Michael Fitzgerald – Scotts Blog of Doom!

Mike Reviews: ECW Hardcore TV #317 – 22 05 1999

May 22, 2019 by Michael Fitzgerald

Hello You!

So here we are, a week removed from ECW Hardcore Heaven 99. You can read my full thoughts on that show HERE, but to give you the short version; the show had some good matches but ended on a downer due to Taz defending his ECW World Title against Buh Buh Ray Dudley. Yes, you read that right, Buh Buh Ray Dudley got a World Title shot. In 1999. Don’t look at me like that I didn’t chuffing book it!

On the Brightside, Rob Van Dam and Jerry Lynn had another corker for the ECW TV Title and the efforts of the likes of Super Crazy, Tajiri and Little Guido once again shone through. Lance Storm and Tommy Dreamer even had an enjoyable bout, where Lance Storm finally managed to win a match after months of being pushed as a supposed top heel!

Of course ECW then had to spoil it by booking Justin Credible, the other half of the top heel contingent, to look like an absolute chump against Sid, once again taking one step forward only to take two steps back straight after. Here’s hoping we’ve seen the last of Sid going forward, unless it involves him getting choked out by Taz in 30 seconds.

So without further ado, lets once again take a journey to The Extreme!!!

Six of the Best – WCW Slamboree

May 17, 2019 by Michael Fitzgerald

Back once again to this feature, with us taking a look at WCW’s annual May event of Slamboree. Originally conceived as a “Legends Reunion” type show for it’s first three years, and flirting with the Battle Bowl format in 1996, Slamboree eventually became just a standard pay per view event from 1997 onwards and was often a show that was rarely treated as a big deal. The fact the 95, 97 and 98 events were all main evented by almost throw away tag matches would be a good example of that. Slamboree was really just there to bridge the gap before the two major summer events of Great American Bash and Bash at the Beach.

That’s not to say that nothing of any value happened at the events of course. Ric Flair’s brutal beatdown of Angelo Poffo at the 95 event started a blood feud with Randy Savage that actually drew good money at house shows, whereas the 98 show saw the unthinkable happen as Scott Hall turned on Kevin Nash to break up The Outsiders tag team. However, these moments were normally the exception as opposed to the rule. By the 2000 event WCW was on it’s last legs, a situation that wasn’t helped by having David Arquette competing in the main event as defending WCW World Champion.

Compiling this list was kind of tricky as Slamboree had quite a lot of middling bouts over the years that weren’t especially bad but also weren’t the sort of exciting and classic matches that immediately jumped out at me as ones I just had to include. Despite this, I eventually found six matches that I was happy with and I had to leave a few out in the end as well, which shows that there was ultimately a healthy amount of decent bouts when all was said and done.

I would just like to give a special shout out to Gorgeous George Vs Charles Robinson from the 1999 event as well, because my word is that match a hundred times more enjoyable than it had any right to be. George looked great for someone with so little experience whilst Little Naitch was making the absolute most of his 15 minutes by giving a brilliant Ric Flair impersonation, complete with all of Flair’s tradional spots. It really is absolutely mountains of fun and I can strongly recommend it as one of the best comedy/manager matches I’ve ever seen.

As always, these are just my own personal picks. This isn’t supposed to be some sort of objective list or anything. If I leave out a match that you think warrants inclusion, then please feel free to put it down in the comments section below. As with previous lists, I’ll be listing the matches in chronological order.

So without further to do, let’s take a look at Six of the Best for WCW Slamboree!

Mike Reviews: ECW Hardcore Heaven 1999

May 13, 2019May 16, 2019 by Michael Fitzgerald

Hello You!

So after a couple of months of ECW Hardcore TV we’ve finally reached the Hardcore Heaven pay per view. The build-up for this show hasn’t been the greatest, with them essentially cramming all the hype into two weeks’ worth of television. Despite that, the card looks like it could be good with a Jerry Lynn Vs Rob Van Dam match looking to be the best one on offer.

I actually have the Laserlight Digital DVD version of the show, which I bought way back in 2001 from HMV. It thankfully has all the real music and isn’t dubbed. Sadly there’s no scheduled New Jack match though so I won’t be able to make the most of it in that regards. The DVD version cuts out all of the adverts and also chops up some of the backstage segments, but everything that needs to be here is here I think and the show comes in at just over two and half hours.

