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1001 MATCHES: Akira Taue

(by PHIL RIPPA) Akira Taue is clearly the most underappreciated of the All Japan Big 4. Heck – the Big 5 if you expanded to include Jun Akiyama. Lord – it would take awhile before you went through the 90s AJ roster before you found someone that Taue was overappreciated (yes – I am making […]

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1001 MATCHES: ROOKIE OF THE YEAR

(by PHIL RIPPA) Settle in for another round of crazy Rippa methodology. All the matches feature someone who was named Rookie of the Year by either the Wrestling Observer Newsletter or Pro Wrestling Illustrated. I used both just to provide some variety in the names. The WON provided more international names. PWI brought the wackadoo. […]

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DEATH VALLEY DRIVER VIDEO REVIEW – ISSUE #20(a)

SHIMODA! Minami Toyota! LIGER! Takada! Hase! and other stuff I saw this week! Howdy! Welcome to DEATH VALLEY DRIVER VIDEO REVIEW #20! It’s the holidays and I’ve not had a lot of time to gander at a batch of wrestling and, to top it off, I’ve been making a lot of tapes to send fellow […]

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MATCHES THAT TICKLED MY FANCY: February 2018

(by PHIL RIPPA) Between it being the shortest month, being behind on NXT and 205 Live and watching more crappy wrestling in a month than I really want, this is a smaller slate of matches. Of course – if I am honest, most months will look closer to this as (hopefully) more people pay for […]

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DEATH VALLEY DRIVER VIDEO REVIEW – ISSUE #181

DUSTIN RHODES! and VADER! are really great at this wrestling thing! More DEAN~! from the RSPW~! archives! BAM BAM BIGELOW~! gets an extra M~! in his name! KONNAN~! loses an N~! DAISUKE SEKIMOTO~! wrestles in a weird place! And I~! don’t mean JAPAN~! YUJI NAGATA~! MARTIN STONE~! BRAZOS~! DERANGED~! THE DEATH OF WCW~! WELCOME TO […]

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1001 MATCHES: A to Z

(by PHIL RIPPA) A straight forward theme this time which I, of course, made way more difficult for myself. A 501) ARN ANDERSON vs. THE GREAT MUTA – NWA POWER HOUR – (01/02/90 – NWA TV Title) Arn beats Muta in a match as good as you would hope it would be when seeing the […]

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1001 MATCHES: Big One (2000s)

(by PHIL RIPPA) Third part of THE BIG ONE~! All matches took place between 2000-2009 446) CHRISTOPHER DANIELS vs. MIKE MODEST – APW (01/22/00) Mike Modest and Christopher Daniels had two awesome matches that helped people discover the Cali indie wrestling scene. One was 1999 and one was 2000. I am going to be totally […]

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1001 MATCHES: TNA

(by PHIL RIPPA) This project’s jumping off point was the DVD #100 and that occurred well before TNA started as a promotion so I decided to go back and pick some highs and lows from the nearly… good Lord… 15 years they have been around (I would love to do this for some other promotions […]