NJPW Wrestling World 2000

Legacy Review

NJPW Wrestling World 2000

January 4, 2000 from the Tokyo Dome

Not much to say as an overall intro for this one, we'll get into relevant background match by match. Lots of stuff going on at this show. As usual this is from the New Japan World archives so Japanese commentary only.

IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship: Shinjiro Otani and Tatsuhito Takaiwa (c) def Minoru Tanaka and Kendo Kashin in 13:19- Tanaka is the new boy here, a quickly rising star in the junior division that was wrapping up his first full time year in New Japan and would go on to a very good career across almost every major Japanese promotion, a career that's still going today. Otani offers a handshake before the bell. Tanaka's not interested. Tanaka and Takaiwa start. Takaiwa strikes and Tanaka grapples on the mat. They trade off some leg work. Otani tags in and wants Kashin. Otani tries to mat wrestle but Kashin is too slippery. Kashin gets a series of fireman's carry takedowns. He hooks in a legbar and Otani quickly gets to the ropes. Tanaka hits a dropkick and hooks in a cross armbreaker. Takaiwa backs him into the champs' corner and they do a little double teaming. Tanaka hits a kick combo. Kashin/Takaiwa slugfest. Kashin rolls through some fancy cradles for near falls. Otani holds Tanaka so Takaiwa can chop him down. Slugfest. Tanaka wobbles Takaiwa with a high knee. Legbar and another rope break. Takaiwa floors Tanaka with lariatos. Otani hits his signature boot scrapes. Springboard dropkick for 2. Everyone's in and the challengers both hook in armbreakers! Both champs escape. Tanaka accidentally takes out his own partner with a spinning heel kick, but he cuts Otani off and hooks on another armbreaker. Takaiwa breaks it up. Tanaka flips through an Otani German suplex attempt! Otani ducks a spinning heel kick and hits a back kick. Kashin trips Otani, tags in and takes over. Takaiwa tags in with a lariato and we're donnybrooking again. The champs set up a double team. Kashin rolls through Takaiwa's power bomb and hooks in the armbreaker! Takaiwa gets to the ropes. Kashin places Takaiwa on the top rope, but before he can do anything Takaiwa comes off with a flying lariato. He deadlifts Kashin in another armbreaker and flips him over into a Samoan drop! Tanaka breaks another pin up and Otani takes him out. Takaiwa starts his triple powerbomb combo. On the third one Kashin lands on his feet, but Takaiwa counters the counter, lifts Kashin up, and hits a tombstone! That gets the pin. Really fun closing stretch. Like previous matches since the creation of the junior tag division, it's less focused on high spots and more on smart tag team psychology. Otani and Takaiwa's reign would not end until July at a record 348 days, a record that still stands today. ***1/4

 

Shiro Koshinaka def Satoshi Kojima in 10:17- Koshinaka is riding around pretty much rudderless since the breakup of his old Heisei Ishingun stable. This would end up being his last 1/4 Dome show match before being let go by New Japan in 2003. Screw your intros, we're going! Double lariatos! Kojima dodges a hip attack and hits a lariato. Koshinaka rolls to the floor. Kojima TOPE SUICIDA! MAMA MIA! Senton on the floor. Senton back in the ring. Koshinaka fights back with his hip based offense. Kojima gives that a try and it doesn't work so well. Koshinaka Russian leg sweep and single leg crab. Chopfest. Kojima wins that. Koshinaka tries to headbutt out of a leg hold and only ends up hurting himself. Kojima inverted atomic drop. Mat stalemate and reset with a Koshinaka headlock. Kojima Saito suplexes out. Long suplex standoff that Kojima eventually wins. Koshinaka shrugs off forearms and hits hip attacks. Kojima jawbreakers out of a chinlock. Corner forearm. Kojima hits the elbow off the top rope for 2. He goes up again and Koshinaka dodges a top rope senton. Koshinaka hip attack off the top rope. German for 2. Kick wham Kojicutter outta nowhere! Koshinaka ducks a lariato and gets an octopus cradle for 2. Kojima lariato for 2. Brain buster for 2. Koshinaka fights off another Kojicutter. Reverse DDT! Powerbomb! That gets the pin. Not sure about that booking call. The match was solid enough, pretty much Koshinaka's ceiling. **1/2

 

Hiroyoshi Tenzan def Wild Pegasus in 10:55- Pegasus is of course Chris Benoit, one of several WCW wrestlers to come over for this show as WCW moves into its final year of existence. Benoit had a very successful early career run in New Japan as a junior heavyweight under the name the Pegasus Kid before going to WCW. We're just days away from Benoit finally (FINALLY) winning the WCW World Heavyweight title at Souled Out, WCW's last ditch effort to keep him from jumping to WWF. Spoiler: it didn't work. It's 2000 WCW, nothing worked. Lockup and Benoit goes right to the chops. Tenzan headbutts back. Speed run, Tenzan hits a shoulderblock, Benoit gets a drop toe hold and basement dropkick. Tenzan goes to the floor. Benoit hits him with a baseball slide. Huge Benoit lariato for 2. Chops fire Tenzan back up and he hits Mongolian chops. He grabs a leg but Benoit hits him with an enzuguri. Classic Benoit snap suplex for 2. Vintage even. Huge back suplex for 2. Tenzan hits chops, slams Benoit, and hits a diving headbutt. Benoit short lariato. Another Tenzan Mongolian chop and he hits the low headbutt that always goes a bit south of Saskatoon. Benoit's Canadian so I can use that. Tenzan spinning heel kick for 2. He goes up top. Benoit meets him and superplexes him off for 2. Rrrrrrrrooooooooooooling Germans! Aw, he only did three. If there's anyplace for four it's the Tokyo Dome. Throat slash and Benoit goes up top. The headbutt hits! Tenzan kicks out! Tombstone reversal and Tenzan hits it. Benoit dodges a moonsault. He ducks a lariato and hooks on the Crippler Crossface! They're in the corner so it's an easy rope break for Tenzan. Tenzan suplex for 2. Hurricanrana! Tenzan hits his headbutt off the top, and gets the pin! Nice little match. **3/4

 

IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship: Jushin Thunder Liger (c) def Koji Kanemoto in 3:56- Yet again these two are facing each other in the Dome. Liger is in his 11th and final junior title reign after working a short US tour in late '99 where he lost the title to Juventud Guerrera on Nitro then won it back a couple of weeks later. Clearly something's happened to escalate this feud. This isn't Kishin Liger, but he is dressed in all black and super cereal. .5 Kishin Liger. Cross ring staredown after the bell and they charge into the lockup. Shotei! Kanemoto lays in some kicks and we have a slugfest. Liger ducks under a leapfrog and hits more shoteis. Kanemoto is almost out. Liger doesn't care and shoves the ref away. More open hand slaps in the corner. Kanemoto tries to match Liger slap for slap but goes down again. Liger sets Kanemoto up top. German superplex! HUGE sit out powerbomb! Brain buster! That gets the quick pin! Wasn't much of a match, but it got its point across. Liger's final junior title reign would end in July at the hands of Tatsuhito Takaiwa, kicking off an influx of new blood in the junior title scene. 1/2*

 

Manabu Nakanishi def Kenzo Suzuki in 6:41- Suzuki is making his pro wrestling debut in literally his first recorded match. On January 4 in the Tokyo Dome. Nakanishi's profile has risen considerably after pulling off one of the biggest upsets in New Japan history, winning the '99 G1 Climax. He's also currently one half of the IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team champs. Charging lockup. Suzuki hits a shoulderblock. Suzuki spear! Ground and pound! Rookie's out to make a name for himself, but Nakanishi quickly gets him in his place. Chop exchange. Suzuki blocks a suplex and hits his own, followed by more mounted slaps. All he's doing is pissing Nakanishi off. Nakanishi gets on top and goes into beatdown mode. Legdrop for 2. Lariato. Suzuki comes back with some chops and knees. Back suplex. Nakanishi goes back into beatdown mode. Suzuki is bleeding from his nose, which is honestly a great visual. Another Suzuki spear! He goes for Young Lion Submission Hold 1A, the Boston crab. Nakanishi easily flips out of it and puts his own crab on. Suzuki has to fight to get to the ropes. He tries more chops but Nakanishi kills him with a lariato. Backbreaker and elbow drop for 2. Nakanishi spear! He hooks Suzuki in the torture rack and it's over. Perfectly acceptable debut, but you'd think they could have found something better for the defending G1 winner at the biggest show of the year. *1/2

 

Yuji Nagata def Kazuo Yamazaki in 6:44- In complete contrast to the last match, Yamazaki is wrestling his retirement match, and unlike others in the sport he actually stayed retired. His student and rapidly rising New Japan star Nagata is the one sending him off. Nagata is the other half of the current tag champs with Nakanishi. Feeling out start with lots of kick swinging with little connecting. Yamazaki gets a leg takedown and they go back and forth on the mat at bit. Reset. Nagata lands some kicks. Yamazaki ducks an enzuguri and hooks in a kneebar. Nagata has to go to a rope break. A punch sends Nagata to the floor. Yamazaki teases a plancha but thinks better of it. Another mat exchange. Yamazaki blocks an armbreaker. Snap mare and kick from Yamazaki. More kick dodging. Nagata hits a belly to belly suplex. His kicks really start landing as Yamazaki is getting wobbly. Saito suplex with a bridge. Yamazaki kicks out! Nagata goes to it again and this time gets the pin. Nothing special but for a retirement match it did its job. *

 

Kimo def Kazuyuki Fujita by DQ in 4:02- Welcome to the Inokism portion of tonight's program. Kimo is another MMA fighter brought in. He's got more acting credits on his resume than professional wrestling matches, that should tell you all you need to know. Fujita was a highly touted Young Lion a couple of years out of the dojo but had struggled for traction behind contemporaries like Nagata and Nakanishi. Encouraged by Inoki, he was starting a transition from wrestling to MMA. This being one of those hybrid work shoot fights we're not going to spend much time on this one. Fujita dominates the match, showing his strength advantage by tossing Kimo all over the place. At one point Kimo manages to get an armbreaker but Fujita gets a foot on the rope. While striking Kimo down in the corner Fujita knees him in the nads and the ref DQ's him. Blech. 1/4*

 

Scott Norton def Don Frye in 8:50- These two had a match at the Jingu Climax outdoor stadium show the previous summer that shockingly wasn't completely horrible. After intros Frye wanders up the ramp into the crowd and jaws at some fans. Frye opens up with jabs (on Norton, not on the fan). Norton ducks a right cross and slams Frye. Another ugly slam spot follows. Norton chops away in the corner. Frye ducks and does a German....can't really call that a suplex, it was more of a waistlock throw. Norton backdrops Frye over the top rope onto the ramp. Slugfest on the ramp. Norton lariato. Frye gets a chair and gives Norton some shots with it. He brings the chair in the ring, fights the ref trying to take it away, and Norton hits a lariato from behind. Now Frye takes some chairshots. They go to the floor again and both guys take turns getting posted. Norton's run into the barricade. Frye gets jawey with the fans again. Big Norton lariato. Norton suplexes Frye over the top onto the ramp! Frye's back is posted. Norton goes for a powerbomb but Frye backdrops out. Another try and Norton hits the powerbomb. Can you say "pointless counter"? While being covered Frye locks Norton in a sleeper/choke hold. Norton just gets a foot out to the rope. Another Norton powerbomb, Frye kicks but the ref counts 3 anyway. Good, no one wanted that to go any longer. Don't bother looking for any smoke or mirrors in stores in Japan, they were all used in this match. And still didn't help. 1/4*

 

Rick Steiner def "Macho Man" Randy Savage in 11:08- Two more WCW guys coming over as the promotion starts drawing its final breaths. This is late career ponytail/earrings/necklace/Team Madness Savage. He's also much more bulked up than during his peak years. Physically both these guys are shells of what they used to be so I'm not optimistic this is going to get this show back on track. Too bad, put these two together around '91 or '92 and it could have been an all time classic. In fact, this was Savage's final televised singles match and he'd only have three more matches total before retiring, so a bit of history here. Before the match Savage is pissed at the ring announcer and someone on commentary (I think Masa Saito but I'm not completely sure) that no one is calling him Macho Man. They open up with some extended rope break shenanigans. Steiner gets a leg takedown. Savage quickly goes to the ropes and rolls out. Back in Savage hits a lariato. Rope run and......there's some kind of collision that Steiner flippy sells. Not sure what they were going for but I'm pretty sure it wasn't that. Steiner suplexes out of a facelock. Steiner belly to belly suplex for 2. Steinerline! Savage goes into some basic heel offense. Steiner blocks a suplex, then ducks an elbow and hits a trio of German suplexes. Not rolling Germans, not when he lets go after each one. Bulldog off the top for 2. Savage hits a blatant low blow that Steiner does a tremendous sell of. He slams Steiner on the ramp and drops an elbow. He punches Steiner, who falls off the ramp into a section of VIPs! Savage gets a chair and hits Steiner in the head with it. Surprised Steiner sold that. Savage goes up top, almost slips off, catches himself, and hits the top rope elbow! Steiner kicks out! Savage tosses the ref out. Steiner blocks another chairshot. Steinerline! DDT on the chair! Steiner goes up top....slips and does fall off! The crowd boos. He goes up again, barely hits another top rope bulldog, and gets the pin. Yeesh. How the mighty have fallen. 1/2*

