Don Cameron may start writing here at FGB and he sent me some feedback on last night’s SummerSlam, which pretty much mirrors mine. You may be seeing more of Don around here.

Thumbs in the middle, leaning down

Best match — What 95% of everybody else is going to say: Team Raw… er, I mean Team WWE vs. Team Nexus.

Worst match — From what I saw, none really.

I missed the first two matches — Ziggler/Kofi and Melina/Fox, but I was really looking forward to the Ziggler/Kofi match. Yeah, that was me. After showing some fire lately, two things may have happened with Kofi. Either he was going to lose it and start pounding his opponent (face or heel) to the point where the crowd would turn on him, or he would do something extraordinary, like leaping off a balcony or jumbotron in order to exact some kind of revenge for a huge pop. We got neither.

Wrestlemania is there to end feuds. Summerslam is to end the monthly feuds that have started since Wrestlemania, and set up new feuds for Survivor Series, or whatever the next big PPV is going to be.

This show, starting with the recap I read of this match, didn’t do that. They didn’t have a blow-away match, but at least they put the high-flying Kofi in the opener to get the crowd pumped for the rest of the show.

I’m still trying to figure out how Melina got a title shot this quickly… did I miss something?

Big Show vs. MEM… erm, I mean SES, was what it was supposed to be. End a feud and start another. Natch.

The Miz promo spoke for itself. The folks I was watching it with didn’t want him to give a yea or nay to joining Team WWE, but it all worked out in the end. This guy is the best crowd promo since The Rock.
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Many promotions in the wrestling and MMA industries accomplished many great things last year. UFC 100 broke buyrate records, WWE drew over 50,000 people to Houston for Wrestlemania, New Japan successfully ran the Tokyo Dome, Dragon Gate expanded their company in a great variety of ways and there are probably several other examples I could name. However there was one accomplishment last year which stands out to me head and shoulders above the rest. This is one accomplishment that on the surface looks like a complete miracle but when you move the magnifying glass a little closer, you can see that it was no miracle but purely the product of hard work, solidarity and ambition.

Ryōgoku Kokugikan, or as it’s more commonly known – “Sumo Hall” is a venue steeped in tradition, both in the pro wrestling and sumo industries. It is a venue for big companies to run and it is a venue which is hard to sell out unless you really have you have a pretty good sized following in Tokyo. So when the Dramatic Dream Team promotion (DDT) announced that they were venturing into Sumo Hall on August 23rd of last year, many eyebrows were raised. DDT is your prototypical Japanese indy promotion. They don’t have a big TV deal, their wrestlers are by no means household names and they usually don’t run buildings much bigger than the 2,000 seat Korakuen Hall (which they would very rarely sell out). However, in Sanshiro Takagi, they have a president who really believes in his company and has an unyielding faith in his wrestlers. Takagi felt his little company could march into the big boys playground and hold their own.

Let’s be honest, everyone thought he was Antonio Inoki level insane. People looked at what Masahiro Chono’s two day “extravaganza” at Sumo Hall just a few months prior was able to draw (barely over a 1,000, and heavily papered) and understandably felt DDT with hardly any big names (except Chono himself in a midcard quasi-comedy match) would crash and burn in the same spectacular fashion. They were wrong. So very, very wrong.
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This past weekend I celebrated my 24^th birthday which was followed by Sacrifice! Seeing so many TNA PPVs (every one since Slammiversary 2006), I was pretty numb to what I would get. I ended up watching it again this morning to a much better conclusion.

The Motor City Machine Guns defeated Team 3D and Beer Money to become #1 Contenders to the World Tag Team Titles

This was a good opener! The Machine Guns gained the much needed win as the “best tag team never to hold the titles.” There were some good spots but nothing that stood out.

“The Freak” Rob Terry defeated Orlando Jordan to retain the Global Title

People constantly criticize Terry, but I think he is underrated. There were rumors that Orlando Jordan would be doing something controversial, but other than his somewhat flamboyant entrance, I don’t know what it could be. The beginning was good with Terry smashing through Jordan but when Jordan worked the leg for way too long, it really hurt the battle.

Douglas Williams defeated Kazarian to “win” the X Division Title

Another good match which was a lot more mat based than I would have figured. The crowd was not into it. The big reaction was when Douglas powerbombed Kazarian into the corner and looked like he hit his head on the turnbuckle. Williams won with the Chaos Theory in a pretty good match. Kazarian officially was champion for around a month but never physically held the belt.

Madison Rayne defeated Tara to retain the Knockouts Title. Tara is gone from TNA

This was a rather mediocre contest. This would also be Tara’s final TNA match as she was on her way out. It was very sloppy and I couldn’t get into it in any way. Rayne picked up the win with her version of Matt Striker’s “Golden Rule” maneuver. Out came the Rayne and washed the Spider out!

The Band defeated Ink Inc to retain the TNA Tag Team Titles
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Hoshikawa vs. Takaiwa – Zero 1 9/1/2001

Man was this ever a WAR. I adored how they went from competitive technical wrestling feeling out process to hate-filled killfest – you see they were rolling around for a bit and it kind of went to a neutral stalemate and they both ended up back on their feet. Then Hoshi kicked the leg out of Takaiwa’s leg as hard as possible and Takaiwa stopped and gave him a GLARE! Hoshi’s response to the glare was a second kick. Takaiwa gave him another glare which clearly said “are you SURE you wanna do this mate?”. Hoshi’s answer was a definitive “you bet your ass I’m sure” in the form of another evil kick. Then it was ON.

