestling, and I’d go and watch stuff I’d miss eventually, because I never wanted to be too out of the loop (god bless you, KaZaa). 

But after years and years of a “will he / won’t he” relationship with the product, I had finally had my fill during the peak of the PG Era. The crappy stuff with guest hosts for RAW, the ridiculously watered down and infantile product being put out, the constant misuse of some of the best wrestlers in the industry in favor of goobers like Edge or Triple H, and I had just had enough. WrestleMania 29 was the first time I had ever watched a WrestleMania live and immediately said “man, that sucked”. Sure, there were Mania’s before that I eventually looked back on and realized were bad. But usually in the moment, the recency bias poisons my brain into thinking “hey that was all really good”. 

Add this in with the fact that I was in the middle of my long running NWA/JCP/WCW review project on The Original BustedQuad, and I’m literally going from seeing more Chavito/Swoggle bullshit and then watching Flair/Eaton at the January ‘91 Clash. There was no comparison. 

So a few weeks after WrestleMania, I simply threw in the towel. And for the first time in my life, purposely, I missed a sustained period of WWE programming. And the more time that passed, the more I just assumed I was never going back. 

I followed along with reading about some stuff that would happen via the message boards or the long running MSN group chat I was in, but even when something sounded decent, I just didn’t have the urge. 

In the build to Summerslam 2013, and in talking with some of my old BQ pals, it felt like the company may ACTUALLY be getting into a mode of having Bryan and Punk as their top two guys (lmao) and I was finally feeling the need to have that itch scratched by the wrestling bug again. 

I didn’t watch Summerslam simply because I had plans with friends and that will always take precedent over this embarrassing lifelong hobby. But I picked things up again the night after on RAW. 

BUT, within a few weeks, I realized the WWE machine would never truly change. Punk was being horribly wasted in a Rybaxel feud, Bryan was clearly just a fan service tease (that they were later forced to deliver on against their will) and nothing had changed. Orton, in his most boring era, was champ. Batista was coming back. Big Show and Kane were still being used in main events. Triple H was Triple H. Just…fuck it all, man. 

Instead of throwing a fit and going back to not watching, I figured I’d keep watching RAW and the occasional PPV, but I was never going to go back and watch something I missed. I didn’t care how good something sounded, I wasn’t going to do it. And it’s something I still followed until recently (I didn’t watch WWE HIAC 2022 and I still have never gone back to watch Cody/Seth, for example). But this site is finally a place where I can pick and choose what I want to watch and at my own pace and leisure. 

So, that long, dry, go-nowhere story out of the way, onto the match!

The story is quite simple, I suppose. Punk took a break after losing to the Undertaker, and this pissed off Paul Heyman who felt Punk wasn’t in it for the both of them anymore, and when Punk returned, Heyman waited for the right moment to exact his form of revenge before calling in his Beast Incarnate. And now Punk wanted revenge, to prove there was more worth in the BEST than the BEAST. 

The behind the scenes story is old hat by now. Punk hated his life. Creative was dog shit, his big WWE Title reign was sacrificed to the Rock, essentially making him a 434 day transitional champion, and his health was in bad shape. Vince guilted him into coming back early for this match, and then changed the creative to have Brock win, which Punk objected to as well. And with all that molded together, you have the makings of what would be the last good match CM Punk has had in the WWE to date. 

The match is brutal and fantastic, in all its glory. Punk is definitely in bad shape, it shows and he lacks explosiveness, but he’s still giving 100% while only performing at like 60%. Wrestling math, bitch. 

In the build up, Brock mocked Punk’s MMA influenced move set, for obvious reasons. So it was a nice touch when Punk was able to not only break out that MMA inspired offense on Brock, but do it by constantly beating him on the mat, which was always the main weakness of Brock’s game in the octagon. 

Heyman was his usual self on the floor: an extraordinary supporting actor. My favorite spot came when Heyman was distracting Punk on the apron, and Punk gripped him up by the tie. Brock grabbed Punk for the F5, but Punk held on to Heyman’s tie and was choking him. Heyman had to plead with Brock not to do the move because it would in turn hurt him, so Brock angrily put Punk down, and that led to Punk surprising Brock with a GTS and a guaranteed pin to end it, but Heyman DOVE on to Punk to break it up!

Punk is able to counter another F5 attempt with a DDT and goes right into the Anaconda Vice! He’s going to beat Brock on the ground, it makes perfect sense! But that damn Heyman breaks that up too. Punk finally locks the Vice on Heyman but Brock is able to use this time to recover and absolutely DESTROY a prone Punk with chair shots. And a NASTY looking F5 on to the chair ends it, The Beast beats the Best. 

Some people, I think, have judged this match a bit too harshly, given that their main criticism is Punk got too much offense in on Brock compared to a lot of other guys. But I think it all plays into the evolution of Brock’s character from 2012-2018. Early on in his return, he misjudged a lot of things: the Cena match, at least 1.5 of the Triple H matches, and then this match where he almost got made to tap out numerous times. And all of it was done so it could show this scary son of a bitch adapting to a “sport” he hadn’t taken part in much over the last decade. It helped make this anomaly of a wrestler that went on in the next 12 months to end the Undertaker’s streak at WrestleMania seemingly with ease, and then absolutely squashed the WWE’s Ace at the next Summerslam to win the belt. Each match was a lesson for Brock to learn and adapt, and because of those first two years of matches, he went on an absolute unmatched run of dominance. To me, it’s brilliant. 

