Sammo~!

I went with Trent vs OC because damn it sometimes I like my wrestling to be fun and wholesome! Also Danhausen kicking OC and the tope into hug both made me legit laugh out loud. Trent is secretly having a career year.

@Matt D Happy New Year and Happy Secret Santo! I honestly had no idea what to give you, so I settled on a show from earlier this year that I attended live. Maki Itoh and Miyu Yamashita from the 5/29/22 Prestige Wrestling show here in town. Also on the card was Alex Shelley vs Bandito and I think that's worth a look too. Edit: I shouldn't post at 2am after NYE drinks, so I thought this got posted by someone else already but I just can't read good. and so I posted a backup, another match that I saw live. Well, sort of. I definitely saw a Scott Norton vs Al Madril match but it might have been at a house show in Salem. I was just a little 6-year-old baby Sammo back then and the only enduring memories I have from this era are that my dad really liked Roddy Piper and the overwhelming certainty that Scott Norton was the largest human being to ever walk the face of the Earth.

Kip Sabian sucked so hard on commentary. Trent and Orange was a lot of fun otherwise. Main event was great but those are some terrible tattoos. Curt scared me for a second that they had replaced Yuta's rad Mega Man X intro stage music with Roundball Rock, but they just used it to promo some matches so that's good. Edit: Also Bug Dad and Skull Kid are the most wholesome thing in wrestling. Please don't ever break Sting and Darby up.

I'd just like to take a moment to appreciate how accepting Abuelo Mysterio is. Just a big hug for Dom and Rhea at the door. That's a man who loves his family and doesn't judge.

But I mean really after taxes it's only like a $125,000 Battle Royale

This match is from 2005, so I don't know if that qualifies as early-era enough for you, but I adore this match. KENTA and Shibata were an absolute badass unit as the Takeover. KENTA as the shit talking little prick who would often write checks with his mouth that his ass can't cash, and Shibata as the cool, collected older brother type who steps in when things get out of hand. Morishima is an absolute unstoppable shitkicker. Also Muhammad Yone is there.

Chris Jericho is the last survivor of Stu Hart's dungeon, brother!

Full disclosure: I've seen this match before but it's probably been about 10-12 years and I appreciate being able to watch it with fresh eyes and also examine and articulate why I like it so much. So like most teenagers in the 90s, I found FMW through the ECW>FMW pipeline, the Cactus Jack King of the Death Match and Onita/Funk. I think the first Megumi Kudo match I saw was one of the Shark Tsuchiya matches, another exploding barbed wire match, followed by the inter-promotional tag match at Dream Slam where she teamed with Combat Toyoda vs Manami Toyota and Toshiyo Yamada. Fast forward about 2 years and I'm playing an English Romhack of Super Fire Pro Wrestling: Queen's Special and I beat the "Chase the Red Belt!" mode with Megumi Kudo and decided then and there "Well, I guess I'm a Megumi Kudo fan now" and sought out a bunch of her stuff, including this match. Generally speaking; while I do love a good bloodbath, there needs to be some emotional stakes attached to the match to justify that level of brutality for me. A lot of hardcore and garbage wrestling is too much for me. Light tubes, fireworks, barbed wire all that, not my thing unless there is a storyline or character work justification for them. It's a weird place to be emotionally, like I'm not opposed to graphic violence I just need a reason for it. A lot (not all) of FMW managed to walk that line pretty well though, not just as a house style, but also a lot of their wrestlers were good enough to build towards the big gross spots and make them feel earned. This match manages to accomplish all of that. Emotional stakes? Check. This is Combat Toyoda's retirement match. She and Megumi Kudo both trained under Jaguar Yokota, broke into FMW together, were 2/3rds of The Outbreakers and had been frequent tag partners and opponents for the past 5 years. Making the big barbed wire spots feel earned? Hell yeah. Match starts with lots of jockeying for position trying to push the other wrestler into the barbed wire. The first few exchanges feel more like a sumo match than pro wrestling. One of my favorite little things is how both Megumi Kudo and Combat Toyoda would just completely sprawl to the ground if they got too close to the exploding barbed wire. They were willing to give up the positional advantage in order to avoid being exploded. It's a great little thing and really does make the few times they actually go into the barbed wire feel completely shocking. The crowd being absolutely apoplectic anytime either wrestler gets near to the ropes helps a lot too. After a lot of really cool grappling eventually Megumi Kudo gets sent into the barbed wire fist and Combat Toyoda gets control and gets to showcase some of her amazing offence. Side note: How come nobody does the Argentine Backbreaker where they drop to their knees/butt anymore? That move rules. I remember Albert/Bernard/Tensai using that 10 years ago, and Nikki Bella retired. Someone big and strong should steal that. It should be Powerhouse Hobbs' finisher. Speaking of cool-ass moves: the most aesthetically pleasing thing to me in all of professional wrestling is a perfectly executed suplex with a high arch and we get three in a row here. Toyoda hits a gorgeous german, followed by Megumi Kudo popping right back up and hitting a Northern Lights, followed by a Toyoda backdrop driver. I remember being amazed by that sequence of suplexes when I first watched this match years ago and it's still great on repeat viewing. In the pre match interview Combat Toyoda said that younger wrestlers should feel her emotion and learn from it, and it's pretty apparent what she meant. From the jump her face has a kind of quiet resignation to it. Not entirely sad but a sort of dignified melancholy knowing that her journey is coming to a close. It's fucking great. Towards the close of the match, after going into the barbed wire twice, and a nasty looking Tiger Driver, Toyoda lets out a primal yell. Defiant to the last she knows her time is up but if she's going to go out, she'll go out fighting. A few more big moves and eventually Megumi Kudo hits the Kudome Valentine, winning the belt and retiring her one time tag partner. This. Match. Rules. Thank you Curt for sharing it and giving me a reason to watch it again.

