Woah! What a final night, with a main event that’s MOTY contender all day long. This was a final night to what has been a great tournament. Is it the greatest tournament ever? I think that might be a little hyperbolic and obviously only time will tell with those sorts of claims, but goddamn was the main event hot from bell to bell! So without anymore rambling let’s get to the card! 

Suzukigun (Yoshinobu Kanemaru, Taichi, El Desperado & TAKA Michinoku) vs KUSHIDA, Jushin Thunder Liger, Tiger Mask IV & Hirai Kawato, It was a fun little match to kick off the show and seeing Tiger Mask and Liger beat up Taichi will never not be fun. Pretty skippable though as nothing of great importance was had here. The Young Lion as always took the fall here. 

Guerrillas of Destiny (Tama Tonga & Tanga Roa) vs Yuji Nagata & Manabu Nakanishi, more of the same as stated above. I don’t know much or anything about Nakanishi, but commentary sold him well. Made me want to learn more, the best part of this match was after the finish when GOD gave respect to Nagata who had a great showing this year at the G1 Climax. 

CHAOS (Hirooki Goto & YOSHI-HASHI) vs Togi Makabe & David Finlay, If you’ve read my G1 Climax posts. You are probably well aware that I’m not exactly sold on Goto or Hashi. So overall this match was pretty bland for me. I’d recommend skipping it wholesale, nothing too shocking took place. 

Satoshi Kojima, Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Juice Robinson vs Bullet Club (Bad Luck Fale, Yujiro Takahashi & Chase Owens), Juice is really the standout talent here, which should be no surprise to anyone who watched his G1 performances. It doesn’t hurt that he is teaming with one of the best tag teams to ever grace NJPW. They looked dominate here, which also isn’t surprising since they are fighting Bullet Club’s C team members.   

The Young Bucks (Matt Jackson & Nick Jackson) ©  vs. Taguchi Japan (Ryusuke Taguchi & Ricochet) for the IWGP Jr. Tag Team Championship, The Young Bucks rarely disappoint so it’s not surprising they put on a great match with two other great Jr. Division workers. Ricochet looks pretty flawless here like always and the drama in this match was on 10 throughout. Thanks to great selling and great targeting at Ricochet’s damaged leg throughout the match. 

War Machine (Hanson & Raymond Rowe) © vs Bullet Club (Cody & Hangman Page), this match was great, but might have been better if the challenging team seemed more like a team that would stay together. While I love Rhodes and Page, Rhodes just seems above being a tag team champion atm since he is ROH champion. Still, the match had plenty of great spots and Warmachine are quickly becoming a favorite of mind as they continue to deliver great tag team battles. 

Suzukigun (Minoru Suzuki, Zack Sabre Jr. & Takashi Iizuka) vs Hiroshi Tanahashi, Kota Ibushi & Michael Elgin, pretty standard 6 man tag match. Many Suzuki Gun detractors will probably decry all the usual Suzuki Gun shenanigans, but I think it was worth all of it to set up the two title matches they did. NJPW for sure planning ZSJ vs Tanahashi for the IWGP IC belt and also penning in Elgin vs Suzuki for the Never OPENweight championship. Those should both be fantastic, but this match wasn’t. I’d recommend it for story reasons, but the match wasn’t must-see by any margin. 

Los Ingobernables de Japon (SANADA, EVIL, BUSHI & Hiromu Takahashi) vs CHAOS (Kazuchika Okada, Tomohiro Ishii, Toru Yano & Gedo), pretty fun 8 man tag team. Ishii really got to shine going wild on the entirety of LIJ. Still, just like the previous match this was mostly to set up Okada/Evil in the near future with everyone else being more of an afterthought. Still, when guys like Okada, Ishii, Evil and Takahashi throwdown it’s worth watching and with that I’d recommend this more than most of the throwaway tags on this card. 

Tetsuya Naito defeated Kenny Omega, MOTY and I don’t even think it’s that close. There isn’t much to say as it’s like describing color to a blind man. You just have to see it for yourself, it’s beyond great into the stratosphere of great wrestling classics, despite it being almost 6 in the morning, I’m contemplating watching it again, because it’s that damn good! Blew the rest of the matches this month out of the water and is a must watch for any wrestling fan worth their weight in salt in 2017. 