 

Shinya Hashimoto and Takashi Iizuka def Kazunari Murakami and Naoya Ogawa in 11:29- Like Ogawa's other matches this has been wiped from the New Japan World archive. It took a lot of digging, but I managed to find a copy hidden away in a hard to find corner of Al Gore's interwebs. You're welcome for my dedication. That and my completionism makes me hate gaps. Hashimoto and Ogawa had the infamous shoot fight incident at the previous year's Wrestling World that most credit as the birth of Inokism, but in the time since have manged to put any ill will behind them and continue their long running feud with no more incidents, a feud that is arguably the hottest in the company at this time. Murakami is another MMA guy that came with Ogawa when Inoki brought him in. All four guys in this match are wearing MMA gloves. Ogawa and Hashimoto stare daggers through each other. Mruakami attacks Iizuka before the bell! The crowd is nuclear. Iizuka covers up and gets to the ropes. Murakami tosses ref Tiger Hattori away. Hattori physically pulls him off. Murakami kicks Iizuka right in the face and he drops like a rock. Hashimoto checks on him. Murakami gets a mic and has some choice words for everyone. Too bad Chris Charlton isn't here to translate. Hashimoto loses it and attacks Murakami! The pop almost takes the roof off the Dome. Ogawa is in with Hashimoto! Ogawa kicks him down. Reset. They grapple in the ropes while the New Japan seconds all come in and fight with Murakami! What a scene. The bell rings, likely Hattori throwing the match out because it's pure chaos. Everyone is held back. The crowd is literally throwing things into the ring. A JAPANESE crowd. Everyone argues. INOKI HIMSELF IS IN WITH A STICK! He directs traffic. Inoki takes the mic and likely says "THIS MATCH MUST CONTINUE". The bell rings to restart with Murakami all over Iizuka again. Iizuka armbreaker! Murakami gets a foot on the rope. Iizuka gets ground strikes. Murakami tries to turn it into a triangle choke. Iizuka gets a leg takedown. Kneebar! Murakami gets the ropes again. Hashimoto tags in. Murakami keeps fighting Iizuka. Hashimoto lets him know who's legal with a couple of stiff kicks! He wants Ogawa! So does the crowd. And here he comes. The fight is on. There's actually a clean rope break. Both guys swing exploratory kicks. Hashimoto headbutt! He pounds Ogawa down. Ogawa rolls to the ramp. One of Hashimoto's gloves is off. Ogawa is back in and Hashimoto is all over him again. Ogawa manges to take things to the mat. Hashimoto Saito suplex! Ogawa rolls out again. Back in Hashimoto gets another takedown. Ogawa uses it to hook in a triangle! Hashimoto takes a rope break. Ogawa takedown. Iizuka runs in! Ogawa takes him out. While Ogawa is mounting Hashimoto Iizuka dropkicks him in the back! Murakami comes in and takes Iizuka out. Hashimoto follows Ogawa to the floor and continues the pounding. Iizuka gets a sleeper on Murakami. Murakami goes out and Hattori calls it! Hashimoto and Iizuka win, but things are anything but settled between Hashimoto and Ogawa. The fight continues a bit after the bell until everyone is separated. For all the future shortcomings of Inokism, that was one hell of a spectacle, with everyone playing their role perfectly and backed by one of the hottest crowds you'll ever hear at a Japanese wrestling show. ****

The feud between Hashimoto and Ogawa continued, with Hashimoto vowing that if he ever lost to Ogawa again he would retire. Unfortunately for him, in April he did lose again to Ogawa in a singles match. New Japan forced him to keep his word and made him leave the promotion, but Hashimoto did come back for a handful of special matches, including the next year's Wrestling World, so I'll save the rest of the story for then, but on the whole it was a strange and shocking fall from grace for the man that dominated the promotion for the second half of the '90s.

 

Masahiro Chono def Keiji Mutoh in 25:00- Chono is now leading his Team 2000 stable while Mutoh is still the leader of NWO Japan, a stable Chono originally created. The stipulation for this match is if Mutoh loses, NWO Japan must disband. Some back and forth mat wrestling to start. Chono works a headlock. Speed and Chono shoulderblock. Some more mat work as this is starting fairly slow, laying the groundwork. Right at the 5 minute call Mutoh rolls under a Yakuza kick and Chono quickly dodges a knee dropkick. Stalemate reset. Mutoh suplexes over in a test of strength and floats over into a headlock. Snap mare and elbow drop. Kick exchange. Chono dodges the handspring elbow! A Chono Samoan drop almost drops Mutoh right on his head. He seems to need a minute to recover. Mutoh hurricanrana! Chono plants him with a piledriver! He tries for the butterfly lock but Mutoh blocks it. Mutoh catches a kick and tries for a dragon screw but Chono blocks it. Another Chono piledriver and Mutoh blocks the butterfly again. Mutoh rolls to the apron. Chono goes up top and tackles Mutoh off the apron down to the floor! He sets Mutoh up on a ringside table for a piledriver. Mutoh gets free and gives Chono a dragon screw off the table! Dropkick to the knee and another dragon screw on the floor. Back in Mutoh hits a missile dropkick. He sets Chono on the top rope. Hurricanrana! Another knee dropkick and dragon screw. Mutoh figure four! Chono tries to reverse and manages to grab a rope break. Mutoh stays on the knee. Chono rolls through and tries for the butterfly again. Mutoh gets to the ropes. More knee picking apart and the figure four is back on. Chono gets to the ropes. Mutoh hits the ropes. Chono gets a spinning heel kick! Mutoh responds with a pele kick! Mutoh pops up. Backbreaker. The moonsault hits! Chono kicks out! He goes for the figure four again. Chono counters with a roll up, but instead of a small package he rolls into the butterfly again! Mutoh gets another rope break. Mutoh hurricanrana with a floatover into an armbreaker! Chono rope break. Mutoh backbreaker. Moonsault...Chono gets his knees up! The STF is hooked in! Mutoh barely gets to the ropes. Chono ties Mutoh's legs up good and puts the STF back on! Mutoh taps! And with that, NWO Japan is no more. This would be another crossroads in Mutoh's career. Over the next year he would debut the shaved head and goatee look that he still uses today. ***1/2

 

IWGP Heavyweight Championship: Kensuke Sasaki def Genichiro Tenryu (c) in 14:43- Tenyru defeated Mutoh for the title less than a month before this show in a classic New Japan "outsider wins the title to drop it to a home talent in the Tokyo Dome" angle. In Tenryu's case it could also definitely be seen as a career accomplishment trophy (one that Minoru Suzuki should have gotten at some point, not just the Intercontinental title, but that's a whole different issue). The bell rings and Sasaki runs into a Tenyru lariato! Chop exchange, and I mean stiff as all shit chops. DAMN. Hard Sasaki shoulderblock. Tenyru back suplex. Sasaki no sells! Lariato! They go to the floor and when Tenyru gets whipped toward the barricade he almost takes out about three ringside photographers. They quickly get back in the ring and slow things down a little with some mat work. Tenyru chops in the corner. Sasaki floors him with a punch! Slugfest, and Sasaki is out there throwing absolute stiff potatoes right on Tenyru's jaw. Very Vader like. More big chops and Sasaki is still swinging potatoes out there. Tenyru hits stiff chops back. The 5 minute call hits, and it's been five minutes of these guys beating the absolute piss out of each other. Screw your Inokism fake MMA crap, this is strong fucking style professional wrestling at its absolute best. Just get these guys some icepacks once the match is over. Sasaki wins a long suplex standoff. Lariato. Sasaki hooks on a Scorpion Death Lock. Tenyru gets out and is throwing punches again. Huge flurry of corner jabs and punches that beat Sasaki down. Sasaki hulks up and kicks off another slugfest. Tenyru enzuguri! He sets Sasaki up top and gives him a German superplex! Falling reverse elbow drop off the top for 2. Powerbomb for 2. Double lariato and no one moves. Tenyru brain buster! Sasaki kicks out! Tenyru goes for a top rope hurricanrana. Sasaki blocks it with a powerbomb! He sets Tenyru up top. Hurricanrana! Arm flip slam. One more open hand slap slugfest. Sasaki lariato. Tenyru doesn't go down. He runs into a Tenyru enzuguri! Sasaki brain buster! A second one! That gets the pin and Sasaki wins his second heavyweight title! During his postmatch celebration Sasaki is bleeding from a spot on his chest that got busted open by all those stiff chops. Sasaki would hold the title most of the year and would go on to win his second G1 in the summer, becoming to date the last wrestler to win the tournament while champion. This match won't be everyone's cup of tea, but to me it was a masterpice of violence and a fantastic Tokyo Dome main event. ****

OVERALL SHOW THOUGHTS: It started out solid enough, fell off a cliff in the middle, but recovered nicely with a great closing stretch. On the whole, I think this was the best January 4 show in several years.

OVERALL SHOW GRADE: B-

NJPW Jingu Climax

Legacy Review

NJPW Jingu Climax: Battle of Last Summer

August 28, 1999 from Meiji Jingu Stadium in Tokyo

The tagline should probably be "Last Battle of Summer" but translation issues aren't unusual. While doing reviews for the annual January 4th Tokyo Dome shows I found that this show is also complete in the NJPW World archives, which is a rarity for this era so I figured what the hell. New Japan revisited Jingu Stadium in the summer of 2020 for the first Summer Struggle show, just as everything was starting to reopen post pandemic closedowns. At that show Tetsuya Naito defeated filthy dirty traitor EVIL to recapture the dual IWGP Heavyweight and Intercontinental titles (titles he never should have lost to EVIL in the first place but that's an argument for another time), which was doubly special for him because young fan Naito is in the crowd for this very show, one that would have a lasting impact on him.

Kazuyuki Fujita def Brian Johnston in 3:55- The opener continues the slow creep to Inokism that started at Wrestling World. Fujita is more a hybrid MMA fighter/trained pro wrestler, while Johnston is one of the regular MMA fighters that was brought in during this era. As you'd expect, this is one of those pseudo MMA shoot fight/wrestling match hybrids. Fujita shows his power advantage early and hits a spinebuster. Johnston gets a belly to belly suplex and they spend a while grappling around on the mat. Very little striking in the first half of the match. Johnston gets a DDT like takedown and does some ground and pound, and now here come the strikes. Fujita hits a fisherman buster, hooks in an armbar and Johnston taps. Not much going on here. 3/4*

 

IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship: Shinjiro Otani and Tatsuhito Takaiwa (c) def El Samurai and Jushin Thunder Liger in 15:00- Liger held the junior tag titles for the first time for a short time in the spring, teaming with The Great Sasuke rather than Samurai. They dropped the titles to Otani and Takaiwa in July, the inaugural champs who then became the first ever two time junior tag champs. Liger and Samurai jump at the bell! Otani gets lariatoed while still in his jacket. Liger whips Samurai into a tope suicida on Takaiwa! Otani is double teamed still with the jacket on. Doomsday Device! Liger brain buster for 2. Power bomb. Samurai rips Otani's jacket off finally and whips him with it. Reverse DDT for 2. Otani gets a spinning kick to try to get some breathing room but Samurai is right back on him. More double teams. Otani gets a flurry of rapid fire strikes on Samurai and finally tags out. Takaiwa holds Samurai and Otani does his forever run and basement dropkick. Quite the crowd pleaser, that one. Takaiwa hits a brain buster and Liger breaks the pin up. Liger with a drop toe hold and surfboard on Takaiwa. Samurai hits a kneedrop off the top rope while Liger stretches Takaiwa out. Takaiwa hits a lariato to come back, tags, and Otani hits a springboard kneedrop. Both teams trade war drums. Liger hits a corner shotei on Takaiwa. Another shotei fires Takaiwa up. Liger fires up off a lariato. Takaiwa blocks another shotei and hits a rolling DVD. After a distraction Liger gets Takaiwa with another shotei and tags. Samurai runs into a powerslam. Takaiwa goes for a brain buster but Samurai turns it into a reverse DDT. Lariato from Takaiwa and he hits a triple powerbomb combo. DONNYBROOK! Samurai and Takaiwa do a long counter run that ends with a Samurai magistral cradle for 2. Takaiwa goes for another powerbomb but Samurai turns it into a DDT. Samurai powerbomb for 2. Takaiwa dodges a headbutt off the top rope. Springboard dropkick from Otani and he does his traditional boot scrapes on Samurai. Liger runs in with a shotei. Samurai hits a lariato and tags. Another Liger corner shotei. Fisherman buster. Liger brain buster and everyone's in again. Samurai piledrives Takaiwa on the floor. Otani blocks a Liger hurricanrana and hits a heel kick off the top rope. Samurai breaks the pin up. Takaiwa dodges a Samurai plancha. Liger goes for a superplex. Otani counters in midair! Spinning powerbomb! That gets the pin. Solidly good stuff. Otani and Takiwa would go on to hold the titles for just a few weeks shy of a full year, to date still the longest junior tag title reign in history. ***1/4

