I didn't see a topic so I thought I would make it.

Watched Nigel/Danieson and Danielson/Strong from ROH's tour in England. Both are good in there own right. Nigel brings his A game and Danielson just heels it up. The Brits take the bait.

Also watched Mascara Sagrada Jr. and La Parkita vs Especrito and Mini Karis from 1996. This is part of the DVDVR Mini tourney. Good stuff featuring the future best Mini Luchador in the world(Mini Karis= Mini Abismo Negro) and the Mini superstar of the time(Mascarita Sagrada Jr.) Everyone should download it at the Lucha Fourm at DVDVR.

Hey pal, who died and left you mod of the general wrestling folder. I run this joint with an iron fist.

Just kidding, of course. Thanks for taking up my slack.

I watched Punk / Joe II last night. I've watched it all a few times before, but I was gonna watch the whole show last night. I just couldn't do it. I love particular ROH matches, but the entire shows kill me for some reason. I'm not even sure why.

Joe vs. Punk II has one of the worst undercards of any ROH show. I can't even think of a worse one off the top of my head, though I'm sure one exists.

I've been toying with the idea this show being the one I review if I do an ROH show, just because I think I'm more entertaining when I'm tearing a show a new one.

ECW Extreme Evolution, specifically Lynn vs. RVD from Hardcore Heaven '99

Hell, outside of Joe/Punk II I think the only match on the shot that's worth a shit would be Shelley/Jacobs. At least I THINK that's the match.....it's right before Joe/Punk on the show, right?

Yeah, Shelley/Jacobs is on that show and it is a pretty good match, but not overly wonderful.

Been watching a lot of matches this weekend.

I watched Strong/Aries vs Doi/Yoshino from Dragon Gate. It was pretty good with Aries/Strong playing the babyfaces. They just about killed Yoshino with a top rope powerbomb type move.

Also watched Low Ki vs 2 Cold Scropio from IWA Mid-south. Holy crap was this match awesome. Scropio brought his A game and Low Ki did the same. It seems Scropio learned a lot from NOAH and I wish him well in the WWE. Seeing Low ki like this makes me hate TNA's booking even more. Low Ki was treated like a star.

Ki/Scropio was good but Arik Cannon vs Low Ki vs Rodrick Strong from the finals of the TPI was better. I mean that match was awesome. It was my first time seeing Arik Cannon and I was impressed. This was as stiff as a Kawada/Misawa match. Rodrick hurt himself and had to be pinned after the injury. I suggest it to everybody.

Final match I remember seeing was Kobayashi vs. Sasaki from Big Japan. It was a Lighttube and nail deathmatch. Usually I hate these types of matches but this was great. Some Very sick bumps by both men on the nails which were tiny and glued to little circle boards. This was probably one of the best deathmatches I've seen. The American's could learn something from these two.

Been watching alot lately.

1.) Watched Angle / Joe II. Loved it. I honestly don't know how a wrestling fan wouldn't like this match. Kurt Angle does a plancha? Yep. Joe completely ate it too. awesome match by both guys. Brutally stiff at times. Lots of realism.

2.) Got two new Highspots comps, and let me say, Highspots has taken the comp to a whole new artform. Professionally packaged, nice slick production. It's like watching watching a WWE released disc...only the speaking is Japanese.

a.) 3-disc Hayabusa Comp - Awesome stuff. You can say what you want about Hayabusa, but he sold the character well, had exciting matches, and was a key player in highly emotional angles. The entire 2nd disc chronicles his FMW feud with Mr. Ganosuke. One of the best done feuds ever.

b.) 2-disc Eddy Guerrero in Japan comp - All Black Tiger matches except one. Lots of great matches with Lyger, Benoit, Malenko, and many others. Eddy was one of my favorite wrestlers ever, but I had only seen a few of his Black Tiger matches. While he certainly got better later in his careeer, these matches stand fine on their own.