Buuut, that doesn’t change the fact that this might as well have been the actual end for Punk. On his ill-fated podcast with some dude who shares a bank account with his mom, Punk said he told Vince in the build up to this match when it was decided Brock would win, “Is Brock going to be at work the next night? Or the week after that?” And Vince said no. So Punk said “Oh okay, so since I’m losing, does that mean I don’t have to be at work the next night?” And Vince said well of course you do, we need you. And Punk said “well if you need me so bad tell me how it makes sense to have me lose to a guy nobody’s going to see on tv again for another six months?”

That may not be the EXACT transcript of the conversation, but you get the idea. 

The match itself delivered. I don’t think I’m going to rank this as high as I’ve seen it ranked elsewhere, but that’s probably mostly due to me watching this ten years after the fact, and having my mind so bogged down knowing what this led to in the long run. 

But an ass whooper is an ass whooper. 

MATCH RATING: ****

Bret Hart vs. 1-2-3 Kid, WWF Monday Night RAW, 7/11/94

 

This was for the WWF Championship, held by Bret. 

I chose to watch this on the Network in its full form instead of tracking it down as a single match. So I got to fill my nostalgia meter for the night by hearing the old RAW theme and having a JR/Savage announce team. 

Plus, I got to see the absolutely INCREDIBLE video package WWF aired to start the show about this match. It highlighted some major points in Kid’s run, including the win over Razor, the win over DiBiase, winning the tag belts and then beating Nikolai Volkoff last week to earn this shot. They also show Bret speaking at the 1994 HOF ceremony about Kid, which was a nice touch. The type of package I feel like you didn’t normally see from the WWF back then. 

I saw this match when it first aired and I was 7 years old. I got to stay up late since it was the summer time, so not only did I watch it, but I always taped RAW so after it was done, I watched it again! I was a fan of Kid but I was the biggest Bret fan you could imagine a kid in the mid 90’s being. But, I’ve never gone back and rewatched the match since somehow, which is very strange of me, but nevertheless, here we go!

I want to get this out of the way first. I know that the story has long been around that JR and Savage did not get along at all, and it’s an anger JR still carries with him til this day. And it’s probably why it was very rare to see them as the only two on commentary. But on THIS night and for THIS match, I don’t think there could’ve been a better commentary team in the world at the time. Kid and Bret have both said how much their commentary adds to the match, and it’s true. A career night on the headset for both men. 

This match is a terrific example of how to make a new star in defeat, but the issue comes in the lack of follow up. Bret is at the peak of his overness in this era, and he’s able to feed in to Kid’s offense and actually be on the ropes, metaphorically speaking, numerous times without losing anything. He’s even able to display a great mixture of surprise and frustration in this now fairly famous gif:

It’s at this point that Bret starts to get more aggressive. Not with any heelish undertones either, which seems to be a lost art in this day and age. You wouldn’t watch this portion of the match and ever wonder “Oh well maybe Bret’s turning heel?”. 

To add to his growing frustration, Kid continues to match Bret in every department, even with the aggressiveness. So now, Bret has to resort to some extra stiff strikes during the set up for his five moves of doom, including some European uppercuts that Kid just dies on. 

Bret has this won with a clear pinfall, but Kid gets his foot on the bottom rope and the ref doesn’t see it. Bret shockingly stands up for what is right and points out the error, and another ref comes out to back that up so the match is restarted! And to pay him back for his good will, Kid almost IMMEDIATELY upsets Bret with a quick roll up!

Now Bret gets REALLY aggressive and borderline angry, and it’s incredible. But that’s where Bret slips and leaves an opening for Kid to make his comeback. And the whole time, as Kid’s trying to build up to his finish, he does a FANTASTIC job selling the exhaustion this match has caused. Kid tries for a desperation killshot by going for a missile drop kick but Bret catches him and traps him in the Sharpshooter for the win. 

The epitome of what a world champ versus underdog face should look like. But like I said, the follow up does nothing. Kid goes back to needlessly floating around the midcard until his injury the following year. While I get your not going to strap up 1-2-3 Kid, it would’ve been nice to at least have seen this actually elevate him up the card at the time, instead of this just being a singular great moment to look back on. 

While I wouldn’t put this on the level of being one of the greatest matches ever, I would easily call it a top 10-15 match to ever take place on WWF/E Television. 

MATCH RATING: ****

The Amazing Red vs. Low Ki, House of Glory: Beware the Fury, 2/3/18

 

This was for Red’s HoG Championship. Which is a funny sentence. “Low Ki wants that Red Hog Championship”. 

Anywho, this is their first singles match against one another in close to twenty years at this point. Their actual last singles match takes place in late 2002 in TNA, and they’re in a few multi-mans together, but let’s be real: this is supposed to be the sequel to the famous ROH match from 6/22/02 that cemented Ki as a generational talent and really put Red on the map (and you can read about it here: ROH: Road to the Title 6/22/2002)

The match itself definitely has a cool feeling to it. Neat looking venue, interesting production set up. I’ve never seen a HoG match before so I wasn’t sure what to expect. 

I forgot about Low Ki going through his Assassin phase from that video game. And even though it’s nerdy as fuck, I’d be lying if I didn’t say it also kind’ve ruled? But then it also loses coolness points when you remember that Ki is ultimately a dipshit. 

