Kevin Wilson

They clearly didn't make enough of those figures. There are none on Ebay, but one did sell last month loose for $20 so I guess they appear on there occasionally.

Yea that was my main thought. I mean last I heard Funaki still lives in the US. At the time it looked like he was just doing an excursion, who knew it was a permanent residency.

Well I doubt he is making six figures, the downside a few years ago was 75K and its not like he is getting PPV or merchandise bonuses. And I am not sure if NXT wrestlers even get that. Plus that doesn't include cost for hotels and what not (not that he travels much anyway). And I am assuming he didn't sign a six year contract, so New Japan has had time to be like "Hey! When your contract expires! Come back! We miss you!" I do agree he'd be in demand at least upon return to Japan which makes it seem stranger to me. I can understand the WWE dream but you'd think after six years of going nowhere that would satisfy the dream Someone should do an interview with him and ask... Ditch? Alan? Use some puroresu interview connections.

I just realized that Naofumi Yamamoto has been signed with WWE for over six years. Six! And I don't think he has won a single meaningful match on National TV. I guess he is never going back to New Japan? It is odd that WWE would keep him signed for so long (he is 36) but clearly has no plans to use him for anything. Somewhat surprised he stayed so long since he can't be making more than the minimum contract, did New Japan never try to get him back? The whole situation is unusual, I think he has had the longest run of any Japanese wrestler in WWE History but most fans have no idea who he is.

Isn't one point of the network to discourage people from doing this? I doubt it. The network just makes it a whole lot easier to find the event you want, more convenient, and ensures the best picture quality. I mean you think people will suddenly stop uploading matches to DailyMotion and Youtube because there is an official network? You can right now find most of Over the Edge on DailyMotion and/or Youtube. And I don't personally care if they have the PPV, I just don't blame them at all if they don't and it in no way impacts my interest (or anyone else's interest I imagine) in the Network. So why open a can of worms that doesn't impact the bottom line. I mean the Benoit RAW won't be on there either I'm willing to bet, disclaimer or not.

Yea I watched Over the Edge live at the time and I really have no desire to see it again. I had no desire to keep watching it at the time, we were surprised they continued the event, and you could tell it impacted the wrestlers (especially Jarrett and Debra). I mean the ring was still damaged from where he landed so the wrestlers couldn't even wrestle in one corner so obviously they had to keep thinking about it throughout the match. I'm in general not a fan of skipping over history and I am glad they aren't cutting out Benoit since he was on so many events, but I'd understand if they skipped Over the Edge. Anyone that really wants to see it can find it online somewhere.

Kane and RVD were both very over at the time, and somehow, completely accidentally I am sure, you left off Booker T. I mean when the HHH-marks can actually present a straight argument about that period, I might actually buy into it. But they never can. (youtube video) 23 seconds to make the cover after hitting the finishing move, that has to be a record, right? They should have just done a kick out, another pedigree, ending at that point.

VOTING: Rush vs. Nakamura, January 18th - YES Rush & Naito vs. Rey Escoprion & Ishii, January 19th - NO Rush/Nakamura was a borderline yes, I was on the fence about it but I watched it again since bucky nominated it and it is definitely worth a watch. The tag match didn't do much for me, I thought it was above average but nothing great. Rush was a beast though.

How can DG have had like four shows air and Alan hasn't nominated a single match from any of them? I am losing my faith in humanity.

I'm not cuz uh I don't want to. Ditch is around but not as around so I dunno if he lost interest or his personal life is time consuming. Maybe Jae will do it, he has been spunky lately To me since we lost like 8 months of 2013 without proper pimping I am just afraid that the turnout wouldn't be good. Even in the "good old days" he generally got around or less than 20 ballots, with the lack of Yes/No and what not it would probably be sub-10 which is a lot of work for little participation. I am hoping between this thread and the Yes/No being up from the start, that 2014 will be more active and the end of year results will have more participation in it.