A great G1 and I had lots of fun covering it, if this blog and my twitter are still a thing a year from now, I will gladly cover G128 with even more enthusiasm as I did G127. Hope you guys liked the coverage and hope you keep tuned for the rest of the crazy year 2017 is going to be for wrestling! My coverage of NJPW will sadly probably end at the end of this month. It’s still my 100$ goal on patreon, but until that is met I cannot really swing the 10 dollars a month for a NJPW World subscription since I’m currently looking to do this full time and don’t really have another revenue stream.

Highlights: 

I didn’t catch every big moment cause most of these were done live. Just go watch Naito/Omega as it’s that good you should see the whole thing not just the highlights I got. The rest of the card is hit or miss, but the Main Event is MUST WATCH imo, and probably most people’s opinions who saw it. 

Video if you have NJPW World, if you don’t have NJPW World as always I’ll have a highlight gif album at the bottom. 

This is a sister series to both Puroresu-Rewind and Lucha Libre Time Machine, a mash up of the two where we look at classic Lucha-resu which is a mix of both Lucha Libre and Puroresu. 

Either a Lucha talent in Japan or Lucha style practiced in Japan or a Puroresu star in Mexico which is fairly common with NJPW’s Young Lion excursions. Which is when a NJPW rookie goes over to Mexico/Canada/US to pick up skills they wouldn’t learn just training in Japan.

Puroresu-Rewind #1

Lucha Libre Time Machine #1

Both of those part 1′s are free video on youtube if you feel left in the cold with this NJPW World exclusive. 

Who’s Who?

Talk about star power! This happened on day 2 of NJPW’s Fighting Spirit events that went 16 days. It’s one of the few matches from those series of events on NJPW World, mostly because lots of the event were just singles/tag matches with nothing on the line. Fun note, one of the other matches from the event happened the next day and saw cornerman for Liger in this match El Samurai defend his belt(UWA World Junior Light Heavyweight Title) against one of Black Tiger’s close real life friends Dean Malenko. That match can be found here. 

Anyways, who is in this match? Of course in his full bodysuit of red and white we have Jushin Thunder Liger. No doubt the greatest Jr. Heavyweight to ever grace NJPW’s Jr. division in both accolades and fan support. He’s held the IWGP Jr. title a record breaking 11 times, with a record breaking 31 defenses and with a record breaking 2,245 combined days. 

I know it might seem redundant to say record breaking for each of those, but second place isn’t even close in any of those cases : 6 times with the belt, 15 defenses and 1,010 days. The first of those second places being Tiger Mask while second place for defenses and days is Prince Devitt(WWE’s Finn Balor).

The lesser known of the two, at least under the name he is using here is Black Tiger. However, most would be more familiar under his real name : Eddie Guerrero. Eddie was the 2nd man to use the Black Tiger name, the first being Mark Rocco who has also feuded with Jushin Liger and of course Tiger Mask who’s always rival to Black Tiger. They are the proverbial Ying to one another’s Yang. Eddie worked in NJPW under the Black Tiger mask from 1994-1996 where he was a successful Jr. competitor, bringing his Lucha Libre background into the Puroresu world.

How’s the match?

Great, though a little shorter than one would hope. Perhaps it’s a case of being spoiled with hour long draws in the year 2017. Kenny Omega even had 2 matches go longer than this over the last weekend. 

Still a nice thing about the short runtime of this match is that the pacing never become an issue and you never feel like either guy is buying time or trying to lengthen the match artificially by selling or slapping on a rest hold. All the actions feel like they are done with purpose and each guy is trying to win, not like both guys are in a play waiting for their cue. 

The match is full of great moments from both men getting off impressive offense, many of which would be signatures of theirs for most of their careers. For instance Eddie pulls out the Gory Special which is of course named after his father Gory Guerrero who innovated the move.

This match also shows Black Tigers finisher, which Eddie rarely used outside of this time in NJPW. Perhaps because it would be hard for him to hit on bigger men and the move is normally reserved for bigger men. It’s a sitout crucifix powerbomb, titled the Black Tiger Bomb. It’s a fantastic version of this move though and it’s hit wonderfully in this match. 

While Liger hits Abisegeri/Rolling Liger Kick, which he hits back to back in this match and Black Tiger sells it like death. Though most of the impressive offense of this match is show casing Black Tiger, who would go onto fight in and win BOSJ III a few months later that year. 