The match starts, and hey, it is what it is. It’s these two, but it’s these two in 2018. Ki works slow and methodical as part of this assassin gimmick, but I think it’s also to disguise that he simply just doesn’t have the pop he did back in the day, which is fine. He immediately targets Red’s knees and ankles, working over his infamously bad limbs.

Then this sort of breaks down into an ECW style arena brawl for a bit. It’s very slow and plodding. They make their way up to a stage set up in the back of the arena, and suddenly…well, suddenly this becomes a cinematic match? The camera angle changes, the colors scheme changes, it’s done on a very annoying two camera system which relies WAY too heavily on quick cuts. I mean it was honestly to the point that even Kevin Dunn would’ve thought it was overkill. 

They revisit a modified version of their famous exchange from their ROH match, but Red can’t go anymore so to improvise, he grabs a steel chair. 

And that’s when it dawns on me what they’re doing, just as Low Kin reaches for a randomly placed wooden staff, and breaks it in two in the coolest way ever. They’re doing a fucking kung fu movie roof top fight scene! Like Ki starts doing karate with the broken staff and Red uses the chair as a shield and they tease teetering off the stage like it’s a roof top!

What the fuck am I watching?!

Ki finally managed to land a big kick on Red which sends him flying off the stage and onto a bunch of production guys. At this point, the super annoying commentary team begins to bring up how Ki is a hired gun and maybe he only came to HoG to get the belt and hand it immediately to whatever villain Red is currently feuding with (I didn’t catch the name and was too lazy to go back). And hey that’s a fine story, maybe work that angle in an actual mat based match where you can still comfortably hide Red’s limitations instead of doing this ridiculous shit? 

They work their way back through the crowd and to ringside, and this portion of the match goes on FOREVER. I mean there’s just a ton of dead time where Ki will strike Red, Red will sell it and Ki will take like 20-30 seconds it felt like before he strikes again. 

They then do a really bad looking ref bump with nobody there to make the count on some near falls, just as the match was starting to get interesting. The longer I watched this, the more my melted pudding brain is beginning to believe this is some sort of WWE psyop, because this is one of those forced epic story telling bullshits that WWE fans be cummin’ in they lil’ panties to anymore. Whatever. 

Red stops a Warriors Way and a super Ki Krusher to hit the tilt a whirl 450 to FINALLY beat Low Ki after almost 20 years. No, I don’t mean how long since their last match, I mean how long this match fucking felt like at points. 

Oh but it’s not over! Some cheesy 80’s music starts playing, almost like the end of Funk/Onita. Like what is this shit? It’s looking like the ending of a really bad B movie. Is this what HoG always is like?

Few fun/funny things sprinkled throughout but Red is clearly beyond cooked sadly and Ki is just too caught up in his own bullshit. They didn’t know what they wanted this match to be. I’m choosing to believe that’s what happened because the other option is that they’re both complete fucking dweebs with this shit. 

But whatever. Kept my attention the whole way through and far from the worst thing I’ve ever seen. Fake roof battle was the high point. It was dumb, but it was fun dumb. 

I would only recommend this if you’re a real big fan of 2010’s mush brained Low Ki or if you’ve got some pills you want to pop before bed and need something to distract you. This is mostly a compliment. 

I think. 

MATCH RATING: ***ish

Eddie Gilbert vs. Cactus Jack, TWA Winter Challenge II, 3/2/91

 

This was a Falls Count Anywhere match. 

This is one of the early, American indie feud darlings. We’re immediately post-territory era. The AWA is on life support and would be dead within 60 days. The NWA is limping along in a lopsided partnership with WCW. And the WWF is the WWF. Just 4-5 years earlier, a promotion like Joel Goodhart’s Tri-State Wrestling Alliance would’ve been considered an outlaw promotion due to its lack of affiliation with the NWA. Now? More companies than ever before were popping up, finally free to run mostly wherever they liked (or could) without having to worry about the devastating grasp of the NWA. 

EXCEPT…wrestling was in its first true down period, in history, really. Territorially speaking, wrestling could always draw regardless of the economy. Some places drew better than others, and this is why a governing body like the NWA was beneficial. But with the WWF’s squeeze on the wrestling world continuing beyond just national status, it created a bottlenecking effect where anything below them were scraping for crumbs for the most part. And that’s obviously what Vince had wanted. But it (along with a litany of other WWF induced injuries) ended up sending the entire industry, including itself eventually, into its darkest period yet. One that would last until the creation of Monday Nitro on TNT. 

But the City of Philadelphia was one of those cities that was simply industry proof. If you were a big enough company, or put on a good enough crowd with good enough promotion, you were going to get a crowd. The TWA did just that here, filling out Penn Hall in a scene that honestly is jarring considering what its superior predecessor would draw in 1992-94. 

The card had it all. One half of the Midnight Express Sweet Stan Lane with manager James E Cornette, fresh off receiving their WCW releases, were here for Lane to take on former Black Scorpion and holder of the Manila folder that would’ve ended Dusty’s career, Al Perez. Ivan Koloff and Manny Fernandez would rekindle their old Crockett tag title feud in a Russian chain match. Abdullah the Butcher and the Original Shiek were guaranteed for a bloody, bloody, brawl. Popular local acts like JT Smith, DC Drake, Tony Stetson, Rockin Rebel, Johnny Hotbody, Jimmy Jannetty, Larry Winters and Glen Osbourne all filled out the card. Future extreme legends like Sabu and a young surf dude with attitude (kinda groovy?) named Mr. Sandman made appearances. And to top it all off, USWA Champion Jerry Lawler would scrap with his arch nemesis Terry Funk in a “Fan Participation Lumberjack Match” in the main event. 