So this may just be a general question with a variety of opinions, but what have been the biggest mask vs. mask matches from the last few years? I don't watch a lot of lucha libre, but the mask vs. mask matches always fascinated me. The culture surrounding the masks and what they mean to the wrestlers/the fans has always been the most intriguing aspect of lucha libre and I always enjoyed the whole "so and so won't ever drop his mask" and "so and so will only drop it for 1 billion dollars" etc. talk. I just noticed that Felino lost his mask, he is a wrestler I recognize from the old days - was him losing his mask a big deal or was he too "past his prime" at the time for it to make a big impact? Any talk still of the original Parka or Dr. Wagner Jr. ever losing their masks? I thought I had read years ago they were on the list of wrestlers that would only do it for an ungodly sum of money, no idea if that is true now or was ever true. So I guess any information of the last few meaningful mask vs. mask matches, or if there are any feuds leading into that this year or next, I would be interested in hearing about.

Wait, how do you tell them apart? Good point, normally what I do with them is I see which one got the pin and then work backwards when I am doing the play by play, or I pay really really good attention during the introductions/the announcers and see if I can see which one they are calling. But in this case the video quality was poor enough that there wasn't really a reason for me to attempt any of my usual methods

Big Japan on 1/2/14 Takayuki Ueki vs. Yuichi Taniguchi A really simple match but it still had its issues. Ueki’s strikes didn’t look like they hurt at all but Taniguchi still stood there and took two long developing strikes anyway. I kept expecting him to move if nothing else to teach Ueki to make his offense look stronger. The ending was expected but Ueki still has some work to do just judging from this one match. Score: 3.5 Jake Crist and Dave Crist vs. Kankuro Hoshino and Masato Inaba This match was really fun, but it worries me when four minutes of a nine minute match is taken out in a sneaky manner. What was the other half of the match like? But the part that they showed was quite entertaining, I had never seen the Crist brothers (aka Irish Airborne) before but they have some unique moves and added a layer of unknown to the match for me as I never knew what was coming next. For a clipped undercard match, no complaints at all, and it piqued my interest to see if there is a reason the match was clipped or if this is a tag team I should be more aware of. Score: 6.5 Brahman Shu, Brahman Kei, and Shinobu vs. Madoka, Tsutomu Oosugi , and Hercules Senga With this low quality video I couldn’t tell the Brahmans apart, luckily they did everything together so it didn’t actively matter. This kind of match always leaves me annoyed more than anything else, as some of the wrestlers in it are quite skilled but this type of match doesn’t really give them a chance to show it. It is more just goofy nonsense, which is fine but I just know they are capable of more. Plus let’s face it, the Brahmans are pretty useless. But using Senga’s head as a bowling ball was cute and there certainly were no boring parts, so it wasn’t a complete wash. Score: 4.5 MASADA and Masaya Takahashi vs. Saburo Inematsu and Mototsugu Shimizu Well besides the ending being a bit unnecessary (stabbing someone in the face seems a bit harsh for a clipped mid-card match), at least the brainbuster made sense as a finisher since he had sticks jabbing out of his head. Not all of this was shown which is surprising since it was only an eight minute match in the first place. Pretty basic brawling with nothing to set it apart, at least not in a positive way anyway. Score: 4.0 Kazuki Hashimoto vs. Koji Kanemoto What an odd little match. The first large chunk of the match was really good but the random trading Ankle Holds at the end was bizarre. They had done no real leg work leading up to that point and were mostly just doing strikes and kicks. Then suddenly they decided to trade Ankle Holds until Kanemoto won. I liked that Kanemoto gave Hashimoto an equal amount of offense and Hashimoto did a good job portraying the underdog trying to overthrow the veteran, I just wasn’t a big fan of the ending. Score: 6.0 Jun Kasai, Jaki Numazawa, and Masashi Takeda vs. Yuko Miyamoto, Ryuji Ito, and Danny Havoc The corner mouse traps to me are a bit overly contrived, which Big Japan enjoys doing, as I don’t think it would hurt any worse than just being thrown into a bundle of light tubes. Anyway for this type of brawl it was fine, but the match was too short and had too many people to really get into a groove. It was mostly just a few minutes of brawling, wrestlers hit their finishing moves, and one team wins. Nothing terrible, just an average match. Score: 5.0 Shinya Ishikawa and Ryuichi Kawakami vs. Shuji Ishikawa and Yuji Okabayashi It felt like this match ended too soon. They were still going neck and neck, trading holds, and suddenly Okabayashi wins out of nowhere with a lariat. And it is not like the lariat is his death move as he had already hit others in the match, this match just seemed more to fuel the Kawakami vs. Shuji feud than anything else (they brawled after the match ended). But the match was still good, there were some solid strike exchanges and “big man” action. It just felt like it wasn’t ready to be over yet before it was over. Score: 6.5 © Isami Kodaka vs. Takumi Tsukamoto This match is for the Big Japan Death Match Heavyweight Championship I gotta be honest, I am just kind of over the light tubes. I understand why they use them, it adds some intrigue but do minimal actual damage to the body (obviously they get cut up from rolling around the ring in them but they tend to be superficial cuts, not gushers). But I have seen them so many times that it has lost any type of ‘wow’ factor. On the plus side, they didn’t spent a lot of time setting up these big moves which happens sometimes and they kept a decent pace throughout the match. The dueling body slams was odd but I guess that is the hardcore version of running off the ropes and trying to knock your opponent over. It wasn’t bad, I just was waiting for most the match for the bigger spots such as the ones using the ladder that to me were more exciting, such as the diving double knee drop. I know the light tubes aren’t going anywhere, I just like a little variety in my death matches. Score: 6.0 Overall: Almost all of the matches were at least clipped a little bit, which as you probably know I am not a big fan of. I think that is one reason none of the matches really went over the line of “really good”, some of them just felt incomplete and I could tell that I was missing something. The main event was perfectly fine but aside from a few spots it was just your average light tube death match. An above average experience overall since there was a good variety of action here, but no match made this event something that is a “must see.”