It’s a great match definitely worth rediscovering if you have NJPW World. One of the many classics they have on that service, while it’s only 2 of the best men to ever wrestle. It feels very much like the Zero-One match I highlighted for Resu Rewind, where seeing these great guys fight it out is just mesmerising. There are some dream matches we never get, but Eddie Guerrero vs Jushin Thunder Liger happened and is there for your viewing on NJPW World. I’d highly recommend checking it out if you like either man or Jr. Division competition. 

Highlights :  

This is an event that happened 3 AM 4th of July for my timezone(Central USA). I didn’t watch this live, but caught up with it the day after. Like some days of the G1/BOSJ this is a static cam show that doesn’t really have any production.

If you have NJPW World you can watch the show here.

For those out of the know, the Young Lions are NJPW’s name for their rookie class. The young and lesser trained talents are known for wearing black briefs/boots and generally being the helper class of NJPW. You may seem them as outside ring help in major NJPW events. While this is a Young Lion’s event, many of them face off vs more seasoned pros of NJPW. 

This is more of a test firing for the NJPW G1 Climax coverage where I will be gifing just the ends of matches. Which is what I did here, rather than going more in depth I will just give you all a brief glimpse of the finishes, though this card had some highly revered veteran talents going toe to toe with the younger class of NJPW talent. 

There were 7 matches that ended thusly : 

Highlights : 

Video courtesy NJPW World

Another match where lucha meets puroresu. This time more contemporary than the 1996 or 1980 matches we looked at before with both talents still active wrestlers and both even within the WWE ecosystem. So this is the only match of these series that has a chance of happening again in WWE down the line. Which is pretty exciting since both these international talents were associated so strongly to their brands CMLL and NJPW.

Who’s Who?

La Sombra is in the mask and black attire. Mistico(SinCara/Caristico) is one of the big reasons NJPW wanted to open relationships with CMLL. Then he went to WWE and the big Mexican star NJPW was so fond of was no longer around. That whole was mainly filled by La Sombra and Rush. 2 of the founding members of the hot rudo group Los Ingobernables. Who many people might be first exposed to through Naito and the NJPW branch. Naito being invited into the group by Sombra with Sombra and Naito even challenging Shocker and Negro Casas for the CMLL Tag Titles. 

This was in spring of 2013 which would be a few months before La Sombra would controversially main event CMLL 80th vs Volador Jr for their masks over the more wanted match of Atlantis vs Ultimo Guerrero… which of course was before CMLL 82nd Anniversary where La Sombra would main vs Atlantis. So this is before La Sombra exploded and became the biggest CMLL name under the age of 30 which would be a position he’d hold until he left the company to head to NXT.  

Sombra defended the IWGP IC Title once before having this rematch with Nakamura vs Volador Jr. who was his major rival at the time in CMLL and was basically Sombra’s main rival throughout his CMLL run. 

Shinsuke Nakamura in recent years really became The IWGP IC Champion. The guy you think of when you think of the belt. La Sombra ended Nakamura’s 1st reign which was the 4th overall reign for that relatively new belt. In his first reign Nakamura had more defenses than the first 3 combined champions. MVP, Masato Tanaka and Hirooki Goto had 7 defenses combined to Shinsuke Nakamura’s 8. So Nakamura was the guy to elevate the belt past experiment. 

On the May 31st, 2013 edition of CMLL’s Super Friday show. Shinsuke Nakamura entered the Cathedral of Lucha Libre : Arena Mexico as IWGP Champion and left without it as La Sombra beat him in a 2/3 falls match which is the common stipulation for CMLL.  Nakamura would hold the title another 4 times after that initial reign. Normally dropping it to someone and getting it back soon after. Holding it 5 times, 17 defenses and 901 days, the last time he lost the belt he instead vacated it because he was heading to WWE. His closest rival for that belt being Naito who has 4 defenses in his one reign. 

How’s the match?

Good! I love the idea of Lucha-resu and these two guys know that in this match people are expecting both. Nakamura gives you the heavy dose of Puroresu while Sombra checks the Lucha Libre box. Though the two dabbled in their opponents wheelhouse as well. Most notably when Shinsuke Nakamura dives out onto La Sombra. Which might be the takeaway highlight from this match.