And somewhere in the middle, in between two blood baths, the soon to be self proclaimed King of Philadelphia Eddie Gilbert took part in a royal clash with the yet to be crowned King of Hardcore, Cactus Jack. 

Their feud had been going on in the TWA and its sister promotions for roughly a year, each encounter becoming more brutal than the last. Finally, after needing a way to “lean into the pitch” with the madness these two brought, the promoters allowed these two to brawl all around the arena with Falls Counting Anywhere!

As a self-professed ECW mutant since I was 8 years old, and as someone who’s been watching wrestling for over 30 years (I’ll pay you money to kill me), I can understand if watching this match from 1991 in the year of our lord 2024 feels underwhelming. There’s not a ton of substance here. There’s far better matches that will take place in this town over the next ten years, there’s far wilder brawls in the crowd that will take place in this town over the next ten years, and you can bet your sweet, sweet ass that there will be way more blood spilled in these streets over the next ten years. 

But if you can try your best to remove those blinders, this was really fun for 1991. 

There’s not a lot to break down in the match itself. It’s formulaic by today’s standards. I kept expecting to hear Joey Styles voice to pop up, calling the action during spots where the combatants fought out of sight. Or even “Natural Born Killaz” to play during the entire fight. This definitely lays out a blueprint that ECW would follow numerous times to much greater success. 

The fans in attendance got a much better match than the fans watching on VHS release or PRISM (old Philadelphia premium superstation, it ruled, was eventually turned into the network you all know now as STARZ.) There’s not a lot of lighting here as we get deeper into the crowd, so you miss a lot. But luckily, somebody has some high powered flash lights or spot lights that they point upwards to try and illuminate the violence. 

There was one scary moment at ringside, as Cactus set Eddie up for a piledriver on a table. But as Eddie countered out of it, disaster almost struck:

Jesus. A close one, for sure. 

Back in the ring, both men continue the brawl, working cuts on one another. Nothing that would register on the Muta/Eddie scale, but fine for what this was. Medusa, who’s at ringside and I believe even married to Eddie at this point, eventually gets involved, tossing one of her shoes in for Eddie to use. But Cactus intercepts it and nails Eddie with it to score the win. 

Their feud would rage on for the rest of the year, culminating in a one night series of three stipulation matches in August (another falls count anywhere match, a stretcher match and a steel cage match). A bloody, single night encounter that would go on to become a popular hit among tape traders and early internet scavengers. And while it wasn’t enough to keep the TWA afloat, as the company would be out of business by December, the promotion and this series of matches laid the ground work for what came next, not only in the city of Philadelphia, but in the slowly redeveloping wrestling world, becoming a much needed catalyst of change for an industry dying (literally) for a makeover. 

The TWA? That promotion helped develop the blue print. The Cactus/Eddie matches? That feud sparked an idea. And together, they gave way to what was next. 

And that…was Extreme. 

That was really corny. Sorry.

MATCH RATING: ***ish

Eddie Guerrero vs. Lightning Kid, NJPW Explosion Tour 1993 - Day 9, 6/5/93

 

This was a match in the Top of the Super Juniors IV tournament. 

Fun time for both wrestlers, as this is roughly 3 weeks after Kid’s extremely famous match and win vs. Razor Ramon, in one of the greatest moments in the history of Monday Night RAW. 

On the flip side, this match is taking place mere weeks before a really big summer for Eddie in AAA, where Los Gringos Locos would partake in some extremely famous matches that wound up launching Eddie to superstardom. 

The match is way better than I expected it to be. I mean, it’s these two with both at the early stages of their primes, so that should be expected. But given I had never even knew this match existed, I really didn’t expect much heading in to my viewing. So that may add to my overall enjoyment of it. 

As for the match itself, Kid is super fast and shows it early with reversals and counters of anything Eddie throws at him. Eddie finds he’s not as fast as Kid on an early ropes sequence, so he slows it down with a few stiff strikes and a whip on the outside, sending Kid head and shoulder first into the guard rail. 

Eddie wants to act quick by going right into a Gory special and a pin attempt,  it he’s unsuccessful. Now, he begins stretching the hell out of Kid to wear him out and keep him grounded. Focus is going toward the neck and left shoulder, working off of the initial throw into the guardrail. 

Now that he’s effectively worn him down, Kid’s more Eddie’s speed and Eddie’s able to thwart his comeback on a ropes sequence and ground him again immediately, going right back to work on the left shoulder. 

Kid works his way out and, on another ropes sequence, he bends down to make Eddie roll-spin over his back, and as he lands Eddie takes Kid’s bad arm down with him in a quick arm drag. Such a great little touch. 

Eddie keeps the arm/shoulder work up and Kid is largely selling it fine. Big comeback starts, and Kid is able to catch Eddie off guard with a big kick sending him the floor, followed by a rather sloppy but effective (and cool) diving spinning heel kick from the top down onto the floor! 