 

IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship: Kendo Kashin def Koji Kanemoto (c) in 14:45- Kanemoto finally defeated longtime rival Liger in March to win the junior title for the third time, ending Liger's 9th reign at 403 days, his second longest (Liger also set a then-record of successful defenses that reign with 8). Meanwhile, earlier in the summer Kashin defeated Kanemoto in the finals of the Best of the Super Juniors tournament. The ref has to hold both guys back during intros as they want to tear into each other. The bell rings, they charge and we have a double lariato! Kanemoto is up first with knees and kicks. Forearm tradeoff followed by some takedown and counter jockeying. A big Kanemoto kick puts Kashin down. Kashin goes to closed fist punches and tosses Kanemoto to the floor. Snap mare exchange. Kashin flips the script by hitting a reverse DDT. He transitions from a modified surfboard to a camel clutch on Kanemoto. Kanemoto is up with his own flurry of punches and the ref is none to happy about it. No one cares. Another slugfest. Kanemoto cools things down a bit with a chinlock, a great example of an effective rest hold. Kashin backs him into the corner and hits uppercuts. Both guys are going pretty damn stiff so far. Kanemoto hits more kicks to the back and arrogantly covers Kashin with one foot. The ref doesn't even think about counting. Jumping knees in the corner and corkscrew off the second rope. Whip reversal, Kashin slides under Kanemoto's legs and keeps sliding all the way to the floor. Kanemoto charges and hits him with a baseball slide. Kashin hooks in the cross armbreaker on the floor! He posts Kanemoto's arm then starts working on it in the ring. Kashin goes up top, but Kanemoto joins him and hits a superplex. Kashin hooks on a cross LEGbreaker! Kanemoto grabs a rope. Kashin charges but Kanemoto kicks him down in the corner. Kanemoto hurricanrana. They run through some counters and Kashin hits diving lariatos. Brain buster and the armbreaker is on again! Kanemoto just stretches out his foot to hook the bottom rope. Kashin sets Kanemoto up top, but Kanemoto makes him pay for it by coming off with a rolling kick before Kashin could do whatever he was planning to do. Belly to belly suplex. Kanemoto moonsault! Kashin kicks out! Falcon arrow! Kashin gets a foot on the rope. Kashin hooks the armbreaker on again! Kanemoto has nowhere to go and taps out! Kashin wins the junior title for the first time, but the reign was short lived. Liger would defeat him for title reign number 10 in October. The match started great but couldn't quite keep up the momentum of the first half. ***3/4

 

Tencozy def Shiro Koshinaka and Tatsumi Fujinami in 8:38- Tencozy are NWO Japan members. They turn around to play to the crowd and Koshinaka jumps them before the bell! He tries a double hip attack but Tencozy catch and slam him. Things settle in with Koshinaka having chopfests with both Tenzan and Kojima. Fujinami blocks a Mongolian chop and responds with open hand slaps. Quick donnybrook and Koshinaka gives Tenzan a hip attack. Tenzan gives him a Mongolian chop and the extremely low diving headbutt. Kojima senton and he tries an armbreaker. Double lariato on Fujinami that he didn't look very interested in selling. Kicks from Fujinami. Tenzan responds with more Mongolian chops. Kojima hits the elbow off the top rope and everyone's in again. Tencozy with a 3D on Koshinaka. Everyone in wrestling is a move thief. Fujinami dodges a Tenzan avalanche and dragon screws both Tencozy members. Kojicutter! Fujinami ducks a lariato and hooks on a dragon sleeper. Tag and Koshinaka has hip attacks for everyone all day long. Power bomb on Tenzan for 2. Tencozy come back with lariatos. Super Kojicutter on Koshinaka! Tenzan headbutt off the top for 2. Koshinaka dodges Tenzan's moonsault, but coming back off the ropes runs right into a Tenzan spinning heel kick and that gets the pin. Average, but they kept it moving with lots of back and forth and no one staying in control for long. **1/2

 

IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Championship: Yuji Nagata and Manabu Nakanishi def Mad Dogs (c) in 16:01- The Mad Dogs are former Heisei Ishingun members Tatsutoshi Goto and Michiyoshi Ohara. HI was New Japan's top heel stable for most of the '90s but had formally disbanded earlier in the year. Nakanishi was fresh off pulling one of the biggest upsets in New Japan history just a couple of weeks prior- winning the G1 Climax tournament, and defeating reigning Heavyweight champion Keiji Mutoh in the final to do it. The Dogs cement their heel status by tossing the belts away on the floor during their entrance. Surprisingly there's no jump start this match. Goto and Nakanishi start. Nakanishi pops the crowd with big early chops, showing his new star status, but quickly gets caught in the heel corner. Goto and Nakanishi trade headbutts. Nagata tags in to a nice pop, his star was also on the rise, and hits some kicks and works Goto's arm. Ohara hits some stiff clubbing blows on Nagata and a suplex. Double shoulderblock from the face team on Goto. They set up another double team and Nakanishi accidentally hits Nagata! Nagata shoves Nakanishi! The heels try to take advantage but get whipped into each other and suplexed. Nagata and Nakanishi shake hands and everything's good. More Nakanishi high impact moves followed by Nagata doing some leg work on Goto. Ohara tries to run in but Nakanishi takes him out as Goto stays in peril. Nagata locks in a crossface and Ohara's in again to break it up. More face leg work on Goto. Nakanishi chops the sweat off of him. Enzuguri from Nagata. He hits a northern lights suplex but the ref is distracted. Ohara comes in with a diving lariato. Goto Saito suplexes Nakanishi as the tide turns. The heels take Nakanashi out into Suzuki territory. Nakanishi is power bombed on the floor! The heels pick apart an isolated Nagata in the ring. Double hot shot. Lariato for 2. Nakanishi is slowly crawling back to his corner. More double teams on Nagata. The Dogs take him to the floor and give him a floor spike piledriver! Nagata comes back with kicks in the ring. Another Saito from Goto for 2. Nakanishi's back in and he's pissed! Nagata tags out and Nakanishi suplexes both heels. At the same time. Double spear! Nakanishi's bleeding from his mouth. He gets Goto up in the torture rack, sees Ohara coming and throws Goto onto him! Tags. Nagata and Ohara trade shots. Goto breaks up a kneebar. Ohara choke slam for 2. Another Goto Saito. Ohara powerbomb. Nagata kicks out! He gives Ohara a snap belly to belly suplex. I think Nagata has the best snap belly to belly since Owen Hart. It's so good. Nakanishi gets Goto up in the rack to keep him out of the equation. Nagata Saito on Ohara with a bridge, and that gets the pin and the titles! Nice celebration for the first of what would be many title wins for Nagata. This is Nakanishi's second tag title win, he had one earlier with Kojima as Bull Powers. The match started slow but had a very nice stretch run. The crowd was super into it too, more than they had been for anything else on the show so far. ***1/2

 

Don Frye def Scott Norton in 7:55- Norton is NWO Japan and recently had his first of two runs with the Heavyweight title. Frye is another one of Inoki's regular MMA invaders. He's also got a bunch of belts on him which I assume are MMA related. Frye pounds away with punches before the bell. Lots of jump starts on this show. Must be Wrestlemania. He chokes Norton on the ropes as ref Tiger Hattori tries to pull him off. Frye plays to the crowd and turns around into a Norton lariato. Frye blocks a Norton German suplex and gets a leg takedown. He hooks on a front facelock. Norton turns it into an inverted atomic drop. Frye gets back on Norton's arm. Norton blocks an armbreaker, rolls over and gets a very close near fall. He deadlifts Frye and slams him. Short lariatos. He goes for one too many as Frye ducks and gives him a German suplex for 2. Corner beatdown from Frye. Norton hulks up and hits an ugly powerslammish flippy thing. Hattori went down during that sequence. Norton checks on him and Frye low blows him. I don't think they teach that move in MMA school. Sleeper and Norton goes out. Not as horrible as it could have been. *1/4

 

Masahiro Chono def Shinya Hashimoto in 15:45- Chono is back from injury and is now leading his new group, Team 2000, in opposition to the NWO Japan stable he originally created. In practice Hashimoto is still being presented as the all time badass that dominated the Heavyweight title scene the second half of the decade. In reality, he's still trying to rebuild his image after getting pantsed by Naoya Ogawa in the infamous impromptu shoot fight at Wrestling World. Basic but aggressive start. Test of strength tease but Chono grabs an arm instead. Hashimoto punches Chono down. Both guys dodge spinning heel kicks, then dropkicks, stalemate and reset. Chono slowly works Hashimoto down with a drop toe hold Hashimoto tries to block. Hashimoto lays in some hammy kicks. Both guys shake their legs off. Chono with another leg kick and Hashimoto rolls to the floor. He does some squats to get his leg going again then gets back in. DDT from Hashimoto and Chono rolls out. Chop exchange back in. Chono dodges an elbow drop. Yakuza kick to Hashimoto's arm, hurting it even more. Chono targets it. Hashimoto tries to chop back but is too hobbled by the bad arm. Chono tackle off the top rope for 2. Another Yakuza kick and Hashimoto responds with a long chop beatdown. Chono drop toe hold. STF! He switches to an armbreaker on the bad arm. Hashimoto just gets to the ropes. Kick exchange. Enzuguri exchange. Hashimoto hits a spinning back fist/sweep kick combo and plants Chono with a DDT. He hooks on an armbreaker/headscissors combo that kind of looks like a reverse triangle choke. Chono makes the ropes. Hashimoto brain buster. He covers but ref Hattori is distracted by Chono's T2000 second at ringside (can't make out who it is, maybe old NWO Sting with different face paint, he went with Chono to T2000). Yakuza kick! Hashimoto kicks out! Hashimoto cinches up another DDT but the ref is distracted again and Chono gives him a low blow. He cranks Hashimoto's arm back. After a few minutes, and a couple of completely pointless apron distractions from Don Frye (also on T2000) Hattori calls for the bell. I'm pretty certain Hashimoto never gave up, Hattori just called it. Didn't seem any need for that either. Weird finish and the match never got into high gear anyway. *3/4

 

No Rope Explosive Barbed Wire Barricade Explosive Land Mine Double Hell Deathmatch: IWGP Heavyweight Champion The Great Muta def The Great Nita in 13:32- Needless to say the title is not on the line here. Nita is Japanese deathmatch king Atsushi Onita. This is one of a series of deathmatches he worked in New Japan during the year. His Great Nita persona is, it should go without saying, mocking Muta, complete with parody facepaint and traditional Muta gear. The setup for this match is all the ropes are removed. On two sides of the ring there's barbed wire strung between the ringposts that "explodes" whenever anyone is thrown into it. On the other two sides with no wire there's boards of barbed wire placed on the floor for the wrestlers to fall into if they're thrown out, and I'm pretty sure they explode if that happens to. On top of that there's a switch on a ring post. Flip the switch, and two minutes later EVERYTHING goes boom. Win is by pinfall or submission only. The video starts up with Nita working Muta over with a sickle he's carrying that also has a chain on it. Muta's still got his entrance gear on, which is pretty much a jacket with football style shoulder pads on it. Muta gets thrown into the wire. BOOM! After he gets out of the wire he takes his jacket off. Clearly he left it on for protection in that spot. Nita is still using the sickle with no blood coming out at all. He wraps the chain around Muta's throat and tries to drag him off the ring onto the boards on the floor. Muta blocks it. Green mist! Nita does a tremendous slow flop after getting misted. More mist! Muta wraps the chain around his elbow and hits Nita with it. Elbow drop. Nita spits green mist back at Muta! Did he catch Muta's mist in his mouth then spit it back at him minutes later? Because that's sure what it looked like. Nita dances around, hits another sickle shot, and gives Muta a DDT for 2. Muta dodges a charge and Nita goes into the wire! BOOM! Sickle shot from Muta. Nita teases rolling off the ring. Nita throws a fireball in Muta's face! He looks at the siren and switch for a minute to milk the moment....then flips the switch! Sirens go off all over the stadium and the countdown starts. Nita powerbomb for 2. DDT. Muta mists him again! The countdown is in the last 10 seconds. Nita rolls onto the wire boards on the floor while Muta stands in the ring. KABOOM! Everything goes off. Honestly, that was a bit of a letdown. I was expecting something bigger. Nita got the worst of it on the floor. He gets back in and runs into a Muta sickle shot for 2. Another fireball that Muta dodges. Nita's thrown into the rope wires again! BOOM! Muta covers for 2. He whacks Nita in the head with the sickle, and covers again for the pin. Well, not a lot of great wrestling going on here obviously, but it was a moderately entertaining spectacle. The crowd was into it. Muta, on the other hand, did not look comfortable at all working this kind of match and seemed to want to be anywhere but where he was. The only shot he took he made sure to still have his double layer jacket on for. The lack of blood was also a letdown. They were hitting each other WITH A SICKLE! Call the whole package **

OVERALL SHOW THOUGHTS- The title matches deliver for the most part, but the less said about the rest of the show the better. The outdoor stadium did make for a nice atmosphere.

