Phil Schneider

There are so many people in Beijing though, I would think it a city that big they can find 5,000 people who want to watch some wrestling.

EVOLVE is doing a tour of China of all places in November November 10th - Yicheng City, Hebei Province - Golden Sport Hall November 12th - Emei City, Sichuan Province - Emei Sport Hall November 14th - Chengdu City, Sichuan Province - Wen Jiang Sport Center November 16th - Beijing - Wan Shi Da Stadium We are excited to unveil the talent roster. Signed for all four events are: -DGUSA Open The Freedom Gate Champion Ricochet -The Premier Athlete Brand of FIP World Heavyweight Champion Trent Baretta and half of the DGUSA Open The United Gate Champions Caleb Konley with Su Yung -SHINE Champion Ivelisse -Johnny Gargano -Rich Swann -AR Fox -Timothy Thatcher -Biff Busick -Harlem & Lancelot Bravado -The Colony of Fire Ant & Silver Ant -Chuck Taylor -Mia Yim -Allysin Kay -Earl Cooter -Jody Kristofferson -Plus Live Event Hostess Lacey, Larry Dallas, referee Jamie Tucker and referee Jon Barber That Beijing stadium holds 20,000 people. It will be interesting to see how they do. Pretty ballsy move for an indy the size of EVOLVE

The heel dream team of Tommy Rich/Doug Gilbet/Tracy Smothers v. WARTastic team of Bobby Blaze/Ricky Morton/Sabu

Figured this fed should have a thread as well. A lot of really good matches this year, and some really good stuff over its history.

Here is my review of Americanrana 14. Didn't love it, although fans of ROH style and Young Bucks style matches might like the main events more then I did Segunda Caida

Here is my favorite Beyond Match of the Year, and one of the better matches in the world this year Biff Busick v. Timothy Thatcher Beyond Wrestling "Secret Show" 4/13 These are two of the three (along with Drew Gulak) of the most exciting new group of guys in Indy wrestling. They are working Euro style matches, although Euro style that owes more to Billy Robinson and Terry Rudge then Johnny Saint and Mark Rocco. Tight agressive mat wrestling and nasty uppercuts and punches. Nothing fancy just hard hitting and rough. The big highspot was an uppercut that knocked Busick into the wall, and came off as a bigger deal then any of the crazy shit in earlier matches. I loved Busick finish here too, great sensible counter to lock in the choke nastier and looked really tight, I bought Thatcher going out. I could watch these guys work each other a ton of times.

Since we have threads for ROH and TNA I figured I would start a thread for one of the more fun indies around. A little hit or miss for sure, but overall usually worth watching.

We are going to live blog this over at Segunda Caida Check it out

I didn't like the hair match as much as you did Kris, felt like too much of a spotfest for a wager match, although Cavernario did rule. Tag match was great and that main event was a classic

To a Live Bog over at Segunda Caida CMLL Live Blog

I review Thesz v. Rogers 6/21/50 over at Segunda Caida Monday Night Digging in the Crates

I thought Cholak v Wright stunk. Wright v johnny valentine was great and Cholak v Larry Chene is a classic, but this was bad punches and some shoulder blocks and it went 3 minutes

Crazy goldmine of 50s wrestling in amazing VQ has been uploaded by the Chicago film archives over the last couple of days https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWXxP_rvXryBPpjIw7Dl9Tg I figure we could have a thread where folks dig into it and find the hidden gems

Is this match from 2014? Kana/Kurihara v. Satomua/Hamada

Looks like Time Magazine agrees that Phil's article rules! Time.com's best ideas of the day

I just published my first article in the new Aspen Institute Journal of Ideas Teen Mom Effect