Eddie slows the match down, again to his pace, by coming back in and battling on the apron with the ropes between them. Eddie hits a big springboard attack followed by a baseball slide to keep Kid on the floor,  and then a HUGE DIVE INTO THE CROWD!

Kid slowly gets back in. The arm and neck work have mostly been abandoned, and Kid’s even stopped really selling it after the big dive. In fact, he really doesn’t sell the dive much either, so that sucks. Eddie grabs Kid from behind in the ring, but Kid swings a leg back to low blow him and then runs up the corner with a moonsault press, mimicking the finish to his match vs Razor, but Eddie kicks out in an unlucky twist of fate. Eddie repays him with a stiff Manhattan drop to the groin. Eddie sets Kid up top to prepare for the finish, but Kid gets an errant kick to daze Eddie and plants him with a beautiful tornado DDT, and that just barely gets the three count. Either that, or Eddie decided to kick out at 3.1 just for funsies. 

Overall, I really enjoyed this. Through a modern lens, this would be a perfect match for RAW or Dynamite. And I appreciate the chances they both took given that this was in 1993. Sadly, I think this is the best these two are capable of together. They work a program in WCW that is painstakingly fine. It’s a shame because this is a pairing that, by all math, should work. And while they certainly never any horrible output, it never really delivers beyond the threshold seemingly set by this match. 

MATCH RATING: ***1/4

ROH: BEATING THE ODDS - 9/6/2003

ROH: BEATING THE ODDS

Charbonneau Field House
Wakefield, MA
September 6th, 2003

ROH World Champion: Samoa Joe (Since 3/22/2002 - 5 Defenses)
ROH Tag Team Champions: Vacant (Since 8/20/2003 - 0 Defenses)

Due to Red’s injury, the tag titles were vacated on 8/20.

Backstage, Punk and Cabana are standing by. Punk says that tonight he will X his hands with Raven's blood. He wants Raven to remember the failure that he is, and wants him to remember who started AND ended this. He challenged him six months ago in Boston and he beat him, that should’ve been it. Then, he tried to test him. He chose Colt Cabana as a partner, and he failed. He failed with BJ and Christopher Daniels as partners as well, so he thought he'd one up him in a singles match. He whipped his ass in that dog collar match then he pinned him. Then he took it too far and poured BEER down his throat. THAT is why his hands will be covered in Raven’s blood. He wants to see the look on his face when he realizes he can't win. He knows he was responsible for Lucy’s beatdown, and he knows all he's done, and he's not afraid of Raven. As long as there's a him (Punk) and a him (Raven), there will be a them. So tonight, he nails him to his X. Punk then leaves, and Cabana asks if the camera wants him to say a joke or something funny. He won't. This is the Field of Honor, so he's serious tonight.

Elsewhere, Raven is sat down. He says, “The world is full of kings and queens. They'll blind your eyes and steal your dreams. It's heaven and hell, but unfortunately for CM Punk, heaven is no longer an option. Welcome to Raven's Clockwork Orange House of Fun Cage Match. Tonight, he is going to kill him. Quoth the Raven, Nevermore.”

In the locker room, AJ Styles is talking to Jimmy Rave about his shot in the Field of Honor tournament tonight. Styles puts it over as Rave’s chance to prove himself. He tells Jimmy that he believes in him. This felt a lot like Aaron Rodgers gifting DeShone Kizer literature on “what really happened on 9/11” for some reason, BUT, it is important nonetheless.

This next bit is actually shown during the beginning of the first match. Homicide and the Rottweilers are at the fan fest before the show. The Backseat Boyz confront them and the Cide/Acid issue continues, I guess. It breaks down into a brawl and there’s going to be a fight without honor tonight.

Match #1: Colt Cabana vs. Jimmy Rave [Field of Honor Tournament Match]
So Cabana is wearing a really weird full body suit type thing, like he’s a woman wrestling on one of the Saudi shows. Apparently, it’s because he fucking has adult chicken pox. No comment. Anyway, this was decent. There’s a bit of reservation I guess because of the illness. Rave works like a really nervous rookie to sell that story with AJ. Fun spot where he keeps going for shoulder tackles off the ropes but can’t knock Cabana down. So Cabana willingly lets him try again, but as Jimmy goes to run, Cabana trips him and then struts. Rave goes in to panic mode when a lot of his early stuff doesn’t work, so he tries to immediately throw anything out that might be a kill shot but Cabana is just too powerful for him. Finish capitalizes on this as Rave does get him down in the Crossface but Cabana powers up and out of it and gets Jimmy with the Colt 46 to win.
**1/4

So I guess this is sort of a G1 style tourney with eight guys across two blocks. They’ve done a really shitty job explaining this that probably made it super frustrating to watch in real time. So if we’re keeping score:

BLOCK B:
CABANA - 1
RAVE - 0
WHITMER - 0
MAFF - 0

Backstage, the camera catches up with a dejected Jimmy Rave. AJ Styles comes over and says he'll tell Jimmy why he lost that match. He says that he worked Colt’s arm and neck, but didn't focus on either one long enough for anything to really work out. He says Rave would’ve had more success with the neck, and should have stuck with that. AJ says he did a good job though, and walks off talking to him. Nice inside baseball stuff.

The cameras then catch up with Colt Cabana, who reveals the actual chicken pox on his body to prove he's a fighter. Ok.