For@Curt McGirt You mentioned you wanted to see more World Class, more Buzz Sawyer, and more Matt Borne. Buzz Sawyer and Matt Borne had a fun run as a tag team in 1986 in WCCW. I hope you enjoy.

Alright let's do this! Thanks to John E Dynamite for this one, this is right up my alley. I ended up watching Perro's opening promo. I don't speak Spanish but I just wanted to feel the emotion of the whole thing. Perro has the crowd in he palm of his hand right from the start, it's amazing. This guy was one of the most hated badguys in Mexico just ten years previous to this and he's out here shaking hands (literally) and kissing babies (figuratively). He's got the crowd completely whipped up and he hasn't even gotten into the ring yet. I think this Perro Aguayo guy might be pretty good at professional wrestling. Nikozuna is in the ring waving the Rising Sun flag, which is definitely a choice. The crowd are waving Mexican flags at a Samoan guy playing a Japanese guy. Truly wrestling is the international language. I actually had to look up if there was some kind of historical animosity between Japan and Mexico, there isn't really, Perro Aguayo is just that good. Perro jumpstarts the match and tries to get an early advantage but is immediately cut off with a claw to the eyes. Yokocito isn't quite the monster that his cousin Rodney is, but really who could be? He doesn't need to be a monster though when he can be a bully. Every time Perro tries to fight back he's immediately shut down with a cheap shot. Rake to the eyes. Chop to the throat. Headbutt. Nikozuna doesn't give a shit about September in Mexico and he knows no matter how good of a wrestler that Perro Aquayo is, you can't train your eyes or your throat (settle down). I'm not going to do a move-by-move breakdown because it's 90% stomps, headbutts, clubbing forearms etc. So let's talk about Perro Aguayo's selling. The dude is a total master. He's so wonderfully theatrical with everything he does. He'll take a chop to the throat or a headbutt and freeze in pain just long enough for the folks in the nosebleeds to understand what just happened before collapsing. The way he crawls on his belly, reaching out to the crowd, inviting their sympathy and begging for their support, is superb. He's a master of conveying emotion, somehow he's able to be entirely unsubtle and completely believable simultaneously. I love this, the crowd loves this. The first fall ends pretty quickly with a big leg drop. Second fall spills to the outside, mostly just an extension of the same beat down. Nikozuna sends Perro into the ringpost and the cameraman makes sure to get a big dirty closeup of Perro blading himself. Oops. Nikozuna is choking Perro with an electrical cord and the fans are throwing garbage at him. At one point a bloody Perro is sent into the guard rail and goes over into the crowd. Children are distraught, women are shrieking. This crowd rules. The ref jumps in to try and stop a murder gets shoved away for his trouble. Segunda Caida ends in a DQ. Perro Aguayo takes it. The third fall is over pretty quickly. Nikozuna introduces a chair, there is a struggle over it and Perro Aquayo manages to hit Nikozuna with one of the safest looking chair shots I've ever seen. Nikozuna's head is TOO HARD for mortal chairs, and he manages to regain control and drop the big leg once more, but instead of going for the pin off of the same move that gave him the first fall, he decides to go up to the top rope to do...something. A desperate Perro manages to find the last reserve of energy given to him BY THE PEOPLE. He's not going to let them down. He manages to get up to shake the ropes, Nikozuna gets crotched. One more chair shot for good measure and the monster goes down. Perro Aguayo goes up to the top and hits La Lanza. 