La Sombra I think really steals the show with pretty much all of his offense looking crisp. While Nakamura kinda fumbles a springboard forearm and has a few of his strikes failing to connect with the crispness you’ve come to expect from Nakamura. Still, I think the few times this match doesn’t execute perfectly isn’t enough to drag it down much for me. 

La Sombra lives up to the Lucha Libre reputation of being very fast. He is often finding ways to avoid or gain the upperhand vs Nakamura by speed. Nakamura is catching his breath on the top rope? Kick him off. Nakamura rolled out of the ring after a headscissors? Time to dive? Nakamura down after some offense? Climb a big structure and moonsault onto him. 

A match I’d highly recommend watching not just because it was great at the time, but because a rematch is almost inevitable barring WWE dropping either of these talents unexpectedly. Much like AJ/Nakamura have history and will meet in a WWE ring Cien Almas/Nakamura too have history and will build upon it in the WWE ecosystem in a match that hopefully is even better. 

Dave Meltzer gave this bout a 4, but I’d probably be higher on it and rate it the same I did the NOAH title match I covered yesterday. A solid 4.5, a modern classic that people already look back on fondly and likely won’t lose the reputation it has as a fun lucha libre meets puroresu bout.

Highlights : 

La Sombra vs Shinsuke Nakamura for the IWGP IC Championship

A really good start for NJPW’s biggest yearly G1 Climax tournament, arguably the most prestigious tournament in wrestling. 

We saw a great young vs old bout with Yuji Nagata vs Yoshi Hashi, 2 Brawler matches with Bad Luck Fale vs Togi Makabe & Hirooki Goto vs. Tomohiro Ishii, then  Hiroshi Tanahashi the ace of New Japan vs. Zack Sabre Jr. the newcomer to the G1 Climax before finally getting to the main event of  Kota Ibushi vs. Tetsuya Naito which might be the newest NJPW match to earn the coveted 5 stars from Dave Meltzer. 

Definitely not a night of the G1 to sleep on, with really every match being a fun watch and the main event being excellent. 

Finishes : 

Hey, I decided to cover the G1 US Special and will be doing so in 2 parts. This first part focused on the tournament that crowned the inaugural NJPW US Champion, while part two will come at a later time and focus on the 4 title matches that happened over the 2 night event(Not including the finals which also crowned another champion).

FIRST ROUND MATCHES

Jay Lethal vs Hangman Page

Who’s who?

Jay lethal is a former ROH World champion and is wearing Black/Red/White attire, while Hangman Page is less decorated having yet to win any gold in NJPW/ROH and is blonde wearing all black attire.

How’s the match?

Good, probably the weakest tournament match at the two day event. Still that shouldn’t be an insult when nearly all the other matches were great if not even better than that adjective describes. The main messy part of this match would have to be the botched lethal injection that one move doesn’t sully the whole match though with Page looking impressive in singles competition which we haven’t seen him do much in NJPW.

Zack Sabre Jr. vs Juice Robinson

Who’s who?

Zack Sabre Jr is in the red trunks and boots, is currently PWG Champion and Evolve Champion and very well regarded on the independent scene while Juice is relatively new to the scene. A ‘young lion’ as they are called, Juice has long dreads and a colorful pair of trunks.

How’s the match?

Great, Sabre Jr. pulls out his usual technical tricks and Juice Robinson is allows to showcase what he can do in singles competition against the more seasoned Sabre. I think Sabre Jr. likely got more fans in this tournament with his performances in this tournament.

Tomohiro Ishii vs Tetsuya Naito

Who’s who?

Tomohiro ‘Stone Pitbull’ Ishii is the bald man in black trunks who seems to feel no pain, while Tetsuya Naito has bleached hair and is wearing red/black trunks with white southeastern inspired boots. While Ishii is the oldest man in this tournament, Naito is 2nd in line behind him the two men being 41 and 35. Ishii though hasn’t had as much gold as Naito, who has also had the honor of winning the G1 Climax. 

How’s the match?

Another great match, though it like the first has a noticeable botch, it’s handled much better than the frustrated miss of the first round. Ishii lives up to his nickname of the Stone Pitbull seeming impervious to any damage Naito threw his way, in the end lariat’s would help even the odds for Ishii who took massive amounts of offense from Naito. 