Match #2: Slyk Wagner Brown vs. Diablo Santiago
No. Absolutely not. SWB wins with a Powerbomb. Moving on.
1/4*

Match #3: Backseat Boyz vs. Dunn & Marcos vs. The SAT vs. Special K (Izzy/Dixie) [Tag Team Scramble]
Idk why but ROH double booking guys annoys me. Like from a kayfabe perspective, why would Trent Acid give a shit about this match? Or alternatively, if this meaningless match is so important to ROH, why would they allow Homicide/Acid later? I guess it doesn’t matter too much though as this didn’t even go ten minutes. Everyone gets their shit in. The SAT are still aggravatingly bad and thankfully I think I’m almost to the end of their run. Izzy/Dixie are great though and this is mostly a vehicle for the Backseatz to shine. They hit the T Gimmick on Dunn to almost end it but Joel Maximo leaps off Dunn’s back to go at Acid, and Acid cuts him off with a solid mid air yakuza kick and that does the deal.
**

Match #4: Matt Stryker vs. John Walters [Field of Honor Tournament Match]
I know everyone’s tired of Marvel movies, but hear me out. Remember in the Thor films, each sequel had a scene early on where the events of a previous movie were told through cheesy Chamberlain’s men actors? And it got the point across, had some comedic value but obviously and intentionally cut the balls off the main dramatic overtone of the film it was recapping?

That’s what these early Gabe pure style/overly technical bland guys are doing. Because the real movie we get is over on WWE or even TNA with dudes like Benoit and Eddie and Angle and even ROH’s own Styles and Daniels over in TNA. These guys like Stryker, Collyer and Walters are simply nothing more than Chamberlain’s men, court jesters paid to do a job that entertains only their stubby, creepy, little king who only crowned himself that because he spent 9 years getting Paul E’s coffee the right temperature.

Too mean? Maybe. But it distracted me through a mind numbingly boring match. They focus too much on trying to be an Anderson or a Tully or a Benoit and do these stories based solely on limb work, but they’re not tight enough in their work to be able to pull it off. It comes across as a tribute act, like a less entertaining FTR (derogatory).

These Boston suburbanites don’t like it either, as what starts out to be a small smattering of boo’s turns into roughly half the crowd calling this boring.

Stryker continues his knee work anyway because he probably doesn’t know how to call a good enough audible. Walters has his comeback and does some decent selling of the knee. Who cares. Oh I guess I should because the finish comes here, where Walters knee gives out on a Powerbomb attempt and Stryker hooks the bad leg to get the three count.

Dean Douglas is somewhere pounding off to that finish, and Gabe’s probably watching.
**

BLOCK A:
STRYKER - 1
WALTERS - 0
SABIN - 0
XAVIER - 0

Backstage, Convicted Sex Offender Rob Feinstein is enjoying some of the catering. Chicken parm to be exact. He compliments the chef. How nice. Homicide comes up and brings up what happened earlier at the fan fest. He says he is volunteering to take himself out of the World Title match tonight against Joe (what? when was that advertised?) and he wants a FOH against Trent. Feinstein notes that by doing this, he doesn’t just forfeit the shot tonight he forfeits it in general. Homicide says he doesn’t care he wants Trent Acid. So Feinstein makes it official and goes back to enjoying his dinner, not a care in the world.

Rob Feinstein is a convicted sex offender.

Also, what was the point of this segment if commentary earlier already confirmed Homicide/Trent FOH was happening? How is a DVD only company this bad at editing their DVDs?!

Match #5: Carnage Crew (DeVito, Loc & Credible) vs. Special K (Deranged, Hydro & Angel Dust)
This was given way too much time at over 15 minutes, BUT, I still had a blast mostly. Credible really turned it up here but obviously the main stars were DeVito and Loc absolutely killing the Special K kids, and the Special K kids selling everything like death. The Crew can’t quite put it away because the other Special K members on the floor keep getting involved. Julius Smokes ends up coming out to yell at Slugga since he’s a Rottweiler at heart and shouldn’t be working for these rich brats. I guess that explains Slugga randomly coming out during Corino/Cide last month? Slugga ends up leaving with Smokes. This confuses the rest of Special K, giving the Crew enough time for a comeback including Credible hitting a super That’s Incredible (sorta) off the middle rope on Deranged for the win.
**1/2

Post-match, DeVito and Loc go crazy on all of the Special K members with chair shots. They grab Becky and go for the Carnage Driver. Credible stops them and seems to be taking mercy on her but then reveals he really just wants to see them do it through a table. SO THEY HIT HER WITH A CARNAGE DRIVER OFF THE APRON THROUGH THE TIME KEEPERS TABLE.

Backstage, GMC is here with some updates. He says on a recent tour of Japan, Low Ki was injured again, fracturing his jaw (sounds like one of the puro guys gave Ki a receipt?) and he is out INDEFINITELY. Additionally, the Amazing Red has finally agreed to get the surgery on his knee (he apparently does not which ends up ending his full time career) so the tag titles have been vacated. Therefore, at the next show, GLORY BY HONOR II, there will be a single night tag team gauntlet series to determine new champions. He then welcomes on the returning Briscoes, YEAH! The Briscoes hype up being back and say not to worry about where they’ve been, they had stuff to do. They talk about wanting to become tag champions. They also hype their matches tonight where Mark will face BJ Whitmer and Jay will be in a four way match with future title shot implications on line (did they do away with the trophy? That was starting to grow on me.) The SAT come up and they tease some tension between the two teams but whatever. Get the SAT away.