OVERALL SHOW GRADE: C

UWF Blackjack Brawl

Legacy Review

UWF Blackjack Brawl

September 23, 1994 from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas

Commentary: Carlo Gianelli and John Tolos, who are atrociously awful

I went in depth of the creation and early days of the UWF in my review of their one and only PPV, Beach Brawl. Following that commercial and creative disaster, UWF held only one more TV taping in 1991 and parted ways with SportsChannel America. Herb Abrams refused to let his dream die however. I say that like it's a positive thing. It's not. UWF returned for one mass four hour/episode TV taping of UWF Fury Hour in mid-'92 on a deal to show them on another regional sports network called Prime Ticket, then there was another hiatus. There was another show taped for TV in the summer of '93 as, I kid you not, part of the North Dakota State Fair but it never saw the light of day. That brings us to September of '94. Abrams renewed his partnership with SportsChannel America, who agreed to air this live PPV sized special Blackjack Brawl as a new gateway into the revival of the UWF. Needless to say, it didn't go according to plan as this would be the final show the UWF ever produced.

The opening hops on the hype train and never eases up, calling this the "biggest wrestling extravaganza EVERRRRRRRR!". Yeah. And yes, it's another minuscule crowd. The official attendance is 600 in a 17,000 seat arena, and it being Vegas I'm sure there's quite a few that were pulled in off the street to fill seats for TV. Herb Abrams opens up the show and he acts and sounds like he's spent all day indulging his favorite pastime. Snort a couple more lines, Herb. Blackjack Mulligan is here for....reasons. We can't hear any of his promo as Abrams holds the mic too far away from him. We cut to commentary and they call this Blackjack Brawl I. One? ONE? I'm calling that seriously optimistic. Gianelli and Tolos do this whole bit where they fake bitch at each other for not paying to be at the show. Um, isn't the whole point of the job you're doing is to, you know. GET paid? I'll give them one thing, they put some work into the entrance stage. Not a ton, but some. It's an early '90s WWF style arch, minus the lights. The ring announcer is hilariously awful and one of the highlights of the show for unintentional comedy. He spends the whole show begging the few fans there to cheer for everyone, face or heel, while going about .6 Buffer. Basically he's acting like the warm up act for the taping of a sitcom. Maybe that's his real job. Apparently the idea to get the UWF revived was to create a shitload of titles. I guess the theory is you have a bunch of titles, you have a company that can't die. As with Beach Brawl and the previous UWF run however, Abrams did manage to talk some fairly major and known names to work this show.

Inaugural UWF Americas Championship: "Dangerous" Dan Spivey def Johnny Ace (w/Missy Hyatt) in 7:17- Like with Ace's match at Beach Brawl, both these guys are All Japan veterans so there's some familiarity here. They crossed paths in early WCW in the tag division too, Spivey with The Skyscrapers and Ace with the Dynamic Dudes. Ace gets a quick roll up out of the lockup. Spivey stalls. Corner break and Spivey gets some cheap shots in. Ace hits a back elbow, springboards up to the second rope, waits....waits....Spivey finally gets in position and Ace hits a reverse crossbody. A dropkick sends Spivey to the floor and he falls on a table that had a bunch of ice and drinks on it, which collapses. So much for free drinks for the fans. Spivey looks legit peeved. Back in Spivey hits forearms and dumps Ace to the floor. Diving back elbow from Ace. He stomps away and Tolos says those stomps would "kill a normal man!". Nice to see commentary really restraining themselves on the hyperbole. Very subtle. Spivey hits a back suplex out of a headlock. Ace dodges a legdrop. Spivey backbreaker for 2. Russian leg sweep. Ace dodges in the corner and hits a Saito suplex. Clothesline off the top for 2. Belly to belly suplex for 2. Spivey counters a suplex and hits a DDT for 2. Uranage for 2. Legdrop for 2. In between all those high impact moves he's been trying to get Ace caught in a cobra twist, a Japanese variation on an abdominal stretch. On the third try for that Hyatt throws in the towel! SWERVE! Spivey wins as that hussy Hyatt double crosses Ace! That's actually a really funny ending. Not what they were going for but I'm amused. Hey look at that, there's actually a belt! I'm surprised. The match was competent and in another setting those near falls would probably have been pretty good. And yeah, that swerve is hilarious. **1/4

Before commercial a graphic says "COMING UP: Curt Hennig". Back from break commentary says we're about to go to a very special interview.....then it never happens and is never mentioned again. Classic. This show has been an A+ for unintentional comedy so far. I wish I was riffing it live, Rifftrax style.

 

Inaugural UWF Junior Heavyweight Championship: "Wildman" Jack Armstrong def Mando Guerrero in 4:24- No offense at all intended to Mando, but his booking screams of someone in the UWF office saying "get me the Guerrero we can afford". Armstrong was a 30 year journeyman in the last year of his career that had done some jobber work for the WWF in the '80s. In fact, this would be his last match ever. He's also, according to rumor, Abrams' coke dealer. He's also got a manager or bodyguard with him that's never named or mentioned. Endless stalling before the bell as Armstrong and his manager/heavy jaw with the crowd. Gianelli says he's "entertaining the crowd", making him really come across like a man that's never watched a wrestling show in his life before. Guerrero literally sits on the top turnbuckle waiting for Armstrong to get in and start. Both guys hit the ropes and Guerrero hits a dropkick. And Armstrong powders. Of course. Back in Guerrero works a test of strength into a headscissors. Armdrag. Guerrero gets tossed out and the unnamed manager chokes him. Armstrong slams him on the floor. Guerrero hits a springboard moonsault! The back of Armstrong's head hit the guardrail and legit busted him open. Guerrero spinebuster for 2. He goes up top for another moonsault but Armstrong dodges, drops a couple of elbows, and gets the pin. No belt for this match, and yes that's something I'm keeping track of. 3/4*

 

Vacant UWF SportsChannel Television Championship: Sunny Beach def Dr. Feelgood (w/Missy Hyatt) in 5:24- Both Wiki and Cagematch say this match is for the SportsChannel TV title, which was the company's top title back at Beach Brawl, but the broadcast says this is just a "Special TV Match" and there's no sign of the one belt that they had made before this show. Sunny Beach was part of the top face tag team in the Beach Brawl days and spent a lot of the intervening years in All Japan, but he's really let himself go since then. Dr. Feelgood went by Al Burke in his years as a jobber in WWF, and had worked previous UWF shows as Mr. Outrageous. He's billed from "Pain, IA" and is claimed to be the chief surgeon at No Mercy Hospital. Punny. I don't think Pain, IA is large enough to have a major hospital. Beach opens with a hammerlock workaround into a roll up. Arm wringer tradeoff. Beach hiptoss and armdrag, then he hits the ugliest backdrop man has ever seen. Feelgood eye rakes and goes right to the backrake punch rakey heel offense. Hyatt gets in a shot with her Shoe of Moderate Heft +1. Beach turns a backdrop into a backslide for 2 and gets a couple of near falls off suplexes. Feelgood drops him with a uranage choke slammish...thing. DDT. He rolls out, opens his bag, and pours some ether onto a rag. Beach grabs his arm, pushes the rag on Feelgood's face, and pins him. After the bell Hyatt has a fit and Feelgood puts Beach out with the rag. Ugh. DUD

Mulligan says what Hyatt did in that match was dirty, just like what she gets up to outside the ring. Oh yeah, Mulligan's read the dirt sheets. Between commercials Abrams and Mulligan waste some time. Abrams says commissioner Bruno Sammartino isn't here because he's getting an award from an Italian-American association in "Pittsburgh, California". And snort another line, Herb. It's actually funny how off track they get before having to break for another commercial.

 

UWF Southern States Championship: "Cowboy" Bob Orton (c) and Finland "Hellraiser" Thor double DQ in 5:16- No, this is not another wacky adventure starring everyone's favorite space viking. Thor is, in fact, the artist formerly known as Tony Halme in New Japan and Ludvig Borga in WWF with an absolutely ludicrous one off name. Orton, who's inexplicably a face here, is the supposed champion coming in but doesn't have a belt. Lockup and Thor easily breaks a waistlock. Shoulderblock standoff. Orton has a think. Thor gets some knees in the corner. Orton dodges an avalanche. Thor starts hitting body shots and goes into corner beatdown mode. Side suplex. Snap mare and the dreaded double chinlock of doom because this match needed to slow down. Orton eye gouges out because once a heel always a heel. And who the hell books Bob Orton as a face anyway? Punches from Orton that look like they might be some stiff receipts. Halme was always known for working a bit snug. He sets up a piledriver but Halme backdrops him onto the apron. Not all the way to the floor, because the ringside area is way too busy. Orton takes advantage of that, grabs a cup of water and throws it in Thor's face. They brawl on the floor and the ref throws the match out. Hey, there's a belt down there! Why didn't Orton come in with it? The brawl continues after the bell and looks like it might be a real fight at some points, with Orton getting busted open hardaway. 1/4*

 

Inaugural UWF Midget World Championship: Little Tokyo def The Karate Kid in 7:07- "For the first time in wrestling history" we are crowning a world midget champion. Well that's bull, the NWA had a world midget's title for a while. And they've got a wee little belt for it! That's almost worth having this show happen. Kid swings some kicks and Tokyo hides in the corner. Basics follow. Kid hits a hiptoss and butt splash. Tokyo wants a TO. Kid works the arm and Tokyo hair pulls out. Usual midget spot of a little criss cross. Kid hides behind the ref and Tokyo keeps running the ropes before realizing. Test of strength. Kid does a monkey flip and both guys try for leverage pins. When Tokyo's on top the ref counts super, super slow. Tokyo is rightly upset. He stops everything and tries to teach the ref how to count correctly. Kid hits a powerslam and now the ref fast counts. Tokyo is again peeved, and he's right to be. I don't know what set off that little spot other than "midget match comedy", but it came and now it's gone. Throat chops from Tokyo. He puts on a full nelson that Kid reverses. Tolos keeps calling Little Tokyo "Tokyo Joe". Tokyo walks up the ropes to try to get out of the full nelson. Kid lets go and lets him fall to the mat. Hurricanranas from Kid. Tokyo dodges a dropkick. Kid charges. Tokyo hits him with a double throat chop and gets the pin. And the wee little belt. Inoffensive match. *1/2

 

Samson def The Irish Assassin in 4:30- This is billed as a "revenge match" but who's getting the revenge and for what will remain a mystery forevermore. Both these guys are your typical '80s roided up bodybuilders trying to have a wrestling match. Commentary makes a big deal about Assassin being a rookie. He's not just a rookie. This is only his second match ever. Put it this way- four years AFTER this match he had a cup of coffee in WWE's developmental system and clearly didn't last long. Samson (or Sampson on his match graphic) is supposedly substituting for Hercules for reasons unknown and is so irrelevant he doesn't even have a Cagematch page. They start out with the most pathetic, weakest looking lockup I've ever seen. They look like they're hugging by the neck. Stalemates all around. Assassin gives Samson a knee on the ropes and I don't know what the hell Samson thought he was selling but it wasn't that. More Assassin knees and a leaping corner clothesline. He lifts Samson up then just drops him down. I don't think that exactly went to plan either. Proper powerslam from Assassin. Samson dodges and elbow drop and slowly....slowwwwwwwwwwwly.....hits some clotheslines. It seriously looks like both these guys are wrestling underwater or in zero mavity. Samson hits a suplex with a bridge and that gets the pin. There wasn't a pop from the crowd for that abortion of a match being over, but there should have been. MINUS FIVE STARS

Hey, guess what? There's a 900 number! Of course there is. All proceeds go directly to Herb Abrams', er, stash.