1-2-3! The crowd goes nuts. Post match was a bit deflating after such a fun match. A Guy In Jorts comes out to attack Perro Aguayo after the bell, and then Konnan, Heavy Metal, and Latin Lover come out for the save. Obviously the better ending would have been a triumphant Perro Aguayo celebrating in the ring while Nikozuna gets his head shaved, but here we are. This match was wonderful. The actual layout was a pretty by-the-books apuestas match: Heel takes the first fall easily, loses the second fall by taking things too far, then is hoisted by his own petard in the third. But that's ok. That rules. Formulas exist because they work, and I will watch Perro Aquayo sell for 20 minutes straight any day. My favorite wrestling matches are the ones with a very clear and very strong face/heel dynamic and this was perfect. Bonus Content: Whoever uploaded this match didn't clip the commercials so please enjoy this gif I made of mid-90s Mexican stage actors being less capable of conveying true human emotion than Perro Aguayo

Also wrestling and porn tend to be early adopters of whatever the new media is (VHS, Digital Media, Streaming etc)

He would alternate between whispering sweet nothings in his Sid voice and yelling at the top of his lungs and the whole ordeal would be confusing, terrifying, and arousing

For @John E. Dynamite Happy Secret Santo! Please enjoy Takako Inoue vs Dynamite Kansai from 1995. I picked this mostly because I know you like 90s Joshi and I think Takako Inoue is really underrated, largely because her generation of wrestlers is a GOAT herd.

I voted for Konosuke Takeshita vs Jon Moxley. Mostly because after Takeshita did that sick looking Frankensteiner followed up by the old Samoa Joe running boot to a seated Jon Moxley outside I yelled "SAMOE JOE!" at my TV in a Scott Steiner voice. No other wrestling match was good enough this week to make me do an involuntary Scott Steiner impression.

I've wanted to do one of these for a while. I'm in. I'll watch anything you put in front of me, but I'm especially interested in watching good Joshi and good Lucha.

Tony "Integrity" Schiavone knew Regal was going to turn on Mox and didn't say shit.

Yes, Regal mentioned he would be on the show last week during that segment with Bryan/Mox and also it got announced on all their social media

Bret also tells a story about this in his book where he visits a Soapland on a Japanese tour

I love the idea of a Reverse My Fair Lady where Knobbs and Saggs take Regal in and attempt to turn him into the Nastiest Boy. Instead of "The Rain in Spain" the big setpiece is Regal singing:

Happy Eddie Kingston vs Jun Akiyama day! Wishing a very King's Road to those who celebrate.

Voted for Penta vs Villano IV. Lucha bloodbaths are entirely my jam. Emotional matches with huge stakes are also my jam.

Vladimir the Superfan?! ?

Wasn't Nick Hausman the guy who Punk flipped out on initially during the Gripebomb? Not casting any aspersions, I just find this to be a funny coincidence

Except Hangman. He's a sweetheart