Michael Fitzgerald 
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We’re 8 days out from November to Remember, the event that traditionally acts as ECW’s version of WrestleMania/Starrcade as the big show of the year. This year’s show doesn’t feel like it’s on that level, but neither did last year’s either if I’m honest. Let’s see if they can speed up the hype train this week to really get us jazzed for the pay per view.
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I decided to do a good TNA show this week, because believe it or not they did exist. I actually saw this show originally on The Wrestling Channel here in the UK, as they’d just started showing TNA (Even though they were a few months behind) and this show had FWA regular Jonny Storm on it, so they probably thought it was one of the better episodes to lead with when it came to showing the weekly TNA pay per views.
This show has a Super X Tournament, featuring 8 X Division guys from different parts of the world going at it for a trophy. There’s also a War Games match to close things out featuring the Main Event crew.
This was back when TNA was running a weekly pay per view on Wednesdays and was holding all their events in “The Asylum” in Nashville. It’s a pretty pokey building, but they managed to get a passionate bunch of regulars who were prepared to turn up and get into the action, which at least meant these shows normally had some decent atmosphere.
I was actually quite into TNA at the time due to them doing an ECW Invasion earlier in 2003, and because I was ECW starved at the time I thought it was really cool that guys like Saturn, New Jack, Sandman etc were still doing their thing. That got my foot in the door and allowed me to see that America’s Most Wanted were tearing up the tag scene and the X Division guys were having hot matches, which led to me being into the product pretty much until the whole Hogan and Bischoff thing drove me off never to return.
If memory serves, there’s some really good matches on this one, so let’s watch some chuffing wrestling!
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Back with more Hardcore TV, as we’ll soon be into single digits as far as remaining episodes. Can I power through to the end? Let’s find out!
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I was originally going to have a bash at reviewing the 1995 King of the Deathmatch this week, but I’ve seen that one quite a few times whilst I’ve never seen this show, so I decided to go with something new. If you fancy watching along, you can do so by clicking HERE.
For those not au fait, IWA Japan was a Japanese Deathmatch promotion that was founded by Víctor Quiñones and ran by Tatsukuni Asano. Essentially it was created to replace the recently defunct W*ING promotion. They spent the 90’s being one of the main rivals to FMW, the premier Japanese Deathmatch company of the time, and brought in the likes of Terry Funk, Cactus Jack, Tarzan Goto and Tiger Jeet Singh to juice up the roster.
The “Kawasaki Dream” show from the summer of 1995 featured an 8 man Deathmatch Tournament, eventually won by Cactus Jack, and had given the company some considerable attention both at home and internationally, with this tape being the follow up.
The tape features a selection matches from two shows that were held at the end of 1995 , one in October and the other in December. The December show is based around crowing new NWA Heavyweight Tag Team Champions, with Terry Funk taking part as well as Cactus, Terry Gordy and The Headhunters.
It’s not like I’m a gigantic fan of Japanese Deathmatch Wrestling, but it’s nice to have a change of pace now and then from the usual brand of Puroresu, and I’m a big Mick Foley fan so it’s always interesting to go back and watch stuff from the mid-90’s where he was still working the indies and pretty much destroying himself almost purely for the love of the sport.
So without further ado, let’s watch some chuffing wrestling!
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Well, we’ve had one heck of a tournament with lots of great matches and now it’s time to tie things off with a nice bow, with A Block Winner Kota Ibushi taking on B Block Winner SANADA.
Let’s find out who will be taking home the bacon!
You can read Rick’s review of the Final Night of B Block by clicking right HERE
Rick should also be doing a review of this particular show as well, so keep a look out for that!
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Here we are, it’s time for the Final Night of A Block, with Jay White, Kazuchika Okada and Kota Ibushi all having a chance to win it (Although there may be an outside way for Will Ospreay to still manage it somehow, which will probably happen now just to make me look dumb. I could take this bit out of course, but I’ll leave it in, just for the craic)
My pick is Kota Ibushi, but I’ve enjoyed Okada’s run so much that I’ve decided I’d like him to win the Block. So expect a Jay White victory then!
Rick’s been doing a sterling job with the B Block and you can read his review of Night Eight by clicking right HERE
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I must say, these Hardcore TV recaps are starting to become a bit of a drag and I’m not sure whether I’ll stick with them. The show is mostly fine and occasionally you’ll get a really hot match, but I’m just not really feeling it with them anymore.