Michael Elgin vs Kenny Omega

Who’s who?

‘Unbreakable’ Michael Elgin is in a red singlet which is pretty common for him and is bald with beard. While in contrast Kenny Omega is babyfaced with long hair and is wearing long black pants. Omega is second only to Okada in NJPW who is of course their IWGP Heavyweight Champion. Elgin has never lost one on one to Kenny and beat him in the first ever ladder match held by NJPW a year or so back for the IWGP IC Championship. 

How’s the match?

Great! Many may call this the match of the 2 night event, but that’s a heated argument depending on who you ask. Big match Mike delivers here and Kenny Omega as always is impressive. It helps that this is the longest of 1st round matches from night 1 clocking in at a lengthy 22:31, plenty of time to breath and let the two workers with great chemisty pack that time with action from bell to bell.

Semi-Final Matches

Jay Lethal vs Kenny Omega

Who’s who?

Dressed mostly the same from the previous night Lethal is in black/white/red attire and has taped ribs while Omega is in black long pants and has long blond hair.

How’s the match?

Very good, one thing I particularly like is that while Omega has mostly been working a tweener style and heavily cheered, he actually pulled out some heel tactics here in way of attacking the injured side of Lethal and ripping away the bandage he had on it. This might be the worst of the Omega matches from the weekend, but to be fair it was also at least 10 minutes shorter of the other 2.

Tomohiro Ishii vs Zack Sabre Jr.

Who’s who?

Ishii is still the bald older asian badass in black, where Zack Sabre Jr. is the Jr. Heavyweight British man in red.

How’s the match?

Very good, probably the best match under 15 minutes on either night’s card. Ishii and Sabre prove just how well different styles can mesh. Many people would think an Technican vs Brawler bout would work as well as Chocolate and Steak, but these two prove the naysayers wrong with this great clash.  In the end, the technical prowess of Sabre couldn’t move the immoveable object that is Ishii. 

Tomohiro Ishii vs Kenny Omega in the Finals of the NJPW US inaugural championship tournament

Who’s who?

Ishii is still the bald older asian badass in black, where Kenny Omega is the Bullet Club leader in long black pants. 

How’s the match?

Fantastic! I think someone told Ishii and Omega that whoever wins this will be crowned the best wrestling in the world, because they fought tooth and nail in a finale that will make the viewers in Long Beach itching for the G1 to start already, but we all still have 2 weeks before a G1 that will include the IWGP Heavyweight Champion, The Evolve/PWG Champion, IWGP IC Champion and the newly crowned IWGP US Champion Kenny Omega. Not to mention Ishii, who will only meet Omega again if they both meet in the finals.

I don’t know about everyone else, but I think Ishii deserves a huge win somewhere. I doubt that will be at the G1 Climax, but if anyone can impress over a series of 9 matches vs the other competitors in Block A, it’s Ishii or Ibushi, when both of them collide it will likely collapse the universe we are all occupying so be careful. 

If you enjoyed this stay tuned as later in the month I will be gifing the finishes to all the G1 Climax matches. So stay tuned right here at Wrestling with GIFs.

Highlights : 

G1 US Title Tournament Highlights

Zero-One’s Official Youtube

Video of the match

This is the first in a hopefully long running series I will do looking at an older Japanese match. 

I’m starting with Puroresu-Rewind, but it’ll have two sister series called Lucha Libre Time Machine and another called Lucharesu Rewind Machine where I look at classic Lucha from Japan or Japanese talents wrestling in Mexico.

I decided to start with Puroresu-Rewind because thus far all the content on the blog has been CMLL related. I love CMLL, but I love all wrestling and don’t want to have tunnel vision. So today we are looking at :  

Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama vs. Shinya Hashimoto & Yuji Nagata (ZERO-ONE March 2nd 2001)

Who’s who?

Mitsuharu Misawa 

Wearing his signature green and white pants, Misawa is arguable the best wrestler of all time his name coming up in any GOAT discussions that have Puroresu fans. 

One of the Four Corners of Heaven(4 Famous wrestlers from AJPW) and a man that has more 5* matches than most with 25 Meltzer rated 5* matches and a coveted 6* match. 

Don’t just take Meltzer’s word for it, Tokyo Sports gives year end wrestling awards and has since the late 70′s and they have given him 5 MOTY awards(1995, 1997, 1998, 2003 and 2007). 