Takaiwa brought it back harder with chops and forearms and soon he had the advantage. He detroyed Hoshi with such things as a powerbomb on the outside, a big superplex and many lariats. But Naohiro Hoshikawa, even when slightly outmatched, is not a man to take an ass-kicking lying down. He came back with his trusty enzigiuris, the missile topé and his seated dropkick of facebreaking murder. Takaiwa almost seals the deal with a German that STICKS Hoshi into the mat. After that miraculous kickout Hoshi is in survival mode, feeding off adrenaline. A couple of big lariats later though and he is out for the count.

Real good match. ****

Kikuchi vs Hoshikawa, Zero-One 1/6/02

This was either the greatest or worst match I’ve ever seen. Let me explain what happened. These two men started fighting hard from the get-go, it spilled to the outside, Hoshi did the sickest topé ever and put Kikuchi back in the ring. Then things got …… interesting…
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Novice fighter Jon-Lewis Dickinson (23) has won Prizefighter: The Cruiserweights 2. Dickinson scored a decision over Leon Williams in the quarter finals, and then went on to knock out Mark Krence and Nick Okoth in the semis and final respectively.

The tournament was being sold very much as the Herbie Hide show. Hide, a two time former WBO heavyweight champion, was the biggest star to ever compete in the series and was a runaway favourite with the bookmakers. However, he was cut by a clash of heads during his quarter final with Wayne Brooks. Hide went on to win the bout, and was cleared by doctors to continue on in the next round, but felt it wise to remove himself from the competition. It’s a decision which no doubt raised the ire of many gamblers, but it was probably the right move from a buisness perspective. Hide is highly ranked by the WBC (whose title is currently vacant) and didn’t want to put that position in jeopardy by fighting on injured. He was replaced by journeyman Nick Okoth. It marked the first time in Prizefighter history that an alternate had to be brought in to the tournament.
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Hoshikawa, Yakushiji & Tsubasa vs Togo, Buffalo & QUALLT, Osaka Pro 11/6/00

Man, Hoshi and Yakushiji are just inseparable. Dick Togo is back as the thorn in their side again and he’s rockin’ the Grunge gear he found in America (when not attempting to chop off the Big Valbowski). Trivia Note: Daio QUALLT is the mist spewing robotic alter-ego of our friend Masaru Seno that we were introduced to in the last match. I preferred him as Seno but whatever.

So this was a change of pace from the prior two matches. Quite literally in fact, as this was filled more with high speed run-the-ropes lucharesu than prolonged rudo beatdowns. The was one exchange between Hoshi and Togo which was so smooth and so fast that I rewound it about five times. It was beautiful.

Loads of cool back and forth stuff down the stretch such as Yakushiji and Hoshikawa hitting their German Suplex/Missile Dropkick combo perfectly. Black Buffallo was dishing out the running lariats from all angles as he is wont to do, Dick hit his picture perfect senton and QUALLT…… blew mist. It wasn’t enough though as the faces rallied to get the duke when Hoshi pinned B-Buff with a German Suplex. If you like Dragon Gate you’ll LOVE this match. ****1/4

Hoshikawa vs Hidaka, Zero-One 7/12/01

A match between two men who took different but very similar roads to this point in their careers. Hoshi broke in with Michinoku Pro and moon-lighted in BattlARTS before going to Osaka Pro and then to Zero 1. Hidaka broke in with BattlARTS, had a stint in ECW, then became a freelancer mainly working Michinoku Pro and eventually ended up as a Zero 1 regular. Oh and he still had his goofy 90′s haircut here. Hoshi of course was rocking his trademark Mafia Druglord slicked back hair, which screams bad ass.

And yeah if you haven’t guessed by the fact that I’m discussing hairstyles – there’s not too much to say about the actual match here. That’s not to say it wasn’t good, because it was DAMN good, but it was just two awesome guys doing awesome technical wrestling and you just kind of sit back and bask in the glory of it as opposed to writing a page of notes disecting it. So yeah we got reversals, we got counters, we got some of the prettiest chain wrestling you’ll see, we got some of the ROUGHEST strikes you will see (Hoshi upped the stiffness factor bigtime at the turn of the century) and we got a couple of sweet dives with Hoshikawa hitting his missile topé and Hidaka hitting a nice twisting plancha.

However the best thing about this match came near the end as Hoshikawa, who had his leg ripped off by Hidaka sprinkled some majestic selling onto proceedings. He hit his trademark top rope enziguiri and was unable to follow up because of the impact on his leg. Then he hit his German Suplex but couldn’t hold the bridge. Awesome! After shutting down a Hidaka fight-back, Hoshi kicked him square in the face and hit another German THIS TIME WITH A ONE-LEGGED BRIDGE!!!!!!!!! to get the win.

Great match, and we’re now four out of four for ****+ matches.

****1/4