I have been combining my multiple disk DVD sets to Blu-Ray for years, to me it is quite affordable but of course I use a computer. But you can get a Blu-Ray Burner on the PC for $80, and a 50 disk spindle of BD-R disks for $25. I think that optical media will still have its place for years, although Bill Gates will probably eventually get his wish and everything will be shared in a cloud or something.

I don't generally mark out for moves, but when I do, it is springboard shooting star presses to the floor. The wrestlers having to take their eyes off the ground/the opponent while trying to do an accurate backwards flip generally makes them miss their mark, as Mistico shows since he over-shoots his opponent and the mats and lands chest/face first on the floor. Eh, he was fine. Absolutely no idea how, but he was fine.

Hooray Andre Reed. I guess that will be the last Buffalo Bills player to get in for at least... 20 more years (I am a Bills fan, I am allowed to make fun of them).

Where is Stu when you need him, and new site doesn't go back that far. I am tapping my memory as that was the year I started following puroresu. I am 95% sure it was just Inoki being shoot-stylely, he was really trying to blur the lines still around that time period, I don't think there was anything deeper to it.

YES on Kotaro Suzuki & Atsushi Aoki vs. Shigehiro Irie & Keisuke Ishii, January 3rd. Like Brisco, I went back and forth on this one. The ending did take the match down a bit for me. I understand that there are times that a draw makes sense, but an opener with wrestlers that getting pinned won't hurt isn't one of those times. I prefer matches to have an ending that fits with the feud and since there was really no long term feud here I don't think a draw was very satisfying. That being said, I thought the match was the best I have seen on the two All Japan events that took place. it was an exciting fast paced match that gave all four wrestlers a chance to shine, and got the crowd into it (as much as that crowd was getting into anything). I'd much rather see four young wrestlers go all out during an opener, then watch a bunch of old timers/rookies just go through the motions. So I definitely think it is worth a watch.

Yea but he had no one to catch him Normally when they do top rope moves at least something/someone is down there to help break their fall.

YOSHIHIKO with an Avalanche Reverse Hurricanrana to the floor:

Do you think that New Japan cringes every time Ibushi takes some crazy move in DDT, like a Reverse Hurricanrana from the top turnbuckle to the floor?