So apparently, this card looked a lot different originally. AJ/Red were supposed to drop the tag titles to the Backseatz and then Red would go get the surgery, but Red couldn’t work. As said above, he takes time off for the surgery but never gets it. His knee is in such bad condition that it hampers him forever. He’s still around but it makes you wonder what would’ve been if he had gotten the surgery. Additionally, it was supposed to be Low Ki/Mark Briscoe, Jay in the four way and Joe/Cide for the belt again. Not sure why he’d be getting a shot over the #1 contender Daniels but ok. Anyway, with the injuries plus Japan tours, the top of the card was modified into the next three matches plus Punk/Raven.

Match #6: Mark Briscoe vs. BJ Whitmer
I liked this! Mark is coming along nicely and BJ is as average as ever but hey that’s okay! BJ targets Mark’s midsection early and keeps his work focused solely on that. Nice change of pace from the dudes who pretend to do that like Stryker and Walters. However, while Mark is coming along nicely there’s still room for improvement. His selling of the midsection wasn’t great and then eventually he ignored it altogether, so BJ was kind of forced to abandon it. BJ hits the Exploder but Mark kicks out of it and that’s treated as a big deal since I guess only the top of the top guys have done that. BJ takes Mark up top to finish him off, but whatever he’s attempting gets reversed AND MARK HITS A SUPER URANAGE FOR THE UPSET (?) WIN! AND GABE KEEPS YELLING MARK “BEAT THE ODDS”.

I FUCKING HATE YOU.
**3/4

In a pretape, Convicted Sex Offender Rob Feinstein explains how their investigation on who attacked Lucy weeks back has turned up nothing so they’re asking the ROH fans for help. Go to ROHWrestling.com and report what you know.

Doesn’t seem smart for you, Rob, to encourage people to report bad things on the internet, but…

Match #7: Homicide vs. Trent Acid [Fight Without Honor]
This was SEVERAL streets ahead of their last ROH match. Last time they focused too much on trying to make it a sanitized WWE style hardcore match for some reason. Instead here, these two dudes FOUGHT and beat the hell out of each other. In less time, too! Smokes and Kashmere are both at ringside playing their parts well. Cide won’t stay down as usual so Acid resorts to big, crazy spots early and has the help of Kashmere distracting the referee. This included a fucking BACKSEAT DRIVER FROM THE TOP THROUGH THE SEAT OF A STEEL CHAIR:

Homicide is resilient though and stays in this, turning another high risk attempt by Acid into an INSANE top rope cutter. He has him dead to rights but Kashmere pulls the ref out. Commentary yells the code of honor was just broken, BUT IT’S A FIGHT WITHOUT HONOR. GET IT?! Smokes chases Kashmere around the ring until Acid dives out hidden from behind the corner and takes Smokes head off with a lariat. Back inside, Acid nails Homicide with a really stiff forearm that sends Cide falling back into the corner a bit shook up, and we see his nose is broken bad. He’s not as externally bloody like he was against Corino, but the inside of his nose and mouth are OVER FLOWING with blood. Homicide sells the wooziness of this and struggles at a couple of attempts of the Cop Killa. Acid escapes one and gets Cide with the same roll up pin from their June match but Cide kicks out and immediately tries for the Cop Killa again, but he HITS IT this time and gets the win. Fantastic.
***1/4

In a black and white pretape, Christopher Daniels cuts a promo as the new ECWA Champion. He says when ROH started, they wanted to be #1. And to make that destiny come true, they knew they had to employ one man. The Fallen Angel, Christopher Daniels. And he realized that ROH was just like everywhere else, another federation wanting to make a name off of Christopher Daniels. He also knew that his destiny was formed that day, on the very first show. He would one day be the ROH World Champion. There have been missteps and miscalculations, but the goal was always the same. To be the ROH Champion. Tonight, he can't be there, because he has an ECWA Title to defend, but never forgetting his destiny is in his future. And VERY close. All that stands in his way now is Samoa Joe. After all his history in ROH, does he think he'll stop at him? To let him keep him from HIS title? If so, he doesn't know him as well as he thinks. On 9/20 in Philly, the most dominant ROH Champion ever against the biggest challenge of his career. He's not Homicide, Paul London, CM Punk, or BJ Whitmer. He is the next Champion. And THAT…is NOT just the Gospel according to the Fallen Angel, but the DESTINY of Christopher Daniels. Fuck yeah.

So again, this next match was seemingly thrown together. Assuming maybe Jay was originally just facing Sabin? Idk. But now this is one of those matches where IT IS Non Title, HOWEVER, if Joe wins, whoever he beats can’t earn a title shot again until Joe loses the belt, and if someone else wins (even if they don’t beat Joe), they will get an ROH Title match vs. the winner of Daniels/Joe at GBH II.