Inaugural UWF MGM Grand Championship: Tyler Mane def Steve Ray in 6:27- Ray gets funky with the crowd and generally shows some good personality, something sorely lacking from this show. What. The. HELL is Mane wearing on his entrance. OK, I know this is a really deep Rifftrax cut, but I swear hand on my heart Mane is wearing random lion head from Samurai Cop. Seriously, just go Google Image search "Samurai Cop lion head" and compare. Mane, being 7 feet tall (and you can't teach that), wins the lockups. He turns to brag to the crowd and Ray rolls him up. They crank up the speed and Ray hits a clothesline. Mane powders. Back in Mane does some arm work with some Ray super selling. Ray dodges shots and does a crossbody but Mane catches and slams him. Ray dodges a kneedrop and goes to work on the knee. The hell? The ref is literally pushing Ray off Mane's knee even though they're in the middle of the ring and Ray is clearly doing nothing wrong. He separates the wrestlers, then physically pushes Ray back again while Mane is recovering. This is Danny Davis or NWO Nick Patrick level biased officiating, and he's not even supposed to be biased or a heel ref! UWF just had no clue how these things worked. Mane naturally takes advantage of the distraction, hits Ray from behind and back suplexes him. Choke slam. Mane goes for a kneedrop off the second rope and again Ray dodges. Mounted punches and slam from Ray. Mane pulls the top rope down and Ray flies to the floor. He sunset flips back in, but Mane drops on him, grabs the rope for extra illegal leverage and gets the pin. Man this ref sucks. The match had its moments. It's too bad Ray wasn't in a proper training system, he had some potential. Oh, and there is a belt. Check. *1/2

I'm honestly surprised they actually have belts for all these 47 championships they're starting on this show, I figured they'd just BS them all. Wonder what happened to them?

 

Vacant UWF Women's World Championship: Candi Devine def Tina Moretti in 3:24- And again we do have a belt. Our unintentional stand up comic ring announcer calls Divine "Candy Devin". Not just once. Again and again and again. Devin Devine is aggressive early. A Moretti dropkick sends Devine to the floor and they brawl a bit down there. Commentary is going full late '90s Jerry Lawler leering at the women and not calling the match. Divine armdrag and ARMBAR. Moretti responds with the same moves. Divine counters with a headscissors. She tosses Moretti by the hair. Moretti gets a crucifix but they roll over too much for a pin attempt and Devine escapes. Devine chokes in the corner, flips Moretti over and gets the pin. Woof. DUD

Inaugural UWF World Tag Team Championship: The Killer Bees def The New Powers of Pain in 11:30- I guess it's been long enough we can call them the Killer Bees without Vince's lawyers getting involved. The "New" Powers of Pain are original POP Warlord and newbie Power Warrior. Not Kensuke Sasaki sadly, but instead one of the Power Twins the Bees wrestled at Beach Brawl. Aaaaaaaaand we do have belts. I'm deeply impressed. Warrior and Blair start with Warrior showing off his obviously superior power. Tolos: "A good big man will always beat a good little man". Tell that to Rey Mysterio. After some stalling Blair cranks an arm. Hammerlock exchange. Blair gets a fireman's carry takedown. Warrior blocks a hiptoss and hits a clothesline. Bees double hip toss. Warlord comes in and goes right to the bear hug. Brunzell bell rings out. The faces go to work on Warlord's arm. Warrior tags in and the Bees start working his leg in almost the exact same way as the Beach Brawl match, and just as dull. Brunzell mixes it up a bit with a jackknife cover. After some spinning toe holds Warrior pushes Blair, Warlord pulls the top rope down and he falls to the floor. Warlord posts Blair's back. Heel double clothesline and Blair sells like he slipped on a banana peel. Slow Warlord beatdown. Warrior bear hug. Warrior comes off the second rope. Blair gets a boot up and both sides tag. Brunzell hot tag run. Warlord hilariously no sells an apron punch. The Bees slingshot Warrior into a clothesline off the top rope. Warlord breaks the pin up. DONNYBROOK! The ref gets tossed out. Bees double dropkick on Warlord. Warrior's twin is out and they switch. The heels set up for a double team move, but then the camera goes onto Brunzell trying to get the ref back in and completely misses whatever Blair did to counter and cover. All we see is the pin. Genius camera work. *

Lumberjack Match: Cactus Jack and "Superfly" Jimmy Snuka double countout in 9:03- This is only a week after Jack lost a Loser Leaves WCW match to Kevin Sullivan, the on screen cover for Bischoff firing him because he'd never draw. Uh huh. Snuka had also just wrapped up his ECW run. As Sunka's getting in the ring the ring announcer does one of his "If you're having a great time tonight say YEAH" bits. Snuka looks right into camera and, intentional or not, looks to be saying to everyone "can you believe this guy?". It takes forever for the lumberjacks to come out. I can picture UWF employees rushing backstage, rustling them up and reminding them "Mr. Abrams" needed them to do this tonight. Pretty much everyone that's had a match tonight to this point is out there, minus the women and midgets. Jack offers a handshake. Snuka carefully takes it. Very basic start with Jack actually doing some wrestling. Snuka shoulderblocks. Jack gives Snuka a knee in the gut, and after a delayed sell Snuka falls to the floor. The lumberjacks push him back in. Headbutt exchange. Snuka wins that. Jack goes to the floor and resits the lumberjacks. Abrams randomly joins commentary to rant about HOW AWESOME HAS TONIGHT BEEN. Jack clotheslines Snuka 360 and out, and Snuka lands on the commentary tables. Jack stomps on him while he's laying on the table while all the lumberjacks pile up around them and commentary freaks out. Everyone fumbles around outside while Jack goes to get another table and throws it at Snuka. More weak brawling everywhere. Snuka gets back in and Jack goes to the chinlock. Yeah, neither of these guys is very motivated to do more than bare minimum for Mr. Abrams. Snuka slowly fights out. He hits the ropes, bounces off of Jack, and does a hilarious obvious flop over the top rope back to the floor. More weak brawling. Snuka gets a chairshot in. They fight up the stands and the bell rings. Look at all those empty chairs. Jack gets suplexed in an empty aisle for the mandatory Foley bump. That's a double countout in a lumberjack match. DUD

A DOUBLE COUNTOUT. In a LUMBERJACK MATCH. It's almost like they were trying to top themselves with the double countout in the street fight at Beach Brawl. The ending was even exactly the same with the fight up the empty stands.

 

UWF World Heavyweight Championship: "Dr. Death" Steve Williams (c) def "Malicious" Sid Vicious by DQ in 10:45- Both these guys were champions elsewhere at the time of this match. Longtime All Japan wrestler Williams was in his one and only run as the Triple Crown champion, while Sid was in his stint in Jerry Lawler's USWA between WCW and WWF runs and was their world champion. Basics and shoulderblock standoffs. Sid catches Williams with a big boot. Smart adjustment. Yes, Sid did something smart. Mark it down. Then Sid changes the script and works both arms. Williams tries to power out but ends up going to the ropes. Nose to nose jawing. Standing switches. Williams gets a takedown. Sid counters and stalemate. Headlock/headscissors counters. Sid chokeslam outta nowhere! Williams gets bounced off the turnbuckles. He tries to come back with forearms but Sid gets him down again. Slam for 2. Williams boot up in the corner and clothesline. Sid powerslam for 2. Chinlock! You knew it was coming. Williams slowly starts working back and hits a powerslam. THE RING BROKE! Right under the W in the UWF logo on the mat there's broken boards popping up. Not even the ring could take this show. Good thing it's the last match. Williams hits an avalanche as they try to work away from the broken spot. Sid dodges Williams coming off the second rope. He goes up top. Williams joins him. Superplex! Williams hits a powerbomb! Dan Spivey, Sid's old Skyscrapers tag partner, comes out and attacks Williams for the cheap DQ! Double powerbomb on Williams. Johnny Ace chases the heels off with a chair. Up until the weak finish the match was OK. It's definitely far from Sid's worst main event. Not even in the top, er, bottom five. *3/4

Abrams teases a steel cage rematch, which Williams was down for. That likely would have been the main event of Blackjack Brawl 2 if it had ever happened. Less than two years after this, just when the WWF/WCW Monday Night Wars were heating up to Defcon 1, Abrams would be dead from a cocaine induced heart attack at only 41 years old.

OVERALL SHOW THOUGHTS- Is it a bad show? Yes, it's atrocious, one of the worst shows ever attempted, and the final grade will reflect that. But it's that special entertaining kind of awful that you can sit down and watch this with some friends, let the riffs fly and share some laughs. If I ever did a wrestling Rifftrax video, this would be my first choice of shows to riff.

OVERALL SHOW GRADE: F

NJPW Wrestling World 1999

Legacy Review

NJPW Wrestling World 1999

January 4, 1999 from the Tokyo Dome

After a successful run through the '90s, this show marks a turning point in the history of New Japan. MMA promotions were starting to take off in Japan and Antonio Inoki, credited by some as the father of MMA through his famous match with Muhammad Ali, was always looking for ways to combine worked pro wrestling matches and shoot MMA fights no matter how mixed (no pun intended) at best the results had been in that endeavor. A promotion called the Universal Fighting Arts Organization (UFO) was started in Japan, and Inoki got them on board for a series of interpromotional matches on this show.

Funnily enough, 1/4/99 is also a huge date in the history of wrestling here in the US. It was on the same day as this show that the Raw aired where Mick Foley, as Mankind, won the WWF Championship for the first time. That result on the pretaped show was spoiled by Tony Schiavone (under Eric Bischoff orders) live on WCW Nitro, causing many viewers to switch over and watch it, the opposite of what WCW intended. Those that did stay with Nitro saw possibly the single most infamous moment in WCW's history, one that many point to as the beginning of the end of the company: the Finger Poke of Doom.

As usual this is from the NJPW World archives so Japanese commentary only.

Manabu Nakanishi def Kazuyuki Fujita in 11:10- Fujita was a former MMA fighter that was seriously trying to make the transition into wrestling through the New Japan Dojo and Young Lion system. Nakanishi was about 3 years back from excursion and still working to prove himself, though he did have a IWGP tag title win under his belt already. Fujita's got bleached blonde hair, a sure sign of a heel wrestler in Japan. There are also two of the larger wrestlers on the roster, and when I say large I don't mean with excess fat. Just the opposite. Both guys charge straight into the middle of the ring and lock up the instant the bell rings. Standing switches and arm wringer tradeoffs. Fujita gets a fireman's carry takedown. Nakanishi wins the mat leverage game. Waist takedown from Fujita. Nakanishi drops him and reset. Nakanishi blocks an armbreaker. Big shoulderblock. Fujita with a spear! He follows up with a slam for 2. Nakanishi lifts and slams out of a chinlock. Big chops from Nakanishi. Fujita hits back with open hand slaps. Both guys are throwing haymakers. Kneelifts from Fujita. Nakanishi floors him with a forearm. Suplex and legdrop for 2. Nakanishi trash talk while he hits chops sets Fujita off. Some more chops get him back down. Nakanishi release northern lights suplex. He goes to put Fujita in his torture rack finisher. Fujita blocks it and kneelifts out. Nakanishi forearms for 2. He lifts Fujita up again and drops him in what might have been a backbreaker but that was ugly looking. More trash talk. Fujita goes nuts with a slap and knee flurry. A Nakanishi lariato hits Fujita right in the head. Fujita hits a hurricanrana that slowly barely gets Nakanishi over. Nakanishi is back up in beatdown mode. High knee and lariato. He gets Fujita up in the torture rack and it's over. Later in the year Nakanishi would shock the world (well, Japan) by winning the G1 Climax, one of the biggest upsets not just in the tournament's history, but all of New Japan. *3/4

 

Tatsumi Fujinami, Osamu Kido and Tadao Yasuda def Tatsuoshi Goto, Kengo Kimura and Michiyoshi Ohara in 9:17- Fujinami won the IWGP Heavyweight title during Inoki's retirement show in April of '98 for his then-record 6th title reign, but he's now clearly and rapidly moving to New Japan Dad status. The team opposing him is the remnants of the rapidly dying heel stable Heisei Ishingun. Goto and Ohara were a tag team called Mad Dogs (though their tights in this match say Stray Dogs) and would win the tag titles later in the year. As usual with these undercard tags we're going to skim through it a bit. Fujinami hits his spots early, getting in a dragon screw leg whip. Yasuda is one large guy. Fujinami tosses Goto to the floor and teases a dive but doesn't go through with it. Yasuda plays face in peril for a while, including taking a running lariato on the entrance ramp. The Dogs hit a double hot shot. Yasuda comes back with an avalanche and double underhook suplex. A Dogs double team sets off a donnybrook. Yasuda hits a powerbomb for 2. His partners set him up to hit a splash off the top rope, and that gets the pin. **