Also, Misawa was #2 in the PWI 500(1997) who are famously focused on the United States/WCW/WWE wrestling scene. The person above Misawa on the list in 1997 was Dean Malenko for those curious. Misawa was in the PWI top 10 5 times in his career, the list only being a thing since 1991.

Misawa would be the big star for AJPW until he decided to make his own promotion in the year 2000 called NOAH. This is one of the 2 shows that Misawa did for Zero-One wrestling, which was the promotion that Hashimoto created in 2001.

Jun Akiyama

Wearing white trunks and boots, Akiyama was about 5 years younger than Misawa. He and Misawa had many 5 star matches through the late 90′s tag teaming together. Jun Akiyama would also be a big star for Misawa in NOAH, being champion there many times. In 2013 Akiyama would leave NOAH with many other NOAH talents and join AJPW. Where he worked as a wrestler for about a year before AJPW made him the president, which he currently still is while also being an active wrestler for the company as well. 

Shinya Hashimoto

Shinya Hashimoto is the host in this situation, Zero-One wrestling being a company he created. This event was the first ever Zero-One PPV and this match was the first main event. Wearing black pants and a red belt, which is common for him to wear. Hashimoto is known for his martial arts style and signature high kicks… which are well displayed in this match. 

He initially wanted Zero-One to be an independent affiliate to NJPW and perhaps even be called NJPW Zero-One. NJPW refused and would later fire Hashimoto, so he registered Zero-One and created a new wrestling brand for the 21st century. Zero-One was an open promotion that had working agreements with almost all the companies of Japan allowing Zero-One talents to wrestle elsewhere and hold other promotions belts. 

Shinya Hashimoto and Mitsuharu Misawa have many things in common, they both founded wrestling promotions that defined the independent scene in Japan after the turn of the century, they were both the top stars of NJPW/AJPW respectively, they both are known for their stiff work, They both are considered the leading member of Japanese groups. Misawa being the top Four Corners guy and Hashimoto considered the best of his group The Three Musketeers. 

Perhaps the most grim thing that Misawa/Hashimoto have in common is their early passing. Misawa famously died in the ring after he took one bump too many causing a cervical spinal cord injury he was 46 in 2009, while Hashimoto died of a brain aneurysm when he was only 40 years old in 2005, a year after he stepped down from Zero-One amongst financial issues. 

Yuji Nagata

Much like Jun Akiyama, Nagata is slightly younger than his partner, though is still older than Jun by 2 years. Yuji Nagata would not be a staple of Zero-One, instead Nagata has been a very loyal NJPW talent. The only year of his career that Nagata worked more for another company is in 1997 when he wrestled for WCW, who he also worked with in 1998 about as much as NJPW. Roughly 40-50 matches for both companies in 1998.

He is wearing Blue trunks and boots here dressed similarly to Jun Akiyama, but different colors. He is pretty well highlighted here and looks pretty good. Him teaming with Hashimoto vs Misawa and Jun Akiyama is basically a matchup of NJPW(Nagata)+Zero-One(Hashimoto) vs AJPW+NOAH(Misawa/Akiyama)

How is the match?

Really good! It’s a fantastic main event for a first show. It’s almost hard to believe your eyes because these talents are so well associated with other big brands. Hashimoto vs Misawa, singles match never happened as far as I know. So seeing them fight here is really interesting, It’s akin to Hogan vs Flair or Stone Cold vs Goldberg, or Sting vs Undertaker. It’s definitely dream match material and we got it briefly in this main event tag match from Zero-One. 

It’s hard not to smile watching this match because you are seeing 4 of the best men to lace up boots all tossing fists and one another around the ring. It’s a brisk 20 minutes that passed by quickly because there really isn’t much fussing around. It’s a stiff fight where Hashimoto nails some of his signature high kicks, Nagata and Akiyama trade suplexes, Nagata hits his rolling kick, and Misawa/Hashimoto clashing is akin to Godzilla vs King King. Two icons throwing down in a test of who’s the best. 

My main complaint with this match is one that’s made in hindsight. Perhaps, Hashimoto was hoping to get these three other men more often in his promotion. It seems weird for the first main event to feature 3 talents that wouldn’t work that often in this promotion. 