Match #8: Samoa Joe vs. AJ Styles vs. Jay Briscoe vs. Chris Sabin [Four Corner Survival Match / Non-Title Match]
This was a bummer of a match. For the talent involved, I expected better. It wasn’t bad it just wasn’t as good as it could’ve been. It gets 20 minutes, so the first half of this is really just them feeling each other out and trying to earn position. They kind of choreograph the ending early when Joe/Jay are in and Gabe suggests Jay could BEAT THE ODDS~ like his brother did earlier tonight. To hammer that home more, most of the match is spent with Jay being the one getting worked over by the other three for substantial periods of time. Fun closing sequence as everybody is rushing to get their shit in and hopefully land a kill shot. Joe and Styles take each other out by hitting simultaneous enziguiri’s on each other, allowing Jay to sneak in and plant Sabin with the Jay Driller to win. JAY BRISCOE HAS BEATEN THE ODDS JUST LIKE GABE IS BEATING HIS STUBBY LITTLE HOG OFF WHILE SCREAMING AND THROWING ASHTRAYS AGAINST THE WALL.
**3/4

Jay will now get a title shot against the winner of Joe/Daniels AFTER Glory by Honor, and he got it without even having to beat the champ. Code of Honor is observed post match but Joe shoulder checks Jay on his way out.

During the second intermission so the cage could be set up for the main event, GMC brings out Justin Credible and takes questions from the crowd. Don’t care. But this leads to Special K running out and beating the piss out of Credible. DeVito and Loc run to make the save but they get beaten down too and Special K celebrate to the back.

The cage is what it is. ECW looking cage with weapons tied up to the inside of it. An idea like this doesn’t age well since (unfortunately) most modern cage matches have weapons involved anyway.

Match #9: CM Punk vs. Raven [Clockwork Orange House of Fun Match]
So here’s the deal with this match, as I am to understand. This originally went 30+ and the crowd was not high on it. In order to make it better in post, they edited this down to about 12-13 minutes. It helps a bit but it also makes the match lose whatever balls it may have had. Look, if it was bad it was bad, they made the right decision. But the clip job doesn’t hide the fact, is what I’m saying. Especially because clip jobs are usually set up for 2-4 minutes at MOST, not 12-13. So it loses a lot of its flow, even into the good parts. But again I get it. This is the gift and the curse when you have a bad match (especially a main event) on a DVD only business.

It’s a bummer because these are two of my all time favorites, you can ask anyone. But it’s clear that Raven was already on the decline after laying mostly dormant in WWF/E and just getting old after years of both physical and chemical abuse to his body. And Punk, while certainly great, isn’t yet at that level where he can turn goose shit into gold. I don’t know what the rest of his ROH run holds and if he’s capable of that but I know in WWE, he showed streaks of being able to do that in WWECW (against the New Breed guys, 2008 Chavo, etc.)

There’s no chance of that stuff happening here. What worked in their previous matches was the ability to lean on the crutch of the crowd brawls, having tag partners, etc etc and the cage obviously hinders that. They’re confined, both literally and figuratively, much like Homicide/Acid were in their June match. Both that match and this match suffer from trying to make ROH something it isn’t, and something that Gabe likes to scream out of his nasty jowls: sports entertainment. Cide/Acid I suffered, as explained earlier, by essentially trying to be a WWE hardcore match. This suffered for the same reasons as a lot of Raven’s ideas in TNA did: he’s not as creative as he once was, or at least doesn’t have someone to tell him no. The fact is, this is a stupid stipulation and an utterly horrible name. And with a dead crowd for what should be a hot blowoff, the commentary team is left with nothing but constantly reminding us of the high points of the promos of this feud. Which is annoying.

And while I haven’t seen anything to say yes or no, I’m not sure but it feels like this was supposed to be the blowoff and a pivot was made in post production. Which makes the ending result all the more confusing, so maybe I’m wrong there. But on commentary, they announce that this feud may not be over after all and in two weeks at Glory By Honor they get to pick each others opponents, and we’ll see Raven against STEVE CORINO and CM Punk against…TERRY BY GOD FUNK! Back to the ending, after both men have been beaten to a pulp and are bloodied up, Raven hits a Super Evenflow from the top through a table to finally beat CM Punk.
**

Post-match, the lights go out. They are out for a while, and then they come back on...

The crowd doesn’t really react except a small scattering of boo’s. Punk gloats on the mic and the Saints celebrate to the back because they’ve “won the war”.

I get the idea here, with Punk essentially crucifying Raven for the same reasons Raven crucified the Sandman. And while it would’ve worked for an angle earlier in the feud, I don’t know what it really accomplishes here. It didn’t add shock value and it didn’t really make too much sense to the story AT THIS point.

It’s whatever man. The feud continues on and hopefully they’re able to lift the nose of the plane up for their actual blowoff in a couple of months.

Backstage, Samoa Joe cuts a promo. Joe says destiny is an usual concept. It's a word Chris Daniels has been throwing around a lot, saying it's his destiny to win the ROH Championship, his belt. Maybe it was Jay Briscoe's destiny to win that match tonight, and embarrass him a little bit to get his shot at his belt. What Jay doesn't understand is that it's now his destiny to get beaten unmercifully by him when he gets his shot. Come Glory by Honor II, an event that HE made, an event famous because of he and Low Ki, Daniels says it's destiny to win Joe’s belt there. Joe's never been the underdog and doesn’t like that. Chris Daniels' destiny is to be choked out by him. Destiny's a bitch. He is Samoa Joe. He's the ROH WORLD Champion. And he is pro wrestling.

IN TWO WEEKS: GLORY BY HONOR II - RAVEN/CORINO! PUNKER/FUNKER! TAG TITLE GAUNTLET! JOE/DANIELS FOR THE BELT!