So without further ado, let’s head to the barbed wire gates to meet a baseball bat wielding Saint Peter so that we can gain access to Hardcore Heaven!

Mike Reviews: ECW Hardcore TV #316 – 15/05/1999

May 9, 2019May 15, 2019 by Michael Fitzgerald

Hello You!

So here we are on the go-home show for ECW Hardcore Heaven (Of which a review should be up of by tomorrow) a pay per view that suffered a bit in build due to ECW only really getting the card sorted a couple of weeks out.

It also hasn’t helped that supposed top heels Lance Storm and Justin Credible have been doing jobs to everyone and their sister in the build-up, meaning they are both roughly as heated as an icicle going into the big event.

In happier news, Jerry Lynn has been booked super strong and scored a number of clean pin fall victories thanks to his dreaded new finisher, The Cradle Piledriver. Indeed, he even scored a win over Credible in last week’s show as the two had their usual entertaining scrap.

Lynn is now ready and primed to challenge ECW TV Champ Rob Van Dam at Hardcore Heaven. RVD picked up a big win himself over Buh Buh Ray Dudley last week, so that particular match has at least been built very well and I’m suitably excited for it.

The Dudley Boyz are due to defend their ECW Tag Titles at the pay per view, but challengers have yet to be officially confirmed (Although Balls and Axl were mentioned a couple of weeks back before the line-up became somewhat more ambiguous) so maybe we’ll find out who they are supposed to be facing this week?

And there’s also the small fact of ECW Champ Taz being steaming mad at Chris Candido duping him and laying him out a couple of weeks ago in Queens, so maybe we’ll see him attempt to gain some retribution ahead of his title defence to Candido at Hardcore Heaven?

So with the stage set, let’s waste no more time and dive into another exciting week of EXTREME action!

Mike Reviews: ECW Hardcore TV #315 – 08/05/1999

May 2, 2019May 8, 2019 by Michael Fitzgerald

Hello You!

So last week we finally saw some matches announced for the Hardcore Heaven pay per view, along with the tandem of Lance Storm and Justin Credible suffering another defeat, this time with Storm losing to the perpetual job merchant Tommy Dreamer. It’s okay though, because they beat him up afterwards, which seems to fix everything in Paul Heyman’s world. If he was Watford manager and they lost the Cup Final to Manchester City, he’d just have Troy Deeney drop Raheem Sterling with a Burning Hammer and claim it as a victory.

Anyhoo, this week supposedly has Jerry Lynn Vs Justin Credible on it, and I think it’s almost impossible for those two not to have a good match together, so I’m suitably optimistic for this week’s show. And who knows, maybe we’ll get some more matches confirmed for Hardcore Heaven on the 16^th of May?

Last week’s show ended with Rob Van Dam coming down to the ring to take on one of Buh Buh Ray or D-Von Dudley, so I’m sure tonight we’ll get the match where he inevitably pins one of them so he can “get his win back” for losing to D-Von in episode #313.

So, without further ado, let’s take it to The Extreme!

Mike Reviews: ECW Hardcore TV #314 – 01/05/1999

April 30, 2019May 1, 2019 by Michael Fitzgerald

Pinch, punch, beginning of the month!

Hello You, and welcome back for some more ECW Hardcore TV action!

We are just two weeks away from Hardcore Heaven 1999 on the 16^th of May 1999 and most of the card hasn’t even been announced yet, because poor forward planning is EXTREME I guess. Thus far we know its Rob Van Dam Vs Jerry Lynn for the TV Title and not much else. Maybe this week we’ll finally see the show start to take shape?

So without further ado, let’s take another journey to The Extreme, and see if Paul Heyman can start putting this pay per view together.

Mike Reviews: ECW Hardcore TV #313 – 24/04/1999

April 23, 2019April 24, 2019 by Michael Fitzgerald

Back again with some more ECW action, as we continue the build to Hardcore Heaven on the 16^th of May 1999. Last week we saw Justin Credible lose to Shane Douglas in the main event, only for he and partner Lance Storm to leave “The Franchise” lying when all was said and done.

However, despite laying the faces out more than once, Storm and Credible are yet to actually win a particularly big match yet, as they always seem to fail when the chips are down only to then do a beat down to “get their head back”.