 

IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship: Kendo Kashin and Dr. Wagner Jr def Shinjiro Otani and Tatsuhito Takaiwa (c) in 16:53- The junior tag titles are here! The tag titles were split in August of '98. Up until then the tag titles were unofficially considered openweight even though it was very rare for a junior wrestler to be on a champion team, but now there are distinct heavyweight and junior heavyweight titles, with the heavyweight titles keeping the lineage of the original tag titles. Otani and Takaiwa were the first junior champions, and this is a rematch of the tournament finals to determine the inaugural champs. Wagner and Takaiwa start. Wagner gives Takaiwa a clean rope break. On the next exchange Takaiwa returns the favor. Wagner monkey flips out of an arm wringer. Takaiwa chops only wake Wagner up. He shouts "COME ON!" and Takaiwa floors him with a punch. Otani comes in with a boot choke. Wagner lifts him by that leg and drags him over to his corner. Otani and Kashin go at it. Otani does his trademark boot scrapes, even getting extra momentum from his partner for one. Kashin camel clutches Takaiwa, then Wager comes in, hits the ropes over and over, rolls over, hits the ropes again, and finally basement dropkicks Takaiwa. Takaiwa blocks and hits a brain buster. He holds Wagner in a camel clutch like position, and Otani comes in hitting the ropes forever and rolling to mock Wagner's earlier sequence before hitting his own basement dropkick. Fantastic. Otani gets caught in the heel corner. gets propped in the corner and low blowed. New Japan ref lets it go. Kashin suplex and floatover, and he goes for his signature armbreaker. Otani blocks it. Wagner hits a dropkick and puts Otani in a surfboard. Otani bites a finger to get out of it! Takaiwa tags in and lights up Wagner. Wagner blocks a powerbomb, backdrops, Takaiwa rolls through and goes for it again. Wagner backs him into the corner and lifts him up. Wagner superplex! Takaiwa pops right back up! Both guys exchange lariatos with neither going down. Finally Takaiwa lariatos Wagner 360 to the floor. Wagner gets whipped into the guardrail. They fight up the ramp. Wagner lariato. He Michinoku Drivers Takaiwa on the ramp! Back in Kashin hits a neckbreaker. Delayed brain buster for 2. Takaiwa shrugs off the hurt neck and hits a scoop powerslam. Think all the neck damage was ignored a little too easily. He hot shots Kashin and tags out. Otani comes in with a springboard forearm. Spinning kick and German suplex. Kashin sunset flips and gives Otani another low blow! New Japan ref still lets it go. Wagner hits a missile dropkick and splash off the opposite top rope for 2. Otani dodges a senton off the second rope. Takaiwa hits a lariato and another powerslam. Rolling DVD for 2. Wagner senton off the top rope for 2. He cradles Takaiwa into a submission hold but Takaiwa quickly gets a foot on the rope. Big Wagner powerbobmb for a long 2. I don't know if it's because these new junior tag titles haven't been established yet or what but the crowd hasn't been into this match at all, that was a quality near fall with zero reaction. Wagner goes for another powerbomb. Takaiwa is supposed to counter it but he slips down and falls on his head. He quickly recovers for a cradle for 2. Both sides tag. Kashin and Otani do some cool dodges. Kashin gets the armbreaker! Otani immediately gets a foot on a rope. Takaiwa saves him from another armbreaker. Wagner and Takaiwa fight up the ramp as things start to break down. Kashin goes up top. Takaiwa runs in after laying out Wagner and lifts him up in a Doomsday Device position. Otani missile dropkick! Powerbomb followup! No cover. Otani hits his trademark dragon suplex! Kashin kicks out! Now the crowd's starting to come alive. Another Otani missile dropkick. Spinning powerbomb! Wagner JUST gets back from his apron beatdown and makes the save! Wagner hits a lariato as we go full DONNYBROOK. Kashin locks in the armbreaker again! No one is there to save Otani and he taps out! I was expecting more flippydo considering who was in there and it being for the junior tag titles, but it was still a good match with some nice tag psychology down the stretch. ***1/4

 

IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship: Jushin Thunder Liger (c) def Koji Kanemoto in 23:11- These two have become regular Tokyo Dome opponents over the years and are probably the biggest rivalry in the junior division. Maybe ever, to this point. Liger is in his 9th run with the belt and approaching one full year for this reign, his second longest, and has started making the shotei (a running open hand slap) a bigger part of his arsenal. They go nose to nose during intros. Lockup and Kanemoto goes right into a slap, snap mares Liger over and lays in kicks. Liger grabs a leg and slaps back. Both guys are all kinds of fired up. A Kanemoto forearm and chop floors Liger. He hooks in a leg bar and they're both still jawing at each other. That continues off an on the whole match. Kanemoto works the leg for a bit. These guys definitely came ready for the Dome, everything in this match is super crisp. More kicks. Liger grabs one and gives Kanemoto a dragon screw! The hurt leg keeps Liger from following up and Kanemoto is right back on him. Liger works on top on the mat and hits some more stiff open hand strikes. Kanemoto blocks an armbreaker. Back to the kicks and he's on Liger's leg again. He pushes Liger to the floor. Liger takes his time shaking his knee off before getting back in. As soon as he does Kanemoto is back on it as he continues to dominate the match to this point. Kanemoto switches to chops and that fires Liger up as he chops back. Liger goes for a tiltawhirl. Kanemoto whirls through it and hits a backbreaker. More mat positioning. Liger hooks in a surfboard, moves around body parts, and ends up with Kanemoto in a reverse surfboard. He lifts Kanemoto for a Liger bomb. Kanemoto rolls through it and hits a high knee. Liger dodges a corckscrew senton off the second rope. Rolling kick! He runs into a Kanemoto back kick. This time Kanemoto hits the corkscrew off the second rope. A Liger German suplex flips Kanemoto over face first! Liger hurricanrana! Kanemoto rolls to the apron. Liger rolling kicks him off to the floor! Dive off the top rope to the floor! Liger brain buster on the floor! As Kanemoto gets up on the apron Liger hits the ropes, charges, but Kanemoto cuts him off with a hook kick and immediately collapses. Both guys are down. Liger goes for another German but Kanemoto flips through it and lands on his feet. Kanemoto belly to belly suplex! Ankle lock! Kanemoto swings Liger around to try to keep him in it but Liger eventually fights his way to the ropes. Kanemoto gives Liger a knee to the face and sets him on the top rope backwards. He does a throat slash gesture on the prone Liger. Kanemoto sets up a poisonrana! Liger blocks it! Fist drop off the top rope from Liger. He tries for the Liger bomb again. Kanemoto floats around and gives him a buckle bomb! Kanemoto superplex for 2. Moonsault! Liger kicks out! Tiger suplex! Liger gets free AND HULKS UP! Backbreaker and he slaps Kanemoto while he's across his knee. Corner shotei! The Liger bomb hits! Kanemoto kicks out! Top rope setup and Liger hits a super fisherman's buster! He hits the ropes and nails Kanemoto with a shotei in the back of his head! Cover and another kickout! Another Liger charge. Kanemoto cuts him off with his own shotei! Kanemoto pulls Liger up, slaps him disrespectfully and spits on him. Slam setup. Kanemoto corkscrew off the top rope! He covers then immediately pulls out of it. Oh he might regret that one. He sets Liger up top again. Liger fights him off and both guys are down again. Liger is up first and sets Kanemoto up in the opposite corner. Liger super brain buster! That gets the pin! Just a phenomenal match. One of Liger's best Dome matches, and that's saying a lot. Kanemoto got another shot at Liger in March and finally took him down, winning his third junior title. ****3/4

 

Kensuke Sasaki def Atsushi Onita by DQ in 5:55- Onita is generally credited as the originator of deathmatches in Japan. This is the first of several appearances he'd make in New Japan this year as a heel outsider from FMW (Frontier Martial Arts Wrestling). Onita's got a chair with him on his entrance and hits Sasaki in the head with it over the ref before the bell. He gets in the ring and hits Sasaki again, breaking the seat off the chair. No effect! Sasaki is in full Zeus mode. Sasaki lariato! Cover for 2. He drags Onita around by his jacket out to the ramp and chokes him with his own shirt. Onita throws his jacket at Sasaki and that doesn't work either. Onita takes a powder on the floor ringside. When he gets back in he gets pounded again. Back to the ramp. Sasaki says hit me and shrugs everything off. He pulls Onita up by his pants and tosses him. They go to ringside again and Onita dumps Sasaki over the guardrail into the officials' area. Another chairshot. Onita piledrives Sasaki through a table! They were very lucky that narrow table held its balance long enough for that, it was wobbling all over the place. And Sasaki pops right back up. We're getting into John Cena Summerslam '10 levels of egregious no selling here. Sasaki gives Onita his own chairshot. Back in Sasaki kills Onita with lariatos. In the corner Onita gets something out of his pockets and throws a fireball in Sasaki's face! That's a bridge too far and the ref calls for the DQ. After the match promos are cut and brawls are restarted and stopped again. There's fun garbage matches and garbage garbage matches. This was garbage garbage, though I suppose it did set Onita up as a mega heel for the rest of his appearances that year. 1/2*

 

NJPW vs UFO: Yuji Nagata def David Beneteau in 5:30- Benetau worked for the UFC in its early days. Apparently New Japan tried to book Dan Severn but Severn already had commitments elsewhere and he suggested Beneteau in his place. Beneteau ended up only having a handful of pro wrestling matches, this being one. The UFO guys have formed a stable called Club 245, which is why they all have 245 on the back of their tights. Nagata is now officially back from his WCW excursion and already had shots at the IWGP Heavyweight title. Both guys swing kicks and look for openings. Nagata tries a waistlock takedown. Beneteau gets Nagata against the ropes and pounds away, ignoring the ref. The ref gives him a warning. Belly to belly from Nagata and he tries an armbar. Beneteau ties them up in the ropes. Arm takedown by Nagata and he puts on a reverse ankle lock. Again Beneteau gets to the ropes. Beneteau lifts and slams Nagata. Again he refuses to break in the ropes and the ref gets on him again. Nagata kick to the head that staggers Beneteau. A couple more kicks and Nagata hooks on a triangle choke. Beneteau taps. Not the worst hybrid match I've seen. Thanks Nagata. *

 

NJPW vs UFO: Don Frye def Brian Johnston in 7:55- This is more UFO vs UFO as Frye and Johnston are both in Club 245 and have shoot fighting backgrounds. Frye was Inoki's opponent in his retirement match. Johnston charges down the ramp on his entrance, jumps over the top rope and onto Frye's back! Frye tosses him over for a takedown. The ref has to get in and physically force a rope break, and Johnston pushes him aside. Johnston pulls Frye up by the hair and punches him while he's hanging in the ropes. Frye goes to the apron to recover. Back in Frye catches a kick and gets a leg takedown. More ignoring of rope breaks by both guys. They're swinging haymakers in there and the crowd is into it. During a mat grapple I think I heard Johnston shout "fuck you" to the ref when asked if he wants to submit. So that's a no then? Headbutts from Johnston. Frye gets some shots in but Johnston responds and hits him to the floor. Frye gets Johnston in a sort of sleeper and Johnston pulls his hair again to get out. There's definitely a story in here at least, and that story is Johnston being a total dick using every cheap move in the book. Johnston lifts and slams Frye, ties his legs up and starts pounding on the back of his head. Frye just reaches out to grab a rope. They grapple on the ropes again and both guys go over the top to the floor! Some of Frye's seconds hold Johnston down and Frye punches him. Frye flips Johnston in the ring and pounds away on him. Johnston stops defending himself and the ref calls it. Huge boos for that result. Wait, Johnston was the face here? Really? The way he was acting? OK then. Match didn't suck though, shockingly. Unlike most shoot style fights both guys showed a lot of personality. **1/4

A quick note on the next match: on the last 1/4 show review I skipped over a match that wasn't in the NJPW World archives that also involved Ogawa. This next match is also missing, so I can conclude pretty definitively that Ogawa is one of the guys that's been wiped from the World archives. I was as OK as I could be (as a completionist) with skipping his match on the last show, but I mentioned in the open this was a historically important show, and this next match is the crux of it and it needs to be in here. Fortunately, the Internet Archive as a copy of the original VHS release of this show, so that's where we're getting this from.

