New Japan’s biggest show of the year goes down tomorrow and it’s set to be a HELL of a show. You’ve got a main event that is sure to pull out all the stops as the company’s biggest young star Hiroshi Tanahashi takes on one of his mentors, All Japan president and IWGP Heavyweight Champion, Keiji Mutoh. There will also be two HUGE New Japan vs. NOAH matches and a rematch of the 10/13 Sumo Hall thriller between Yugi Nagata and Zero 1’s Masato Tanaka.

NJPW “WRESTLE KINGDOM III IN TOKYO DOME”, 1/4/09 (WPW/PPV)
Tokyo Dome

0. Mitsuhide Hirasawa, Kazuchika Okada & Nobuo Yoshihashi vs. Milano Collection AT, Minoru & Taichi Ishikari
1. Wrestle Kingdom Grand Opening VIENTO DORADO: Mistico, Ryusuke Taguchi & Prince Devitt vs. Averno, Jado & Gedo
2. Jushin Thunder Liger 20th Anniversary Match: Jushin Thunder Liger & Takuma Sano Pro Wrestling NOAH vs. Wataru Inoue & Koji Kanemoto
3. IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Title ~Tread on!!~: Yujiro & Tetsuya Naito (c) vs. Alex Shelley TNA Wrestling & Chris Sabin TNA Wrestling
4. IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Title ~Ballistic interception~: Low Ki (c) vs. Tiger Mask
5. Fighting Holdings Competition: Riki Choshu, Masahiro Chono, Kurt Angle TNA Wrestling & Kevin Nash TNA Wrestling vs. Giant Bernard, Takashi Iizuka, Tomohiro Ishii & Karl Anderson
6. World Heavyweight Title ~Crusade for Justice~: Yuji Nagata (c) vs. Masato Tanaka ZERO1-MAX
7. New Japan vs. NOAH Battle Tendencies ~the invasion~: Manabu Nakanishi vs. Jun Akiyama Pro Wrestling NOAH
8. IWGP Tag Team Title - Hardcore Rules: Togi Makabe & Toru Yano (c) vs. “Team 3D” Brother Ray TNA Wrestling & Brother Devon TNA Wrestling
9. New Japan vs. NOAH Battle Tendencies ~the encounter~: Shinsuke Nakamura & Hirooki Goto vs. Mitsuharu Misawa Pro Wrestling NOAH & Takashi Sugiura Pro Wrestling NOAH
10. IWGP Heavyweight Title: Keiji Muto All Japan (c) vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi

”The Natural One” Michael Modest. Mainstream wrestling fans know him as the kid from “Beyond the Mat” who had a dark match on WWF Television during the peak of the wrestling boom. NOAH fans remember him as a hard-hitting gai-jin and a lot of his matches with tag partner Donovan Morgan. Bay Area wrestling fans, specially APW elitists, see him as a “Wrestling God”, no disrespect to JBL.

Wrestlewarehouse.com presents the first in it’s series of brand new shoot interviews, a sit down interview with “The Natural One” Michael Modest, conducted by Rubber Guard Radio host Kid Zombie. KZ and Wrestle Warehouse take Mike down memory lane, covering his entire career from A-Z up until now for two hours and forty five minutes.

Early on, Mike talks about how he got into wrestling in due part to his uncle and how he was attracted to the legendary Ray “The Crippler” Stevens up to his first match as an enhancement talent, putting over Koko B. Ware of all people, at age 18. “Playboy” Buddy Rose is revealed as the first guy Mike ever worked who actually listened to him and did the moves that he wanted, until he got punched right in the nose. And Wrestling is supposed to be fake… right?

“Your name’s not Dean mate, it’s fucking mark!”

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I bring to you, the first ever Fight Game Blog Awards. Since our website is unique in that we cover boxing, pro wrestling, and MMA, we have three different categories for awards.

In addition to our FGB brothers, Stevie J from Angry Marks is also giving his picks.

Pro Wrestling

Wrestler Of The Year
Big D - Edge
Alan - Shingo Takagi

Was given the ball in Dragon Gate due to top star CIMA being on the sidelines, and the company had it’s best business year ever. He was also outstanding in the ring and is full of charisma.

Duan - Jeff Hardy

This may not be a popular choice, but Jeff has really delivered main event quality matches this year, and he has now finally been given the chance to carry a world title. His ascension has helped freshen up a tired WWE main event scene, and the title change was executed perfectly.