Of course, it’s kind of hard to get your heat back if you never had any real heat to begin with, and that’s certainly the issue with Storm and Credible so far in this run. Despite getting plenty of TV time, they’ve yet to really gain any traction because they keep losing matches.

It could be that we’re building for the big win for them, but that’s a totally arse backwards way of booking. Usually you’d give the heel some wins at the START of a feud to heat them up and then maybe have the face win the blow off when the heel was all good and hot. However, we seem to be getting the opposite here, with the faces winning a lot, thus cooling the heels off with the intention of them winning the blow off to heat them up again, which is just….weird.

Anyway, let’s see what ECW has in store for us as we once again take things to The Extreme!!!

Six of the Best – WWF/E Backlash

April 19, 2019 by Michael Fitzgerald

Continuing with the April Pay Per View theme, today we look at an event that ran every year from 1999 to 2009, with a lot of the events taking place in the month of April (There were some that didn’t). WWE revived the name in 2016, but as it currently stands it doesn’t look like a Backlash event is scheduled for 2019. I’m not really sure why they decided to shelve the name as it’s a good one, but WWE is going to WWE so I usually find its best just not to think about these sorts of things.

This was actually a difficult list to put together, as there were generally some really great matches on these events historically. The huge list of honourable mentions at the bottom will no doubt highlight how stacked a shortlist this was, especially for a B Show. I’m almost certain that I will have missed off at least one match that you will think should have been included, and that’s ultimately because there were so many great matches to choose from. It sometimes felt like WWE would load Backlash up to try and retain any new fans acquired over Mania Season, which isn’t a bad idea if you think about it.

So without further to do, let’s take a look at Six of the Best for Backlash!

Mike Reviews: ECW Hardcore TV #312 – 17/04/1999

April 16, 2019April 17, 2019 by Michael Fitzgerald

Last week was the first night of matches taped at Cyber Slam 1999, ECW’s annual big internet fan convention. This week is the second lot of matches, featuring a main event of Shane Douglas taking on the young upstart Justin Credible.

In addition to that, we’ve also got Jerry Lynn, Yoshihiro Tajiri and Super Crazy all in action this week, so there should be plenty of good in ring action for you all to get your dentures into.

So without further ado, let’s take it to The Extreme!

Six of the Best – WCW Spring Stampede

April 15, 2019April 16, 2019 by Michael Fitzgerald

Well here we are firmly in the middle of the month of April. Seems like only yesterday I was putting the list together for Starrcade, and yet here we are with what ended up being WCW’s traditional April event (Although it took a hiatus during 1995 and 1996 for some reason)

Whereas Uncensored had a bit of a rep for usually being a bad show, most of the Spring Stampede events were generally at least inoffensive at worst and pretty darn good at best. Both the 1994 and 1999 iterations of the shows are generally fantastic, with 1997 and 1998 being solid if unspectacular. The only real stinker of the bunch is 2000, and that at least can hold your attention due to all the insanity and crash TV booking taking place on it.

Deciding on a top six proved kind of tricky for this one thanks to 1994 and 1999 being such blow away shows, and there were quite a few good matches left on the cutting room floor when all was said and done as a result of that. I’m generally happy with the list overall though

So without further to do, let’s take a look at Six of the Best for WCW Spring Stampede!

Mike Reviews: TNA Lockdown 2006

April 15, 2019 by Michael Fitzgerald

No real reason for this one, other than this pay per view was traditionally an April event and this is one of the few TNA shows I actually own on DVD. I can’t really remember why I purchased it either. Back in 2006 you could watch TNA events on The Wrestling Channel (A short-lived cable TV channel that showed wrestling and MMA) but I missed this event when it was on. TNA then started selling their DVD’s in England, with this I think being one of the first ones available, so seeing as I missed it the first time I decided to buy it.

I don’t think I’ve watched this show since I bought it and I have no idea what any of the story lines going in to it are either, so this should be an interesting journey for me. I’m not actually sure who was even booking TNA at the time of this show. I don’t think it was Russo because he came back later in the year. It may have been Dusty Rhodes if he hadn’t gone back to WWE yet, and if not him I think Scott D’Amore booked it at some stage possibly? If you know the answer then please share in the comments below.

Back in 2006 I was still sticking with the TNA product (I didn’t finally give up on it until a few years after this) and this was an interesting time for the company as they’d only recently secured a place on Spike TV and had also brought in Christian from WWE to be the top star of the company. As a big “Peep”, having Christian on their books gave TNA instant brownie points with me, and he’d won the title from Jeff Jarrett a couple of months prior to this show to thunderous cheers from the TNA audience.