Part of me really wants to finish the run though, especially as we’re so close to the end, so I’ll keep plugging away and we’ll see where we end up. If one week you don’t see the Hardcore TV review though, it’s probably because I’ve given up.
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Cheers to all who said kind words last time out. Had a chat with my mum today and her temperature is pretty much back to normal and she felt well enough to go in the garden for a bit, so here’s hoping she’s past the worst of it.
I’m still in isolation, but I’ve thankfully had no COVID-19 symptoms thus far, so hopefully I should be able to get out and about as soon as my 14 days are up.
Anyway, we’re into the final two nights of A Block now, with a number of workers tied on 10 points. You’d think something would have to give in this round, so let’s see what happens!
If you’d like to read Rick’s review of B Block Night Seven then you can do so by clicking right HERE
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Andy PG suggested this one, describing the Main Event as “the Cage Match from Heck” (I may have cleaned that up a little bit). I have actually seen this show before, but it’s been a while since I watched it and I was intrigued to give it another look.
This is showing up on a Monday instead of the usual Saturday slot as I had a G1 review to post on Saturday and Rick had one up on Sunday, so I decided to post this up on Monday so as to not over-saturate the place with too much of my stuff and to also try and not step on Rick’s toes too much. Feel free to check mine and Rick’s archives if you want to catch yourself up on the G1 action.
For those not au fait, these reviews are essentially me trying my own hand at what the fine folk at Wrestle Crap do, where I watch a show that is widely considered to be awful in a quest to see whether it deserves it’s stinky reputation or not.
This show took part in a strange little era for WCW, as Nitro had started in the autumn of 1995 but they hadn’t yet brought Kevin Nash and Scott Hall over from the WWF to give the company the big shot in the arm it needed. As a result they were still mostly doing the same old “Hulk Hogan Vs a group of cartoonish heels” routine that had been going on in some form since the 80’s.
Wrestlers like Eddie Guerrero and Dean Malenko had started making their way into the mid-card at this point, which usually meant you were likely to have a good match or two on these shows, whilst Ric Flair and Randy Savage were going for a more realistic storyline of Flair nicking Randy’s ex-wife and then spending all her alimony to get the Macho Man all good and agitated.
As a result the company had a kind of confused feel to it, with the gimmicky Hogan stuff feeling kind of out of place when contrasted with the more serious wrestling going on elsewhere on the card. This imbalance would eventually be addressed when the New World Order showed up later in the year, as it made the Main Event scene serious again and not just a parade of wacky gimmick bouts with outlandish Saturday Morning Cartoon villains trying to take down Hulkamania.
The big angle for this show was that Kevin Sullivan and his Dungeon of Doom had teamed up with Ric Flair and his Horsemen stable in an effort to finally kill off Hulkamania once and for all, leading to a ludicrous 8 on 2 Main Event where the two groups aligned to take on Hogan and Savage in a three tier cage match. Oh yes, you might want to attach a nose peg, because it’s likely that things are going to get stinky!
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More G1 action, and you can read Rick’s review of Night Six of B Block by clicking right HERE
It’s been an interesting week for me. As mentioned in the last A Block review, it was my birthday mid-week so I decided to spend it with my support bubble (If you live on your own in the UK then you’re allowed to visit one other household under the pandemic restrictions), of which my mum is a member.
However, my mum has since come down with COVID-19, which means I’m in isolation for 14 days. Thankfully I can do my entire day job from home and I’ve not shown any symptoms myself as of this writing, which hopefully stays the case. I’m missing my daily walk though, as it was how I got my exercise and cleared my head.
I’m worried about my mum though as she has asthma, which puts her in a high risk category, and I’ve been checking in on her regularly via phone. She’s still keeping to her bed but her temperature is going down at least. I’ve not been tested myself as the guidelines just say to isolate unless you get symptoms, and I’ve got a food delivery booked in for tomorrow, so I’m ready to hunker down. I’ve already had four days in isolation as I decided to play it safe the minute I was told she had symptoms, so just 10 left now and I’ll be released back into polite society.
So with that out of the way, let’s watch some chuffing wrestling so I can take my mind off it all.
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Well Anarchy Rulz 2000 is now in the books, and I quite enjoyed it!
We now have a new ECW World Champ in the form of Jerry Lynn, with Steve Corino supposedly next in line for a Title shot. That being said, Justin Credible and Rob Van Dam could all conceivably be in the mix too, so the next month or so of TV leading up to November To Remember could prove to be interesting.