 

NJPW vs UFO: Shinya Hashimoto and Naoya Ogawa no contest in 6:58- Ogawa was an Olympic silver medalist in judo, an MMA fighter and a favorite of Inoki, sometimes seen as Inoki's protege. Hashimoto spent most of the second half of the '90s as IWGP Heavyweight Champion and had been the company's most dominant champion of the era, all the while carefully cultivating an image for himself as one of wrestling's ultimate badasses. While it'd been over a year since he held the title, he did win the '98 G1 Climax as a sort of compensation. He's been moving more and more to these pesudo-shoot style matches and the rivalry between he and Ogawa had been going for a bit already. Trying to do a blow by blow recap of this match is pointless. Unbeknownst to anyone at the time but knownst to us now, Ogawa had orders from on high, possibly directly from Inoki himself, to go full shoot in this match and, this is the key, no one told Hashimoto. Or anyone else. What follows is 7 minutes of Ogawa pummeling Hashimoto with legitimate strikes as well as grabbing him in headlocks in corner breaks to keep him from escaping and generally making him look like a doofus. As the match goes on Hashimoto looks more and more shocked at what's going on, until the point he's been beaten to a pulp and can't do anything but lay on the entrance ramp. All the ringside New Japan wrestlers and either an official or maybe even a doctor come in to check on him. Ref Tiger Hattori, who took a couple of shots in all this as well, calls for the bell and throws the match out. Up until this point Hashimoto had been considered one of the toughest guys to ever get in a wrestling ring. That's been destroyed forever. Ogawa, who'd spent much of the match dancing around like a cocky son of a bitch, takes the mic and says something stupid that really sets everyone off. There's a near brawl between the New Japan and UFO guys at ringside. After another few minutes Riki Choshu himself comes out to the ring. He'd retired from wrestling on the last show but was New Japan's head booker at this time, and he's PISSED. He wants to get in a fight right then and there with Ogawa but is held back by Hashimoto and a few others. Every single bit of this is a shoot, out in the open and in front of everyone. This match is the birth of Inokism, the Inoki driven style of mixing more and more shoot fighting into wrestling matches and it's no exaggeration to say that it was so bad it almost put New Japan completely out of business. More on that as we get into it. As far as this match goes, I have a hard time putting a rating on it considering everything, but it's an absolute train wreck and leads to the darkest period in New Japan history so really there's only one way to go. MINUS FIVE STARS

 

IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Championship: Tencozy def Genichiro Tenryu and Shiro Koshinaka (c) in 16:35- Tenryu's promotion WAR (who were part of interpromotional battles with New Japan on the early 1/4 shows) was starting to go under so he's doing another swing through New Japan, and to make things interesting he's joined Heisei Ishingun. Tencozy are our first NWO Japan members to wrestle tonight, but the group will be well represented these last two matches. Interestingly, both Tenzan and Kojima have already had multiple tag title reigns, but none of them paired up together as Tencozy. Tencozy try to jump before the bell but get jumped instead. Kojima is double teamed. Kojima and Koshinaka smack their heads against each other like a couple of drunk Klingons. Tenzan and Tenyru have a shoulderblock standoff. Tenzan wins the next exchange. Dropkick by Tenzan, followed by a slam and throat chop. Kojima hits a senton. Chops from Kojima are shrugged off by Tenryu at first but more chops wear him down. Kojima gets whipped into a Koshinaka hip attack. Koshinaka suplex on Tenzan for 2. Tenzan hits Mongolian chops and his low diving headbutt. He and Koshinaka do some more Klingons after too much blood wine head knocking. Kojima does a great delayed flop on a Tenyru chop. Always love that. Corner lariato from Tenyru, and an enzuguri pushes Kojima into a Koshinaka hip attack. Tenyru back suplex for 2. Koshinaka Russian leg sweep. Double enzuguri from the HI team. They go to the ramp and Tenyru does a ramp charge lariato. Kojima comes back with a Saito suplex on Koshinaka and tags out. Tenzan spinning heel kick for 2. The HI team run Tenzan into an exposed turnbuckle in their corner. Another Tenyru enzuguri for 2. Double shoulderblock. Koshinaka DDT for 2. Big chops from Tenryu and he hits his diving back elbow off the top rope. Kojima breaks the pin up. Tenzan hulks up on more Tenyru chops and responds with Mongolian chops. HI runs in for a double team. Tenyru gives Kojima a Kojicutter off the second rope! Kojima pops right back up! Kojicutter proper on Tenyru! Lariatos and cover for 2. Powerbomb from Kojima. He hits the elbow off the top rope and covers. Koshinaka breaks the pin up. Tag and Koshinaka runs into lariatos. Another Kojima elbow off the top for 2. The NWO team hits a double chop and a Tenzan lariato for 2. Samoan drop. Tenyru runs in, lariatos Tenzan but ends up draped over the top rope. Kojima Kojicutters him from the apron over the top rope! Koshinaka hip attack off the apron! Tenzan goes to the top rope and MOONSAULTS ONTO EVERYONE ON THE FLOOR! Corner lariato on Koshinaka back in. Kneedrop off the top rope. More lariatos and a cover. Koshinaka kicks out! Tenyru enzuguris Tenzan from the apron and again everyone's in the pool. Kojicutter. Hip attack. Tenzan hits a spinning heel kick off the top rope. Headbutt off the top rope! Tenzan gets the pin and NWO Japan gets the tag titles back! Not too shabby, and definitely a breath of fresh air after the disaster of the last match. ***1/2

 

A little setup for the main event: NWO Japan leader Masahiro Chono ended Fujinami's sixth and final title reign in August '98, winning the Heavyweight title for the first time after years of trying. Unfortunately it was to be short lived as he suffered a neck injury less than two months later and had to vacate the title (and even worse he never won the title again despite all his G1 wins). After his injury he also left NWO Japan. When he came back from injury he formed a rival faction, Team 2000. Scott Norton, who had wrestled for both New Japan and WCW for many years and was also a member of the original NWO in the US, won the tournament for the vacant title, defeating young Yuji Nagata in the final and becoming just the second gaijin Heavyweight champion ever, after Vader.

 

IWGP Heavyweight Championship: Keiji Mutoh def Scott Norton (c) in 19:01- Mutoh took over leadership of NWO Japan after Chono's injury and group departure, making this an inter-NWO battle. The big story here, besides that, is Mutoh's inability to win big matches ever since he lost the Heavyweight title to outsider Nobuhiko Takada at the '96 Jan. 4 show, a streak he's desperately trying to break. Feeling out start. Norton holds a facelock and armbar for a while, but then lets Mutoh up. The original NWO was a den of theives, but the Japan branch still has some honor. Norton hits chops. Mutoh dodges in the corner and hits a hiptoss, then hooks on an arm scissors. For a while. Really slow start to this match. Norton is up with a lariato. Mutoh dodges another one, hits a dropkick and drop toe hold into some more arm work. Norton fights off an armbreaker and deadlift slams Mutoh. More chops put Mutoh down. Lariato. Mutoh dodges an elbow drop. Handspring elbow! Faceplant. Norton scoop powerslam for 2. Tackle and shoulderbreaker from Norton. He lifts Mutoh for a powerbomb. Mutoh turns it into a hurricanrana! Dropkick off the top rope to Norton's knee. Norton goes to the apron. Mutoh slides out and dragon screws Norton off the apron! Another dragon screw in the ring. Figure four! Norton fights and gets to the ropes. Mutoh dropkick to the knee. Norton lariato. And again, both of them. On the third exchange Mutoh ducks the lariato and hits another dropkick. Another dragon screw and back to the figure four. Norton has a long fight and eventually makes it to the ropes. Norton fights off another dragon screw. Powerbomb! But he can't follow up with the hurt knee. Mutoh slips out of a suplex and goes right back on the knee. Another figure four and another just barely to the ropes reach for Norton. Mutoh missile dropkick. Norton gets another scoop powerslam for 2. He shakes the knee off and goes up top. Tackle off the top rope. He's slow to cover and Mutoh kicks out. Norton headbutts. He goes for another powerbomb. The knee gives out! Another dragon screw. Mutoh moonsault! Norton kicks out! Another missile dropkick to the knee and the figure four is back on. All the knee work has worn Norton down too much and he has to tap out! Mutoh finally gets the big match monkey off his back and wins the Heavyweight title for the third time! They hug it out after the match and all of NWO Japan celebrates in the ring with all the hardware they've won tonight. The match was disappointing for a Dome main event (it's got Scott Norton in it, only so much you can do), but Mutoh gave it his all and the psychology was tight with Mutoh staying laser focused on the knee and getting the win with it. **1/2

OVERALL SHOW THOUGHTS- The junior title match steals the show and both tag title matches are worth a look. The main event isn't great but it is a really good moment. But you can't ignore the fact that most of the matches on this show are not up to par, topped off by the Ogawa/Hashimoto train wreck that leads to an even bigger long term train wreck that almost destroys the whole company. I'll give the final grade a small bump for historical significance, good or bad.

OVERALL SHOW GRADE: C-

UWF Beach Brawl

Legacy Review

UWF Beach Brawl

The UWF (Universal Wrestling Federation) name was not a new one. In 1986 Bill Watts renamed his successful New Orleans Superdome based Mid-South Wrestling territory the UWF with the goal of going national. It went badly, and barely a year later the former Mid-South was absorbed by southern powerhouse Jim Crockett Promotions, the North Carolina based NWA flagship territory that had been buying out all their adjoining territories also with the goal of going national. The UWF name and titles floated around JCP for a few months before being retired, much like the WCW titles after they were bought by WWF. Soon after that JCP ran into their own too much, too soon problems and had to be bailed out by Turner, creating WCW. There was also a promotion in Japan called UWF International that started in 1991 but we won't get into that here. A couple of years after the original UWF died, enter Herb Abrams.

 

Now, full disclosure I have not watched the Dark Side of the Ring episode on this subject. At a glance and with the benefit of hindsight, Abrams comes across as your typical snake oil salesman that's managed to cover himself in some Hollywood glitz. He also had a severe cocaine addiction, which is where much of the UWF's money went and was the ultimate cause of his early death in 1996. Despite having never been involved in the wrestling industry before, Abrams decided he was the guy to create a new promotion to compete nationally with WWF and WCW. Amazingly, he convinced SportsChannel America to fund this, er, exploratory effort. SportsChannel was a conglomeration of some of the early regional cable sports networks and at the time was most well known for stealing the NHL coverage contract away from ESPN. They agreed to help fund the project and gave Abrams a one hour weekly timeslot on their channel. Even more amazingly, Abrams managed to convince some fairly big name wrestlers to come on board. Look down the card for this show, there's some pretty heavy hitters for the time on here. It's not a bunch of nobodies. UWF Power Hour debuted on SportsChannel in October 1990. The promotion was immediately plagued by financial problems, with both venues and wrestlers saying they weren't receiving what they were owed. But the show went on, and they knew if they really wanted to play with the big boys (look at the adjective) they needed a PPV. That's where Beach Brawl comes in, the one and only PPV produced by the UWF.

June 9, 1991 from the Manatee Civic Center in Palmetto, FL

Commentary: Craig DeGeorge and Bruno Sammartino

 

The show opens up with some black and white stock footage of wrestling days past and promises to bring back the "glory days" of wrestling thanks to legendary visionary Herb Abrams. The types of visions he has depends on how much he's snorted that day. Main event opponents Bigelow and Williams give promos in the opening video with hilarious piped in crowd noise under them. The arena is barely lit, a good call considering how bad attendance was. How bad was it, you ask? Well, in a 4000 seat arena the official attendance is 550. I'd make a joke about not all of them being paid, but you have to figure if you're going to paper the show you'd make some effort to fill it up a bit more. We have 900 numbers! Of course we do. On one you can "Hear the Beach Brawl". Does that mean you hear the audio feed of the PPV that you already paid money for and are watching right now? Seems slightly redundant. On the other number you can "talk to" Capt. Lou Albano and evil manager Mr. Red. We get more pretaped promos from both Bigelow and Williams, this time in street clothes. It's funny how Bigelow is talking more how he would in real life while Williams is full on in character.