Anyway, let’s set the way back machine 13 years and enjoy some Total Nonstop Action!

(I should point out that I poached all the pictures used here from the Across The Pond Wrestling review of the same show. Please consider giving their site a looksee)

Mike Reviews: ECW Hardcore TV #311 – 10/04/1999

April 11, 2019April 11, 2019 by Michael Fitzgerald

A day late and a quid short, but it’s here. I hope you all had fun over Mania weekend but now it’s time to get back to the grind as they say, with more ECW action from 1999. This would be the first week of action taped at Cyber Slam 99, an annual internet wrestling convention that was traditionally ECW’s biggest non-pay per view event of the year.

I’ve actually got the full show on DVD and it’s a real corker, so hopefully the next two weeks of TV should be action packed and exciting. So, without further ado, let’s head to the Bingo Hall in Philly and take it to The Extreme!!!

Blog Of Doom WrestleMania 35 Prediction Thread

April 6, 2019 by Michael Fitzgerald

Hello You!

I recently wrote an article over at Gaming Respawn where I had a bash at predicting some of the matches for WrestleMania 35

I thought we could use this thread to post predictions of who we think will and we can look at it again next week and see how we all did? There’s no prize, other than the warm glow of knowing you were able to predict some of the results correctly, but isn’t that reward enough?

This was written on Monday prior to Raw, so it was before all the tag title matches were officially added to the card. With that in mind, I’ll go with Ryder and Hawkins over The Revival, whilst Black and Rick O’Shea pick up the Smackdown tag titles. Neither match will probably get much time, and to be honest this Mania probably already has at least 8 matches too many

I’m actually at a wedding on Sunday (I know, how dare they arrange to hold their wedding on WrestleMania Sunday!!!) so I probably won’t be watching Mania until Monday morning, so I’ll see you all on the other side

Enjoy all 7-8 hours of Mania if you’re planning to watch it all live in one go

TakeOver last night was pretty gosh darn good as well, and you can read the thoughts of Scott Keith and Thomas Hall on the show. What with that and New Japan tonight, this weekend is probably already guaranteed to be a thumbs up, let’s just hope Mania delivers a few classic bouts as well, preferably before the crowd is completely burnt out so that they actually get a good reaction!

Six(+1) of the Best – WrestleMania 21 to 34

April 5, 2019 by Michael Fitzgerald

Yes, for the one and only time in this feature I’ve decided to bend the rules and do seven picks as opposed to six. This is simply because when I got down to this final list of seven and just couldn’t decide on which of them to cull in order to get it down to six. I just love all of these matches so much that I just couldn’t bring myself to exclude one of them. So, for the first and last time, I’ve done seven matches.

Going in to when I started this feature I felt this list would be the easiest one, but that hasn’t been the case at all. I think this is owing to the fact that work rate and having good matches became a requirement for the big shows in the WWF at a certain point in the 90’s when the 70’s and 80’s carny generation started getting filtered out by wrestlers who had been fans growing up and wanted to have great matches, because that’s what they themselves appreciated as part of their fandom. The older crew of wrestlers saw fans as marks to be worked, whereas the ones who replaced them saw the fans as people who understood what a good match was and wanted to give it to them.

As a result, there were plenty of truly great matches that I loved watching, that didn’t even make the final seven and could have all deservedly made the list. It really was a stacked deck this time out, which is kind of amazing when you take into account that not many of these Mania events would make their way onto my “all-time” list. Despite that, there have been some incredible matches at even the worst of these WrestleMania events, which is a good barometer to how seriously good wrestling is taken amongst some elements of the current WWE hierarchy (And hopefully when the eventual clear out after Vince McMahon is no longer in power happens we’ll see it empathised even more)

I should also address the elephant in the room here by stating that Ronda Rousey and Kurt Angle Vs Triple H and Stephanie McMahon isn’t going to be either in the seven matches listed nor the honourable mentions. I know a lot of people loved that match, and I enjoyed it as an entertaining bit of smoke and mirrors, but I didn’t think it was an especially good match and Ronda selling for Stephanie was ludicrous, especially when Stephanie was able to counter Ronda’s arm bar attempt.