We wrote that up for Segunda Caida too Jerry Lawler vs. Curt Hennig, 3PW 10/19/02 - GREAT ER: This was right after Curt's improbable WWE run where he was having good matches with Tommy Dreamer and RVD. Here he's awesome as the bloated, smug, super tan heel. Hennig can still bump and Lawler is really great at working in and around guys' signature offense/bumps, and here he finds smart ways to let Curt work them all in. He does the cool Goldust off-the-ropes uppercut to let Hennig do a flip bump, throws a big haymaker in the corner so Curt can take an awesome mammoth bump over the top onto a table, and starts working over Curt's knee at some point so it made sense later on when he kicked out Curt's leg and he did his rope flip onto his head. They both kinda play up and subtly mirror the strengths of the other, with Lawler matching Hennig with some big bumps (Lawler is always a big bumper but here he seems to ramp up some height on things like backdrops) and Hennig tightens up his strikes a lot (which you really should do when working opposite Lawler's punches) and even breaks out a Lawler style piledriver (showing how awesome Lawler can make a piledriver look when on the receiving end, too). Curt threw some bombs in the corner that made me cringe, and the punches were really put over by some great Lawler facials. Sadly this made me notice that since the eye job this hasn't been as effective a part of Lawler matches. Here his eyes told a big story while taking those shots as he still had warmth in them. Now his face is kinda stuck in some sort of permanent lustful perv shock. I thought this was a great match, although odd seeing them in the ECW Arena on a Rocco Rock tribute card. I assume this was the last really good Hennig match, since I don't remember anything he did in TNA. PAS: This was a pleasant surprise. I wasn't expecting much from late era Hennig, but he was good to great in this match. All of the things I didn't like in his WWE run were downplayed or absent. There were a couple of flippy bumps but they were in the flow of the match, and he flashed back and started throwing 1988 AWA Punches. Lawler was really great as usual, and I am giving most of the credit for Perfect's performance to him. Finish was pretty bad though as it is really hard to get the vociferous audience response needed to pull off a ref reversal from a post-ECW Philly indy audience. Also the Lawler stunner is such a bush league spot, save that shit for hacks like Al Snow.

Suzuki and Shamrock and Shamrock and Sano are both classics Wayne Shamrock vs. Naoki Sano (5/19/91) (26:40) PAS: I was pretty much in shock during this match, I couldn't believe what I was watching. I have never particularly cared for a thing Ken Shamrock has ever done, so I expected nothing out of this match, and it turned out to be as good as anything on the 80's Other Japan set. So much to love about this match, as they pretty much went back and forth from spectacular mat exchanges into awesome slugfest strike exchanges, great takedowns, into more spectacular mat exchanges.__The pacing of this was great, I especially loved how they paced their mat highspots. One guy would get in position and struggle a bit, and their would be a lull, and then super fast move into a choke or a kneebar. The crowd would pop huge for all of the mat spots, and it was the pacing of them which would really do it. Then after the mat near falls they would stand and just lay into each other with big shots, Shamrock's strikes looked way better here then in the previous match, and Sano was drilling him too. This was before Sano went to UWFI so I would guess this was his first shootstyle match ever, and he was a master of it. This was Sano's match, and while Shamrock was game, you could tell Sano was leading him. I also loved how Sano mixed in pro moves, as I actually bought an STF as a shoot submission, and a DDT as a shoot throw. I have never heard anyone even mention this match before and it is a total hidden classic. Wayne Shamrock vs. Masakatsu Funaki (8/23/91) (24:29) PAS: So I am going to go on record. Ken Shamrock used to rule at the pro-wrestling. I imagine if he ended up going to New Japan instead of WWF he would have had some great matches and we would all be Shamrock fans. This wasn't as good as the transcendent Shamrock v. Sano match, but it was pretty great. Both guys were clearly great athletes, and work a really fast style. I get the same vibe from this as I got from the Takada v. Yamazaki series although I like this match up more. Not a ton of selling, alot of moves, ext. Still for workrate shootstyle this was great workrate shootstyle. Great ending, with Shamrock and Funaki exchanging really fast strikes, Funaki goes for a German, ends up eating some nasty back elbows and Shamrock does a standing switch and crushes him with a dragon suplex for the KO. I was worried this was going to another 30 minute draw, and was really happy to see a winner.

Ian Rotten is better at wrestling then anyone who is going to be on this show unless they bring Dick Togo back

Cassandro got a big profile in the New Yorker this week Cassandro the Man without a mask Cassandro is the master of press, this has to be the fourth or fifth mainstream magazine or newspaper profile I have read of him

Pretty good Ronda article in this weeks New Yorker

Cool thanks for watching the Puro so I don't have to, I apricatiate you taking the hit

Hechichiro vs. any of those guys will be great, I just hope the match gets some time

They had better resign Diaw though, he has been carving the Heat up

There was a lucha show/concert at the outdoor area near the ballpark around May 5th. Got a pretty good crowd