I might’ve given up on WWE this summer if it weren’t for Chris Jericho. He and Shawn Michaels were the sole reason I bought any B shows this year.

Match Of The Year Continue Reading »

I remember it like it was yesterday. I was watching Saturday Night’s Main Event where the big angle for this Wrestlemania started. The main event was scheduled for Hulk Hogan vs. The Magnificent Muraco and instead of Muraco’s regular manager Mr. Fuji by his side, Bobby Heenan was in his corner. They said that Fuji had the flu, which was an angle alert. However, I was only nine so I didn’t know about angle alerts. During the match, Hogan went after Heenan and King Kong Bundy came in to attack Hogan and “pearl harbor” him as Vince McMahon would say. It was a sneak attack that left Hogan laying in the ring, taking big splash after big splash. As a young Hulkamaniac, I was devastated. I had just been turned on to wrestling the year before by my best friend at the time, and I bit hook, line, and sinker. There I was, up at midnight, watching my hero take the beating of his life. Bundy was played up huge. He was a mountain of a man. He actually resembled the letter “O” with his short but fat torso and lack of neck. He used to be called a condominium with legs. As Hogan lay lifeless in the ring, I was upset at this guy with the bald head and wrinkled forehead. But I was smart enough to know my guy was going to get revenge. The storyline was that Hogan was in the hospital suffering from rib injuries and you could write the Hulkster to wish him well. I wasn’t that gullible, but I know other young kids were. They even had Mean Gene Okerlund talk to the doctor and they showed x-rays of Hogan to sell the angle. They would meet again in the main event of Wrestlemania 2 and in a steel cage.

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This show has been over for a couple of weeks already you say? Well, I still haven’t watched the last two episodes, so here’s the review of the second to last episode.

Todd says Dennis needs to slow down. Butterbean says Dennis needs to treat him with respect or it’s going to get nasty.

Dennis says he’ll hit hard and they should hit him back hard. Brutus tells the viewing audience that it’s called a receipt if someone hits you hard and you hit them back just as hard.

Bischoff says they’ll learn the arm drag and a basic chop. Too bad Ricky Steamboat and Ric Flair aren’t teaching these. Hogan comes out in his gear to teach them the body slam. Hogan tells the guys that when he slammed Andre at Wrestlemania 3 that Andre was almost 700 pounds. He didn’t say give or take two hundred pounds. It’s so funny as to why he has to lie about that. Isn’t 500 pounds enough?

Rodman slams Danny hard and Butterbean wants him. Butterbean slams him softly. Rodman tries to get Bean and can’t. Neither can Danny. Hogan tells Brutus to do it. He can’t get him quite up. I think it’s up to Hogan. He didn’t try. Darn. I wanted to see it.

They are going to do two matches. There’s a triple threat between Screech, Danny, and Todd while the big man match is between Rodman and Butterbean.

The chop looks like it hurts a lot. They’re playing it up like Dennis doesn’t want to be physical anymore because of the possibility of a receipt. Hogan takes Dennis aside and tells him he loves him and tries to inspire him a bit.

Screech is trying to coach a bit too much and the guys are bothered with him.

Hulk brings a doctor in to check the guys out before the match. Screech is the only one to complain about his injuries and the doctor tells him he has at least one broken rib. And he might have a MCL sprain in his left knee.

The triple threat is up first. Screech and Danny are working together over Todd. But I bet they get pissed at each other and the match ends with one of them pinned. Todd goes flying over the top. Screech double crossed Danny. That was fast. Todd took both of them out and then did a high cross over the top rope and onto both guys. Screech took a foreign object out of his knee pad and put it in his elbow pad. He knocked both guys out with it for the pin.

Butterbean just beat on Rodman for the entire match until Rodman hulked up. Rodman came off the top for the flying clothesline and Butterbean caught him with a sidewalk slam for the pin.

Butterbean was bad, but Danny was too. Rodman is the only believable guy, but if Todd learns how to sell a little bit better, he’d be heads and shoulders above everyone.

Bischoff tells Rodman that he works too stiff. Hogan tells Todd that he needs a bit more control. Bischoff says Butterbean never breaks character and makes him believe, but his covers are weak. Hogan says that Rodman, Butterbean, and Todd are heading to the finals. It’s between Screech and Danny. Hulk says Dustin’s chops and kicks are so bad. He tells Danny that he doesn’t hit people as hard as he looks. Hulk tells Danny Bonaduce to leave.