I would agree with that for the most part. Too bad FMW thought it was a good idea to start doing overbooked exploding death match bullshit throughout their entire cards. It fucked their company and almost killed the majority of the talent. If they were smart, that company would still be running today.

FMW was the first Japanese wrestling I ever saw. My old roommate would buy them when he worked at FYE, and we'd spend a whole night in awe of "Anal Explosion" and any other crazy Idea they came up with

FMW was the first Japanese wrestling I saw too. A had a friend buy the Hayabusa dvd from FYE and he let me borrow it. It was good stuff.

I agree about that Joe/Angle II match. It indeed rocked. Right now the cool thing amongst smarks is to hate everything TNA related, so the match has been crapped on despite being wonderful.

The funny thing is, I like TNA's wrestling. But the only thing keeping me from REALLY enjoying it is that I can't turn the commentary down. If I could be there live, I would probably piss myself in happiness

Then you wouldn't be able to mute the dumbass crowd down there.

The first Japanese wrestling I ever saw was IWA Japan shit with Cactus Jack vs. Funk in the exploding ring match. I was fucking shocked at the shit they did over there. From there I had the opportunity to go to a live ECW show in 96 and I went tape crazy and got to see a lot of Benoit, Eddy, etc in their New Japan junior stuff. Damn I miss those days......

I like TNA PPV's for the most part, but don't generally like Impact. The crowd, announcers, or Impact zone don't bother me for the most part.

The first Japanese wrestling I saw was a best of Dynamite Kid in Japan comp. Pretty good intro.

I remember buying a Dynamite comp from the boy toucher at an ECW show I went to in like 97. I've been a hardcore fan of his singles stuff ever since.

Really I didn't even think about Japanese wrestling until I saw Hayabusa and Tanaka on an ECW PPV. Even then, it was still a few more years before I got around to picking up J-Cup '94 and '95. From there it pretty much took off. Good thing puro is nowhere near the level it was at in the mid-90's or I'd never be able to catch up on all the good stuff. I still haven't seen a lot of the lesser-known AJPW classics...

I remember Busa and Tanaka from ECW, and I remember always hearing about (insert name here) being huge in Japan. The internet I guess is mostly responsible for opening me up to Puro. Cool thing is I haven't seen much at all of AJPW from the 90's, so I still have a lot to see.

I like to get comps of guys that I know I like from the US wrestling in Japan. See them matched up against different Japanese stars, and then I'll branch off and look for stuff by that guy.

Two good points.

I agree whole-heartily about the internet introducing me to Puro, and most good wrestling in general. Otherwise I'd still be stuck in the markdom world of only knowing that WWE and possibly TNA exist. No ROH, no Puro, no lucha, etc. As much as I miss the marking out days, I'd be missing out on a ton of great stuff if it wasn't for taking the next step to smarkdom by joining some stupid smarky board or two. And I would have had no idea where to get started ordering tapes by just watching Busa and Tanaka in ECW. I have the internet and Highspots.com to credit for that.

I also agree about following certain guys you know and then branching off to their opponents that look good. I did that during the whole indy crazy of 2002-2003 even. Reading about American Dragon, Low Ki, Chris Daniels and such tearing it up in ECWA and later ROH and JAPW got me interested in seeking out their matches, and before long I was a fan of guys like Homicide, AJ Styles, and later Samoa Joe and CM Punk. It's something that still goes on today.

First japanese wrestling I saw was J-Cup 94. Picked it up with a few other tapes from an online tape guy. First kind of wrestling purchase like that I'd ever made. Bought J-Cup 95 too, as well as some AJPW and Misawa/Kawada comp, I think. They're buried somewhere and I don't even know whats on them, but they might rule.

This would've been right around 99, after I'd seen Hayabusa in ECW, and Sasuke in WWF around Canadian Stampede a few years earlier.

I remember seeing Sasuke fight Benoit on a comp I got at an ECW back in 97. I was fucking OBSESSED with his shit then. I had the biggest boner in the world when the WWF brought him in to head the lightweight division, and how I thought it was going to shit when he left. Little did I know that it would NEVER become worth a shit.