 

The Blackhearts (w/Luna Vachon) def Fire Cat and Jim Cooper in 7:45- The Blackhearts are billed as "from your worst nightmare". They set off some flash paper during their entrance because they're demonic or something. Luna also has a snake wrapped around her on their entrance. The Blackhearts' names are Apocalypse and Destruction, but they both wear masks and identical gear so it's impossible to tell who's who. In fact, one of them is the future Gangrel. Fire Cat is the same guy that was the short lived gimmick disaster Battle Kat in WWF. Jim Cooper is....well, put it this way, he doesn't even have a Cagematch page. The Hearts jump Cooper before the bell and give him a double flippy tackle. Cooper recovers with a neckbreaker on one Heart. Heart diving back elbow off the second rope. Cooper hits a backdrop. The faces do a Hart Attack like setup with Cat delivering a back elbow instead of clothesline. Cat hurricanrana! The heels go out to regroup. Cooper is placed on the top rope and a Hart gives him a gut wrench superplex. Cooper dodges an elbow off the top and tags. Cat breaks out some more flippydo, hits a superkick, and the heels powder again. Cat cradle for 1. A simple shove from a Hart puts Cat on the ground. Hart spinning heel kick. Cat crucifix for 2. Hart double tackle and a bit more Cat in peril work follows. Cat reverses a whip and gets a diving back elbow. The tag is cut off. Cat counters a backdrop with a DDT. Bruno doesn't know what a DDT is, he keeps calling it a piledriver. Cooper tags in but the Harts hot shot him. One Hart holds Cooper up, the other hits a legdrop off the top rope, and that gets the pin. Well, it didn't suck. They kept it moving even if it was a bit disjointed. **

Commentary explains to all you rubes where Palmetto is in Florida. I know it's the pre-internet days, and my situation is different because my family traveled a lot (I'm an Army kid), but I always had a good old Rand McNally atlas available to reference. Luna cuts a promo and is unimpressed with the available competition.

 

Street Fight: Terry Gordy and Johnny Ace double countout in 6:08- The ring announcer specifically says this match is "no DQ, no rules". This was supposed to be Gordy against Don Muraco but Muraco was out with an injury. Both these guys wrestled full time in All Japan so they were probably already familiar to each other to some degree. Gordy tries to back suplex out of a headlock but Ace flips him over. Hard Ace shoulderblock for 2. More headlock work. Street fight! Ace hits a back elbow and springboard reverse crossbody for 2. A straight right punch from Gordy floors Ace. Corner clothesline for 2. Beatdown mode from Gordy. He fights off an Ace comeback and hits a Saito suplex for 2. Ace blocks a powerbomb. Gordy resets and hits it for 2. Another corner clothesline for 2. Gotta give it to them, there some good intensity going on in there. They're laying into each other. Gordy goes for another corner shot but Ace gets a boot up and hits a clothesline. The small crowd is getting into it. An Ace dropkick sends Gordy to the floor. Ace plancha! But Gordy misses the catch, Ace comes down at an angle and he splats almost head first on the no pads concrete floor! Gordy clearly stops to check that he's OK before continuing. Once he's sure Ace is OK they brawl into the crowd, up the stadium steps and into the empty seats. After a minute the bell rings. Commentary is confused. The ring announcer says it's a double countout. In a street fight. A double countout. OK then. Well, before the crap finish the match wasn't too shabby, even if they were only having a regular match and not a STREET FIGHT. **3/4

After the bell the brawl continues as long or maybe even longer than the match went. Why not just keep the match going? We also get a replay of Ace almost killing himself with that plancha.

A DOUBLE COUNTOUT. In a STREET FIGHT. Well, it's certainly innovative.

 

Mask Confusion def The Power Twins in 12:23- There's some mass confusion, pun intended, as to what the face team name is. The opening rundown said Mass Confusion, the match entrance graphic says Mask Confusion, and everything currently online says Masked Confusion. Whatever you do though, don't call them the Killer Bees. Yes, it's "Jumpin'" Jim Brunzell and B Brian Blair and yes they're still in yellow and black gear but don't you dare say that name. Vince's lawyers hear everything. The Power Twins really are twins named David and Larry and have nothing impressive to mention on their career resume. It's the second straight tag match where you can't tell which heel is which. For some reason they're also carrying fly swatters. One of the twins takes the mic before the match and bitches that their manager John Tolos has been banned from ringside. Brunzell starts with one of the twins. The heels go into the cheating playbook early as Brunzell takes a knee in the back while hitting the ropes. After a short heel beatdown Brunzell escapes the heel corner and tags. Blair slingshots the heels into each other and they go out to recover. Back in Blair chain wrestles a twin down and the not Bees start working on his knee. The next few minutes are the not Bees working each of the twins legs, a good strategy in theory but completely forgotten once the FIP segment starts. Blair gets caught in the heel corner and double teamed. The Twins go to work on his back for a bit. Blair tries a slam and fails. The heels work the ref to double team and they get the phantom tag spot in. Blair gets dropped over the top rope. He ducks a Twins double clothesline and hits them both with his own double clothesline. No tag, instead the faces both get knocked to the floor. I think everyone knows what's coming here. They put their masks on while on the floor and use the power of mass/mask/masked confusion to get the pin on a sunset flip switch. Bleh. *

 

Inaugural UWF Women's World Championship: Rockin' Robin def Candi Devine in 6:05- Robin was a veteran of the WWF's Rock N Wrestling era women's division, while Devine was one of the stars of the women's division in late '80s AWA. Code of Honor handshake to start....but Devine attacks Robin when she turns her back! She tosses Robin around until Robin gets a boot up in the corner. Clothesline and elbow drop for 2. Robin gets a sunset flip off the second rope but Devine uses her legs to ring Robin's bell to get out. She slingshots Robin into the mat and hooks on a Boston crab. After fighting it for a minute Robin flips it over and they trade quick cradles for near falls. Devine hits a dropkick. Robin with some weak chops. Diving clothesline for 2. Robin dropkicks and Devine plain no sells it. That wasn't a miss, she was right there, she just didn't do anything. After that Robin dodges....something. No idea what that was supposed to be. Devine charges in the corner. Robin dodges, Devine bounces off the buckles, and Robin rolls her up for the pin and title. Botches aside it's a typical women's match for the era. In what would be typical UWF booking fashion, Robin won the title and never wrestled another match for UWF. 3/4*

Video recap package! I didn't think UWF had it in them. Of course, all it shows is DeBeers (a former longtime AWA wrestler whose gimmick is an apartheid supporting South African) beating up black refs and abusing black wrestlers and shows nothing as to why Orndorff is mixed up in any of this at all.

 

Strap Match: "Mr. Wonderful" Paul Orndorff def Col. DeBeers in 4:15- Debeers tries to jump before the bell but the ref stops him. The ref throws the strap in the air like a jump ball! DeBeers catches it and whips Orndorff. Oh wait, this isn't a STRAP match. It's not a long strap that both wrestlers have tied to their wrists, it's a small strap used for whipping asses. OK then. Orndorff sells a DeBeers shot in the corner before DeBeers even comes close to hitting him. They go to the opposite corner and Orndorff presses DeBeers with his legs. Now Orndorff goes to town with the strap. Not just whips, but chokes and hits a strap assisted fist drop. DeBeers slams Orndorff and Orndorff hides the strap underneath him. DeBeers looks around for it for a bit, then goes to the top rope. Orndorff catches him with the strap coming down. Running kneelift. Orndorff counters a backdrop into a piledriver and it's over. After the match DeBeers lays Orndorff out with a taser. I guess someone was watching video of Mountie matches. 1/4*

 

Next up is a special PPV edition of Captain's Corner with Capt. Lou Albano. Albano brings the Blackhearts and Luna out again. Luna's got her snake again which sets Albano off. He goes on a rant about how much he hates it, drops the mic and leaves. Well that was completely pointless.

 

Bob Backlund def Ivan Koloff (w/Mr. Red) in 2:23- I feel like I should know who this Mr. Red guy is but can't find anything online. He's very blonde and doesn't look the least bit Russian. Koloff has a whip. Backlund is introduced as the "undefeated champion of the world", continuing his insistence that he never lost the WWF title to the Iron Sheik. This is actually only Backlund's third match since his mid-'85 AWA run and his first in two years. He was right at the start of his comeback that would lead back to the WWF in '93. Lots of solid chain wrestling to start. Backlund escapes a full nelson. Koloff does some arm work and runs Backlund's shoulder into the turnbuckle. While Koloff's holding a short arm scissors Backlund deadlifts him! Backdrop. Backlund rolls Koloff up and bridges over, much the same way we see today from ZSJ and SANADA, and gets the pin. Well they got screwed by the booking. They were working well together in the little time they got, and probably could have had a good match with more time so I'll go easy on it. 1/2*

After the match Albano comes back out and punches out Red. OK then. Guess there's a weekly TV story behind that but commentary never explains it. After that is another video package, this time showing actual feud buildup.

 

Wet'N'Wild def "Cowboy" Bob Orton and Cactus Jack (w/John Tolos) in 4:02- Wet'N'Wild are two guys named Steve Ray (not to be confused with Harlem Heat's Stevie Ray) and Sunny Beach (who went by Sandy Beach as a longtime jobber in WWF). Their gimmick is surfer dudes and they actually bring a surfboard to the ring and try to ride it. Basically they're a bad ripoff of the Dynamic Dudes. Which leads to the obvious question of why anyone would want to rip off the Dynamic Dudes in the first place but here we are. They're the top face team in UWF and with no tag titles in the company yet this is our de facto top tag team match. Tolos is in full coach gear, showing the gimmick he'll have a cup of coffee with WWF as soon after this. He's supposed to be suspended in a shark cage for this grudge match. The bell rings with Tolos in the ring. The faces whip the heels into each other, then grab Tolos and toss him in the cage. The cage is sloooooooooooooly raised up. Given it being UWF I'm pleasantly surprised it doesn't fall down. Reset with Jack and Beach. Beach gets tossed to the floor. Jack double ax handle off the apron. He slams Beach on the floor. Cactus Elbow off the TOP rope to the floor! There's your Foley bump. Bang bang. Orton tags in and hits a short clothesline. He rams Beach's head into Jack's hard cranium. Orton suplex. Jack Russian leg sweep for 2. Beach hits a fallaway slam and tags. Ray gives the heels a double noggin knocker. Corner whip reversals and we get a ref bump. Tolos tosses knucks into the ring. Orton pops Jack with them and Ray covers for the pin. After the match Orton and Jack argue, then fight in a brawl that, again, goes on as long or longer than the match did. 1/2* solely for Jack

Another video package shows highlights of the title tournament from weekly TV, including Williams dropping Steve Ray right on his head.

 

Tournament Final for the Inaugural UWF SportsChannel Television Championship: "Dr. Death" Steve Williams def Bam Bam Bigelow in 7:11- This is to crown the promotion's first ever top champion. No world or US titles here, it's all about the network branded TV title. They're making a big deal to make sure everyone knows it's a "$100,000" belt. After both wrestlers have made their entrances everything stops for Herb Abrams to have his own special entrance with the belt. Not an ego trip, not at all. He shakes Williams' hand, then offers one to Bigelow. Bigelow pushes him aside! Williams charges in with clotheslines off the distraction and we're off. He goes for a 3 point stance tackle but Bigelow cuts it off with a clothesline. Falling headbutt. Bigelow avalanche. Williams is bleeding and Bigelow punches the cut. Williams tries to stop the momentum by running right into Bigelow full speed but Bigelow shrugs it off. Another avalanche. He goes for it again but Williams gets a boot up. Williams clothesline with a Bigelow 360 sell! Commentary goes nuts for that. Knees to the face, chops and a forearm from Williams. Now Bigelow is bleeding. Another clothesline and dropkick. Bigelow fights back with headbutts. He goes for a suplex but Williams small packages him for 2. Williams back elbow and kneelift. Bigelow catches a running Williams and gives him a Samoan drop! Slingshot splash! Williams kicks out! DDT from Bigelow. He goes up top. Splash off the top rope! Williams kicks out again! Williams ducks a clothesline. Belly to belly suplex! Clothesline. 3 point stance tackle. Powerslam for 2. Slugfest in the corner. Williams lifts Bigelow again but Bigelow grabs the top rope. Williams resets, lifts Bigelow, carries him to the middle of the ring, buries him with another powerslam, and gets the pin and the title! Well, that was unexpected and a very pleasant surprise. The textbook definition of big meaty men slapping meat. Honestly that was one of the stiffest matches I've ever seen, they were pounding the shit out of each other. My only complaint is they only got about half the time they should have. ***1/2

 

Clearly there's no one working this show that knows how to time a PPV, because instead of giving that damn good match more time, Williams gives two promos, one in ring and one backstage, commentary vamps forever to wrap up, and lists off all the match results one by one.

OVERALL SHOW THOUGHTS- With UWF's reputation you'd expect this to be a train wreck of epic, end of life AWA level proportions. Instead, it's a not so good but moderately watchable show with a couple of decent to good matches and nothing that makes you want to gouge your eyes out and never watch wrestling again. The main event is worth checking out for sure.

OVERALL SHOW GRADE: D+