Yea, Community/Parks & Rec had double the viewers even though the 'rating' is the same. I mean for Thursday night Impact was ranked well out of the Top 50 against other cable shows. But it was the highest rated Spike show. Will be interesting to see if that was just a "Sting wrestling for the last time on TV" bump or if they can sustain it.

Hooray, people are joining me. That makes me a happy panda. All Japan "New Year Wars 2014" on 1/3/14 Kotaro Suzuki and Atsushi Aoki vs. Shigehiro Irie and Keisuke Ishii I honestly think that if this match had bigger name wrestlers on it and had a real ending, it would be thought of as one of the better matches so far this year. I loved the stories they were telling and that it felt right up to the very end that it was anyone’s game. The DDT wrestlers were very well respected and everyone was made to look strong which is what wrestling should be all about. I do wish that it had an ending though, I don’t think in this case a Draw was necessary as any of these wrestlers could be pinned if the circumstances were right. It doesn’t look like it was building to anything to not have a winner. But really this was a great match, no wasted time and just good action from start to finish. Score: 7.5 Jon Bolen vs. Tyson Dux I guess this match came about because they eliminated each other the night before from the battle royal. But I am not really sure what purpose the match served… it was short but still had rest holds and down-time, it was won by sneaky means so I don’t know if they settled their beef (they teamed together on the next show), and it just came across as filler. If it was a sprint or a game of “one-upmanship” between two friends I could see it working, but it just fell in some grey middle ground and I never really saw what they were going for here. Score: 3.5 KENSO and Mitsuya Nagai vs. Osamu Nishimura and Ryuji Hijikata That ended quickly. Hijikata was doing ok then it just takes being chocked by a feathery belt and a running kick to the face and he is done. Almost felt like they got the ‘go home’ signal with how quickly it ended. Anyway up to that point the match was fine but it never felt like it got fully going. Nishimura didn’t do much of anything in this match as Hijikata was in the ring the bulk of the time, and the offense to Hijikata wasn’t terrible but it wasn’t overly inspired either. I know that Nagai can bring the hurt but his offense stayed pretty basic here. I wasn’t expecting much and I didn’t get much, so I guess I can’t complain too much. Score: 4.0 Go Shiozaki and Kento Miyahara vs. Ultimo Dragon and Hikaru Sato If this was WWE I would think that Shiozaki was in the doghouse for something, as both cards I have watched so far he was about as far from the main event scene as I am. This wasn’t bad but was really disjointed in parts, and it seemed almost like there was too much back and forth when on paper the teams seemed lopsided. I did like that Ultimo Dragon managed at the end to come back to save Sato a few times but ultimately just couldn’t keep escaping Miyahara to break up pinfalls. The match just lacked suspense and they didn’t really have any real structure. Good wrestlers all around, but an average match at best. Score: 5.0 © SUSHI vs. Takao Soma This match is for the GAORA TV Championship No idea what I just watched. I was finally excited to get back to a singles match and I got… this. It was pretty much bad from start to finish. The brawling through the crowd was drawn out and silly since Soma kept using this big metal tub that must have some significance that I don’t know about. Soma dominated the match but not with real moves, but with roll-ups and things like that. Then SUSHI after getting dominated at the end, suddenly picks up the win after two moves. Don’t get me wrong, Soma was never a credible challenger, but it just made the rest of the match meaningless as Soma really wasn’t weakened up at all. Just not a good match on any level. Score: 2.5 Jun Akiyama, Kanemaru, and Masao Inoue vs. Suwama, Taiyo Kea, and Masanobu Fuchi When I saw this match went 26 minutes I groaned. This match was to celebrate Fuchi’s 60th birthday, by the way, which is why he was prominently displayed in the match. This is very good to see, as anytime a wrestler is still healthy enough to still be wrestling at his age it is quite an accomplishment and I tip my hat to him. Anyway the match was what it was, it certainly dragged in parts but I will say that Fuchi certainly did his part. He took a lot of moves and gave a lot of moves as well, so he was not slacking off in his birthday match. Akiyama and Suwama being in the match seemed off, you’d think this would be left to the mid-carders and they could have been in a more important match. But it was not as bad as I thought, even though it seemed weak for a semi-main event on show with a Triple Crown match. Score: 5.5 © Akebono vs. Takao Omori This match is for the Triple Crown Championship This was a pretty sad affair. Akebono should not be any promotion's champion. He has a use, but he needs to be protected in tag matches and not expected to put on long-ish singles matches. First of all, his physical condition is not good. He gets up the same way that Vader did in his last RAW match… meaning he has to kinda straighten his legs and then push up with his hands. Mind you Vader is 58 and has had 45 surgeries. Point being, Akebono at his age, weight, and with his injuries just doesn’t have the ability to really put on good matches. He has some high impact moves, but he only has about five of them so he does the same moves repeatedly in the match. I will say that they tried, but some of the spots just looked silly (like Akebono getting Omori by the throat while he was seated and Omori was going for an Axe Bomber) or contrived. Just a disappointing match, and the size of the crowd (smallest ever for a Triple Crown match) shows I am not the only one that was disappointed. I could go on, but just… not good, even though I do appreciate the effort and Akebono had a strong decisive win which I always appreciate. Score: 3.5 Overall: It is a sad day when the card opens with the best match and the rest of the card just does downhill. I only thought two of these matches were above average and some of them were really really bad. The special Fuchi match had good intentions but it just went on for too long, and the main event was almost hard to watch due to Akebono’s limitations. 2014 may be a make or break year for All Japan in terms of match quality, as if by the end of the year the young wrestlers aren’t given more of a chance I fear their attendances will continue to shrink. Really no need to track down this event as even though the opener is great, it isn’t nearly special enough to justify watching this card.