The next show is the finale. There’s a jabroni battle royal as long as a final match for the title.

According to F4W/Wrestling Observer, Batista is going to be out of action for a while with a hamstring tear that may need surgery. This probably throws a wrench into the Wrestlemania plans, but will help freshen up his character which wasn’t really going anywhere. You hate to see someone like him go through another muscle tear with his past injuries, but that’s the price one pays for being so muscular. There’s a reason you don’t see most NFL players with that kind of muscle size.

On a happier note, Trish Stratus returned to Raw last night (for one night only I’m guessing) since the show was in Toronto and teamed with John Cena against Glamarella. She looked great and even though the match wasn’t anything special, the show actually did feel special with her presence. Remember when Raw used to fun like this?

You can watch the end of the match at WWE.com.

Trish Stratus photo by The Badder in the World and shared through creative commons

Who would’ve thought that this man would become the biggest star in the business just a few short years later? Amazing how things work out. We can pray for the RYAN BRADDOCK WORLD TITLE REIGN!!!!

It wasn’t even black tights - it was green!

It was the night that began the change of the landscape of Japanese wrestling forever. Mitsuharu Misawa defended his All Japan Triple Crown against Toshiaki Kawada in what seemed like their millionth encounter at Budokan Hall. The peak era that was mid 90s All Japan was dying down a bit. A huge portion of the Gai-jin that helped make it so big left and/or retired, but the company was still carried by the holy trinity that was Misawa, Kawada, and Kobashi (with Taue and a few others helping). Kawada suffered a broken arm during the match. Giant Baba, on his death bed, called this the greatest match he had ever seen and Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer commented on it in a recent audio show.

Here I bring highlights of the match.

It was shortly after this that Baba died, and because Misawa had “creative differences” with Baba’s widow, the “Grand Japanese Exodus” began as Misawa took all of All Japan’s top talents (except Kawada) and started Pro Wrestling NOAH.

President Okamura announced at today’s Korakuen show that on March 22nd 2009, Dragon Gate will run their biggest show ever. It will emanate for the first time in company history, from Sumo Hall in Tokyo!!!

This is HUGE for them and shows just how far they’ve come in the last year and a half.

It is also a massive testament to Shingo Takagi. The company’s top star (CIMA) went down and Shingo was given the ball. The company was put on the back of an unproven guy and he’s helped take it to new heights. For me this solidifies his case for being the 2008 Wrestler Of The Year in the Observer awards.

So I got this DVD comp of the short but sweet, late eighties, heel run of Haku and Tama, The Islanders. Wasn’t totally sure what to expect going in but I was assured it was great, so I decided to dive right into it when it came in the post.

May 30th 1987 Superstars
Islanders vs. Can-Am Connection

Going into this match both teams were babyfaces, and dammit, Bruno on commentary was oh so excited about the good clean technical match we had in front of us! However something smelled fishy as Bobby Heenan came down to ringside and Jesse Ventura seemed to have the scoop. He laughed a knowing laugh and Bruno and Vince weren’t happy. Then the Islanders did the greatest pop-in interview, they simply did a nice big belly laugh. Bruno: “I don’t know what dat was allll about Vince”. Of course about 5 minutes in, Haku and Tama go rudo all over the Can-Ams asses and Bobby gets in the ring and hugs them.

The first three post-turn matches are a great squash, a match against THE YOUNG STALLIONS~! and a match against Rick Martel and JYD (I dunno where Zenk went). The main thing that came out of these was how unbelievably great Tama was as a heel. Just such a total cocky prick. He was great.

August 15th 1987
Strike Force arrives! (and my sister was born, but that’s significantly less important)

So with Zenk having disappeared, Martel was out on his own in singles action (against Big Bad Barry Horowitz). The Islanders apparently weren’t through with making him a sad little model, so they hit the scene and beat the crap out of him. However they didn’t account for Tito Santana (who was working the Spanish broadcast) hitting the ring for the save. Tito was all fired up and Strike Force was formed!

A couple of weeks later, the Islanders squashed a couple of fools and then made their way over to the Spanish table. They had a bone to pick with Tito. A brawl broke out, the feud intensified.

October 3rd 1987 Boston Garden
Islanders vs. Strike Force

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