I also found it really depressing to see Angle and Triple H wrestling at quarter speed and clearly struggling after years of hard matches. Both of them have given the wrestling world so much and I just don’t want to see either of them wrestle anymore. They’ve done their part and shouldn’t have to keep getting in there. So that’s why the match isn’t listed anywhere on here. I’m sure that will upset some people as the match was very well received, to which I say fair enough. As mentioned last time out, this stuff is subjective and there is no right or wrong answer. If you loved the mixed tag from Mania 34 then that’s all that matters. I liked it, but in a ** entertaining spectacle way rather than a **** great match way, hence why it isn’t here.

So without further to do, let’s take a look at Six of the Best for WrestleMania’s 21 to 34!

Mike Reviews: ECW Hardcore TV #310 – 03/04/1999

April 2, 2019April 3, 2019 by Michael Fitzgerald

Last week’s episode was more of a recap for Living Dangerously, so this week we should start to see some advancement in the stories, possibly with an eye to setting up matches for Hardcore Heaven on the 16^th of May 1999.

So without further ado, let’s take it once again to The EXTREME!!!

Mike Reviews: WrestleMania VIII

April 2, 2019April 2, 2019 by Michael Fitzgerald

Mike Reviews: WWF WrestleMania VIII

Seeing as we’re in WrestleMania week I thought I’d take a moment to post a review of a classic Mania event from 1992. This show kind of sums up 1992 WWF, with both the good and the bad on full display and a couple of notably great matches, as well as one of the biggest stinkers in Mania Main Event history.

So without further ado, let’s set the way back machine to 1992 for WrestleMania VIII

Six of the Best – WrestleMania XI to XX

March 31, 2019 by Michael Fitzgerald

So here we go with the next part of Six of the Best for WrestleMania, today covering the WrestleMania’s from XI to XX. This one was really difficult because there were so many fantastic matches to choose from and narrowing them down to six was close to impossible. There are definitely going to be disappointed people when it comes to this one, and all I can is that you aren’t wrong for thinking your favourite match/matches should have been included, because six slots really wasn’t enough. However, thems be the rules and I’m ultimately happy enough with my selections.

One notable exclusion will be that of the Iron Man match from WrestleMania XII. The reason for that is that I just don’t like that match, mainly because I find it rather boring. That’s not to say that the work within it is bad, because it most certainly isn’t, but for me it’s really hurt by the lack of falls during the initial 60 minutes, a sentiment shared by large swathes of the live crowd who decided to leave rather than see the bouts conclusion.

Again, if you disagree then that’s absolutely fine. Wrestling is art and art is subjective, so if you love the Iron Man match and think it’s one of the greatest collisions in WrestleMania history then you’re not wrong. At the end of the day, we can all like what we like so long as we’re nice to each other and there ultimately is no correct answer. I just thought it’d be right for me to explain why the match is missing as I’m sure some will be expecting to see it.

So without further to do, let’s take a look at Six of the Best for WrestleMania’s XI to XX!

Six of the Best – WrestleMania I to X

March 29, 2019 by Michael Fitzgerald

Seeing as we’re just over a week out from WrestleMania 35, I decided that I’d start putting Six of the Best together for the WWE’s premier event. Due to there being so many WrestleMania events, I’ve decided to split the lists into three categories, those covering WrestleMania’s 1 to 10, those covering WrestleMania’s 11 to 20 and those covering WrestleMania’s 21 to the present day.

Hopefully I’ll be able to get all three articles up before this year’s Mania event. It might take a bit longer than that as I’ve got a LOT of wrestling to watch for this one, but I’ll do my best. This section had by far the biggest shortlist, which is either a comment on the general quality of WrestleMania’s during this period or a comment on how much I personally enjoyed the events covered in this timeframe.

So without further to do, let’s take a look at Six of the Best for WrestleMania’s 1 to 10

Six of the Best – WCW Uncensored

March 28, 2019 by Michael Fitzgerald

Uncensored has tended to have a bit of bad rep amongst the wrestling community, normally because it often produced some of the very worst matches of the year from WCW. For instance, the awful Doomsday Cage match of 1996 and the horrendous main event between Hollywood Hogan and Randy Savage from the 1998 version of the event stick long in the memory.