Anyone remember Sasuke vs. Taka the night after Stampede on RAW? That fucking match was killer.

Wasn't it like 5 minutes and only remembered for the Space Flying Tiger Drop? The PPV match was way better, although I haven't seen either for awhile.

Actually if I remember correctly the match on RAW the next night was a better match, and I think it was longer than 5 mintues.

I could be wrong on this though as I haven't seen either in quite sometime.

I've never been big on Sasuke. Actually, I'm not the biggest Lyger mark either. You can add Ultimo Dragon to that list too. A lot of the supposed icons of Puro just aren't my cup of tea. Not violent enough or something. I love Tiger Mask (Sayama), the big 3 - Kobashi, Misawa, Takada, and Hayabusa, but a lot of the big names of Puro just don't excite me.

I'll be honest, the reason I've always been reluctant to embrace puro is because I don't get excited by the likes of Misawa and Kobashi, even though I acknowledge their tremendous skill. But this last year I grew to be a big mark for KENTA and Marufuji, so maybe I'll learn with time.

KENTA is quite awesome. I had more trouble embracing Takada than Kobashi or Misawa. He's just a little more "dry" than the other two. I first started getting into Kobashi from my Dynamite Kid comp. I then dl-ed an incredible Misawa/ Kobashi match and went from there.

I could see why you couldn't get into Takada as much: UWFi is more of a shootstyle, it has more MMA and less wrestling influence, than All Japan with Kobashi and Misawa. I guess it just depends whether you enjoy fuckers getting dropped on their heads or 210 pound Japanese men throwing guys like Vader and Albright around in worked fights.

And add me in on never really getting in to Ultimo Dragon. I love Sasuke and Liger to death, but Ultimo's never really done it for me, and I don't know why. I just can't get into his matches as easily unless he's wrestling one of my favorites. Liger always holds a place in my heart for clapping at Sasuke for fucking up the springboard. Probably my oldest puro memory...

Lyger is definitely my favorite of those three. I don't think I've seen the clap in question.

I've always found New Japan to put on a more complete show than All Japan. AJPW has probably more top of the line matches but give me more NJPW shows from top to bottom. I just hate getting 90s AJPW and waiting for the top 2 matches. Plus I felt that NJPW kept more true to their style instead of adopting the head drop mania of other feds.

I pretty much prefer comp tapes. I just don't want to watch a 15 year old show with all but 3-4 guys that I don't know.

I'm thankfully at the point with New Japan where I can watch just about any show and know all but about 3-4 guys now. I am a little lost with some of the newer shows but they've had a lot of new guys popping up lately.

Newer shows, I don't mind. But if I'm watching older stuff, I just want the high points.

Yeah, Lyger's clap is fuckin classic. The beautiful part is that it was the finish, and he plays it off like nothing at all, and then they hit the finish. He is a fuckin pro, and it is one of my vivid wrestling memories. Just his reaction.

*clap clap clap, hand twirl*

It's on J-Cup '94 in the semis vs. Sasuke.

Cool, I'll watch it tonight. I've seen the match a couple of times, don't know why haven't noticed.

It's in this music video. At about the 3:08 mark.

By the way, since all of the puro talk is going on there is one name that MUST be mentioned. If you haven't seen any of him, go RIGHT NOW AND FIND HIS STUFF.

Jumbo Tsuruta.

I myself admit to not seeing enough Jumbo. I've seen maybe 8-9 matches of his, mostly older stuff with Flair, Steamboat, and the Funks, and maybe like one from late in his career against a young Misawa.

If anyone can find it, there is an EXCELLENT match with Jumbo vs. Nick Bockwinkle in Japan for the AWA title.

Heh, he. Watched the hand clap last night. Don't know why I've missed it before, but that's funny.

Yeah, I've only seen a few Tsuruta matches, all of which I've liked. I may have to check out more.