Perhaps another NJPW talent who became a mainstay in Zero-One would have been better like Shinjiro Otani. I’ll fully admit this is just in hindsight criticism, because Hashimoto might have thought NOAH/Zero-One crossovers would have been more common than they really were. 

People also might not like the ending because it’s a little abrupt, but I think it works well because at least it’s conclusive. It’s not a time limit draw or a countout(Which are prevalent in many old AJPW matches). They had a winner and a loser, even if the ending is hectic with all four men involved in the action and the security coming after the match to pry Hashimoto off Jun Akiyama.

Leaving this match, my one sore spot is the fact we never got the Hashimoto/Misawa match of our dreams. It’s a shame Hashimoto passed as early as he did. Misawa had a classic 5* and Tokyo Sports MOTY tag match in NOAH in 2007, and was still an active wrestler til his death in 2009. 

Hashimoto vs Misawa could have been a barnburner match for the ages, but was lost to time and unfortunate circumstances. This tag match is a great glimpse at what could have been, but also is a greater glimpse of what was. A photograph in time of some of the best workers to ever set foot in a ring, all in one ring.

Zero-One has had a bumpy road over the last 16 years, but it’s still standing! While they may never have a main event with as much starpower/linage as their first, many great talents have worked their over the years. Guys like Steve Corino, Samoa Joe, Low Ki, Ikuto Hidaka, and of course Shinjiro Otani who has been their since the beginning. It’s nice to know that despite their passings both Hashimoto and Misawa’s legacies live on through promotions they created. 

Puroresu-Rewind #1 : Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama vs. Shinya Hashimoto & Yuji Nagata (ZERO-ONE March 2nd 2001) Highlights

Espiritu Negro & El Hijo del Signo vs. Super Astro Jr. & Sonic

How’s the match?

Very good, it’s hard to steal the show in this spot, but that doesn’t stop Super Astro Jr. from trying. It’s a little odd to have a stage dive in an opening match, yet we see one here. Super Astro Jr. seems much more polished than you’d expect from a guy who’s been on the roster for a year and a half. Can’t wait to see what the future holds for his promising career.

Átomo, Gallito & Microman vs Chamuel, Guapito & Perico Zakarías

How’s the match?

Good drama, bad match. It’s hard to say that a story is no risk or even low risk. If CMLL were to book Ciber/Ultimo it likely wouldn’t live up to its position as the main event lucha de apuestas at Anniversary. 

With Microman vs. Chamuel, if they booked that as the midcard lucha de apuestas, I doubt anyone would have venom for it. It’s just such an interesting idea and would be something CMLL can do that pretty much no other promotion could do. Microman could be an icon for CMLL, if they are smart enough to pull the trigger on him. Chamuel would be fine without a mask as well. 

Audaz, Flyer & Titán vs Cuatrero, Forastero & El Hijo del Villano III

How’s the match?

Great, all these guys are fun to watch and prove it once again here. Templario was suppose to be in this spot. He may have had travel issues, but Villano was a fine replacement and an exciting body to add to the equation, not a let down of a replacement like many other rudos might have been. A member of NGD should main Anniversary vs. someone.

Volador Jr. vs Sansón Lightning Match

How’s the match?

Great, that’s back to back weeks that Volador Jr. has had a really good match vs. a member of NGD. Maybe he will fight Cuatrero soon, but he is in Gran Prix teaming with Forastero and that might mean a match between those two again, which would be welcomed as well. Or this in 2/3 falls format or title match. 

Ángel de Oro, Místico & Niebla Roja vs Euforia, Gran Guerrero & Terrible

How’s the match?

Great, Oro/Roja vs. Guerreros still feels fresh and you couldn’t ask for better 3rd’s than Terrible & Mistico. Trios of the night and maybe trios of the week. Gran Guerreros flying lariat continues to impress. Always gonna be hyped to see him whip that out. A bit more exciting than their standard team splash. 

Cavernario, Diamante Azul & Último Guerrero vs Ciber the Main Man, The Chris & Valiente

How’s the match?

Very good, Ciber worked better with buddy The Chris around. Valiente felt like the 3rd wheel here. Sorta a victim of the stipulation since they needed a face. I’d have gone with Caristico, but he’d probably have been a 3rd wheel as well. A fun main event and no promise of a hair match yet… despite it feeling inevitable.  

Highlights :