Despite this however, there were some good matches over the years at Uncensored, and I’ll be looking at some of them today. Uncensored was ultimately an attempt from WCW to cash in on the hardcore wrestling craze started by ECW in the mid 90’s, with the caveat that WCW wasn’t going to be prepared to take things as far as the Philly outfit, thus essentially missing the point of the whole craze to begin with.

Thus, none of these matches listed here are especially “Extreme”, but some of them did push the envelope as far as WCW was willing to go at the time, so they have that going for them at least. As usual, WCW’s strong mid card cast will feature heavily here, as they were the people you often relied on to bring something decent to the pay per view arena.

So without further to do, let’s take a look at Six of the Best for WCW Uncensored!

Mike Reviews: ECW Hardcore TV #309 – 27/03/1999

March 26, 2019March 27, 2019 by Michael Fitzgerald

So with Living Dangerously 99 in the books, it’s time to see where ECW will go with their next pay per view event scheduled for the 16^th of May 1999. Living Dangerously ended with Taz unifying the ECW and FTW Titles to become the undisputed ECW World Champion. The question is who will be the next wrestler to challenge him? Maybe we’ll get some clues on this show?

So without further ado, let’s take it to the Extreme!

Mike Reviews: ECW Living Dangerously 1999 – 21/03/1999

March 20, 2019March 21, 2019 by Michael Fitzgerald

So here we are, after over a month of Hardcore TV episodes we finally reach Living Dangerously 99. This event was the first ever ECW show I saw, getting the VHS for Christmas in 1999 and immediately falling in love with the ECW product. I’d been an avid follower of the group in wrestling magazines up to that point, so I was jazzed to finally see what the product was actually like.

I eventually went back to the glory period of 95-97 when I finally had the chance, but Living Dangerously 99 was important when it came to getting my feet in the door so to speak when it came to the Land of the Extreme. The question is, will this event still hold up 20 years on? Well let’s take a look and see shall we?

Mike Reviews: ECW Hardcore TV #308 – 20/03/1999

March 19, 2019March 20, 2019 by Michael Fitzgerald

Here we are at the go home show for ECW Living Dangerously 1999 (Review due up tomorrow)

Will there be some final storyline advancements to heat up the issues for the pay per view? Last week’s episode wasn’t an especially good one, as a lousy Delaware crowd and some questionable match finishes soured things considerably. With one day to go, let’s see if ECW can get things back on track and deliver a go home show that makes me excited to watch the pay per view again!

Mike Reviews: ECW Hardcore TV #307 – 13/03/1999

March 13, 2019 by Michael Fitzgerald

So after the dreaded clip show last week, we finally have some fresh matches again. With Living Dangerously 99 just a mere 8 days away, we can probably expect ECW to crank up the hype machine and book a few more angles to get the storylines and feuds heated up in time to reach a crescendo at the pay per view event.

So without further ado, let’s take it to Extreme and enjoy some classic Hardcore action!

Mike Reviews: ECW Hardcore TV #306 – 06/03/99

March 5, 2019March 6, 2019 by Michael Fitzgerald

Hello You!

We’re back again with some more ECW action!

Following on from last week, the major feuds in the company right now appear to be Taz Vs Sabu, Justin Credible and Lance Storm Vs Shane Douglas and Tommy Dreamer, and Mr. Mustafa Vs New Jack.

This show is sadly going to be a dreaded “clip show” however, as they haven’t taped any original matches for TV, so it’s going to be clips, recaps and promos. Still, there’s every chance that we could still have an entertaining 48 minutes or so, and we might get some more official match announcements for Living Dangerously on the 21^st of March.

So without further ado, let’s set the way back machine to 1999 and take it to the Extreme!

Mike Reviews: NJPW 47th Anniversary Show – 06/03/2019

March 6, 2019 by Michael Fitzgerald

I’ve got a day off from work today and this was on, so I decided to watch it as I rarely get a chance to watch New Japan as it actually happens anymore and I was interested to see how the main event would turn out.

This is the Anniversary of New Japan’s first ever show on the 6th of March 1972, which saw Antonio Inoki take on Karl Gotch.

Wow, 47 years of New Japan, it’s done well to last so long, especially as thinks looked a bit dicey in the early to mid 00’s when Inoki was pushing anyone with shoot fight experience to the main event. Thankfully Inoki was eventually booted out and the company decided to put the world title on Hiroshi Tanahashi, and the rest is history.