November To Remember has always supposed to be ECW’s WrestleMania level event, but that hasn’t really been the case card wise in recent years, so hopefully this year they really push the boat out with the best card they can and then hype it up as much as possible on TV to get people interested in seeing it.
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Let’s get to another night of A Block action. We’re in the second half of the fixtures now, as A Block is really taking shape.
You can read Rick’s review of Night Five of B Block by clicking right HERE
If you’ve got the time, I’ve also written an article on Roman Reigns’ recent heel turn called “The Rejuvenation of Roman Reigns” over on the website Gaming Respawn. If you fancy a read you can do so by clicking right HERE
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Make sure to check out Rick’s review of Night Four of B Block by clicking right HERE
It’s another day of G1, and I’ve been loving it thus far. By the time this gets uploaded I will be another year older. With Everton top of the table too. What a time to be alive!
I should point out that they’ve uploaded the Keiji Mutoh Vs Yuji Nagata G1 Final from 2001 up as a free video on NJPW World. If you’ve never seen it then I strongly suggest you do so, as it features some sublime technical wrestling and does an excellent job highlighting why Mutoh ended up winning wrestler of the year for 2001.
Anyway, enough chatter, let’s watch some chuffing wrestling!
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Rick’s been doing a fine job handling the New Japan shows on here so I had decided to focus on other things, but then Rick asked me to help out with G1 this year and I’ve been covering A Block (Which you can see read in my archives). I actually hand wrote this back when the show actually happened because I was intrigued by the stadium setting, but then decided not to post it. Seeing as I’ve dipped a toe back in the New Japan well, I decided to just stick this up as well. It’s over a month out of date, but hopefully no less interesting to read.
This was New Japan’s big event of the summer, featuring a rematch between Tetsuya Naito and EVIL for the IC and IWGP Titles. I’m all for them trying new guys and I’ve enjoyed EVIL’s work ever since he got that big win over Okada in the G1 a few years back, so I’m glad he got a shot and I was interested to see how this match went.
So without further ado, let’s watch some chuffing wrestling!
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It’s time for some more ECW pay per view action, as we reach their October 2000 offering in the form of Anarchy Rulz. They’ve actually built this one up reasonably well, with a decent chunk of TV time being dedicated to the top two matches of Rhino Vs Rob Van Dam and Justin Credible Vs Jerry Lynn.
Both of those matches have the potential to be good, so let’s settle in and watch some chuffing wrestling!
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Well here we are at the go-home show for Anarchy Rulz 2000! They’ve done a decent job hyping up the two feature bouts for this one but they could do with pushing some under card matches today, which I’m sure they will.
The Anarchy Rulz review should be up tomorrow, so keep a look out for that.
Let’s watch some chuffing wrestling!
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Time for Night Four of A Block!
You can read Rick’s review of Night Three by clicking HERE
It’s been a wacky week here in the UK music wise, where my fellow Everton supporters, in high spirits due to a good start to the season, decided to knock Miley Cyrus off the top of the iTunes charts by buying a number of Everton related songs, with “Spirit of the Blues”, a song from our hot period in the 80’s, being the one that started it all going. A really nice aspect of it all is that one of the writers of the song (Kenny Parry) was going through a rough period due to losing his wife in recent years, and the song getting in the charts has really made his week, which makes it a win however you want to slice it I think.
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Back with more Classic British Wrestling, as we take a look at Joint-Promotion’s excursion to Wembley in 1981, featuring a match a lot of you may have heard off. If you fancy watching along then you can do so by visiting the website itvwrestling.co.uk and heading to the 1981 section. The matches for this taping were split across multiple Saturdays, so I’ll make sure the required dates are present so that you can seek out the induvial matches if you wish. It’s better to do it that way rather than post each one individually and possibly get the blog in a spot of bother with the Google overlords.
I’ve also got to give a shout out to wrestlingheritage.co.uk as well, as it proved invaluable in finding information on some of the wrestlers.
So without further ado, let’s watch some chuffing wrestling!
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We’re 8 days out for Anarchy Rulz 2000. The big matches they are hyping for the show include Justin Credible Vs Jerry Lynn and Rhino Vs Rob Van Dam. That’s a solid top two bouts and I’m sure they’ll hype them up even more this week.
Let’s watch some chuffing wrestling!