I don't see the problem.

I am going to be a ShopTNA shill for a moment, I apologize in advance, but I call it like I see it and I think for fans that don't already have TNA's stuff the "Brown Bags" are a great place to start. These Brown Bag deals are a steal. So when I did mine, I purchased two since my brother has a birthday coming up and like me he watches wrestling but doesn't own any TNA stuff. Even though it is random, I know if you request wrestlers they will try to fit your request if they have the inventory. I requested a mixture of mine and his favorite wrestlers to see how I would do so I asked for Sting, Hogan, Styles, Abyss, and Bad Influence (I figured asking for wrestlers leaving the promotion was a good tactic). Well I think I came out really well. I paid a total of 45 dollars (free shipping) for the following: Hulk Hogan "Skull" T-Shirt (selling for $25) Sting "UK" Shirt (selling for $20) - ok I am not from the UK so wouldn't have been my choice of Sting shirt, but they got the right wrestler anyway Sting Banner (selling for $10) AJ Styles Banner (selling for $10) Shark Boy Action Figure (selling for $9) Jay Lethal Action Figure (selling for $9) Phenomenal: The Best of AJ Styles Vol. 2 DVD (selling for $18) Cross the Line Triple Pack (Turning Point 2009, Final Destination 2009, and Against the Odds 2009) (selling for $15) Mick Foley: Hardcore Legend (can't find on website, on Amazon new for ~$15) Sacrifice 2010 DVD (selling for $10) Bound for Glory 2010 2 DVD Set (selling for $12) No Surrender 2005 (selling for $10) Slammiversary 2005 (selling for $12) Hard Justice 2005 (selling for $10) So that is $185 if purchased new from the website. The Hogan shirt is my favorite one of his from TNA and is one I may actually wear in public. Now from the wrestlers I requested, they either intentionally or on accident got it right with both T-Shirts, both banners, and one compilation DVD. I am actually particularly impressed with the AJ Styles DVD as it sells for more than the rest and has some fantastic matches on it. I love Foley, so that is just an extra bonus. Plus the triple pack counted as 'one' DVD. I am assuming the only figures they are giving away are the shitty ones, but nothing else felt like 'clearance from wrestlers no one cared about'. But for someone that had zero DVDs and thus couldn't get duplicates, it really is a great deal I think. I could never order it again because I'd probably get over 50% of the same stuff, but for a one time purchase I'm happy, I just have to decide which half to give my brother.... Also, no gum.