Looney Low Ki, OG, Been Banging From The Jump

Low Ki VS Drew Galloway - House Of Glory 8/19/2016

JJZ: Alright alright. So this match really piqued my interest when I saw it. Drew had a great Indy run before he went back to WWE and he looked like a million bucks in this match. Not gonna lie, not a big fan of this suit thing Ki does but the SOB can still bring the heat. I wasn't familiar with this fed even though it looks like they draw and bring in top talent. This match starts fast and keeps the pace until the end. Good back and forth with a ton of "OHHH" moments makes for a match I got to play forward to you my friend.

CJD: I don't know a ton about House Of Glory either but from what I do know my first thought was "there's going to be some sort of horseshit in this match." I wasn't wrong, but man did they pack some awesome stuff in as well. I agree that unless your name is Irwin R Schyster you shouldn't wear a tie in the ring, but this was one of the first times I didn't mind the get up on Ki... until the end. At its best moments Galloway was working like Akira Taue when he was overmatched by a smaller faster opponent, right down to the "fuck you" release vertical suplex. For an impromptu match this really delivered. Nice find.

Mason-Dixon Tri-state Outercontinental WWKD Champions #11-20

Another ten champs up, another ten champs down, a couple of firsts here at PIF, a couple of interesting stories week to week, let's get into it!

11. Takashi Sugiura
We started with one of the most successful modern transitions in Japan between junior to heavyweight, and highlighted matches from both eras of his career. Which really set the tone for the next six champs.

12. Shinsuke Nakamura
13. Katsuyori Shibata
14. Yoshihiro Takayama
What a monster run of Japanese heavyweights! I wouldn't want to meet these three in a dark alley.

15. Hayabusa
16. the Great Sasuke
17. Ultimo Dragon
Which is somehow topped by an even more epic run of Japanese juniors! Make sure you don't miss the match that transitioned between the two weight classes beautifully between Hayabusa/Shinzaki and Takayama/Omori.

18. Alex Shelley
19. Claudio Castagnoli
These two have a special place in our hearts, and it was an especially strange coincidence that Shelley got the strap (something we usually plan weeks in advance) the week he announced his retirement.

Also of note in the match where Shelley became champ, Jushin Thunder Liger became the first ever wrestler at PIF to appear in multiple matches but not hold the MDTSOCWWKD Championship.

20. The Usos
And then we closed things out with another first, our first ever tag champs! Play It Forward, where the rules are made up but everything matters!

A Long Way From The Super 8

Kaval VS Bryan Danielson - FCW 7/2/2010

CJD: How many times have we watched these two go at it? And still there are matches out there between them that I had no idea existed, such as this one. This is exactly what you'd expect from a FCW debut of Danielson VS Ki and with that expectation I thoroughly enjoyed it. At times it reminded me of their Final Battle 2004 match, but obviously with a more satisfying finish.

JJZ: Bryan has had so many great feuds with so many great wrestlers. The Low Ki feud probably seems unimportant to most people, but it was the feud that made me fall in love with both wrestlers. Watching them wrestle during the early 2000s was the medicine I needed to heal the pain of ECW folding in 2001. It gave me hope back then because they weren't another ECW rip off and this match felt so much like a match from that era. This match is short but tells a nice story and the commentators did a good job of talking about their history. Good stuff Chris.

We Work Hard In The Paint, We Play Hard In The Paint

Tag Team Turmoil WWE Smackdown 2/12/2015

JJZ: So this is match is all about story telling and feud progressing. The Usos part of this match is the best wrestling during the gauntlet but the main vein of this ride is the back and forth of Reigns and Bryan. This is just two weeks before your pick and it's a fantastic build to the singles match at Fastlane. Roman shows great struggle while working his cousins and I love his facials in the corner. I'll never argue his in ring ability but wish he was allowed to play this character more and not the Big Dog shit. Bryan's heelish aggressive work with the Usos is excellent and the Usos are such good faces. Chris I'm really hoping you give the King his crown in your next pick.

CJD: Even when WWE does their best at telling stories, they typically aren't as story driven and focused as this match is. We discussed a little the logistics of whether a gauntlet counts as one giant match or not and my answer is almost always YES! Because of the way WWE television is produced though this felt fragmented to the point where I'd understand picking it apart match by match. But the overriding story is what carried everything so I'd still consider it a long, ongoing match. And what a match it was! This will warrant a lot of rewatches over the years. It's a little slow starting and the ending was a bit predictable but that portion between Bryan/Reigns and the Usos was classic.

Most Money Making Man, Man

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3s8kdq

The Usos (c) VS Cesaro/Tyson Kidd - WWE Tag Team Championship 2/22/2015

CJD: Claudio has had so many really good eras of his career but they often get cut off or aren't fully realized. His team with Kidd was definitely one of them, but they still had some excellent matches. We both watched this PPV but I remembered almost nothing of this match and was glad to rewatch it. It has so many little touches that are easy to miss out on and I know you're a man who appreciates attention to detail.

JJZ: This was another great era of Cesaro's career. It's interesting that he's been part of three very successful and very different tag teams. Haven't watched the face paint Usos in a while. I really hope they are a career long team. Good basic tag team psychology to start, with the heels cutting the ring off and working a body part on Jimmy. I know I watched this PPV when it happened but didn't remember this match at all. Really fun watch with a some good spots along the way. Sadly though I do remember this was the last run of Tyson Kidd before his terrible injury. I became a big fan of Kidd from this tag team and his work in NXT. Love that Claudio still does the Sharpshooter in honor of his friend.

Goodnight Sweet Prince

Alex Shelley (c) VS Claudio Castagnoli - UWA Hardcore Lightweight Championship 2/17/2006

JJZ: These two. These two beautiful humans arefuckingincredible. I expected so much from this match and of course got so much more. With just reading who is in the match you know the quality you're going to get. Watching people wrestle with the same passion on a small Indy show like this as they do on a huge dome or stadium show is what makes these two special. Not special talents or just wrestlers but special people because they treated that crowd to one hell of a match and that's why as a wrestling fan I love these two.

CJD: You caught me totally off guard with this one! When I saw the link I thought for certain this was a match I own on DVD between these two from a few months previous. Instead you exposed me to a match between two guys I absolutely love that I without a doubt never would have seen otherwise. That's what PIF is all about. There were moments in this match of pure beauty and I'd expect no less. Claudio wrestling for a lightweight championship when he's bigger than most modern heavyweights is amusing to say the least. They cut a great pace early, made the title feel big, had the crowd eating out of the palm of their hands at the end, and sent it home with a really solid finish. Also I'm way into this entrance music from Shelley! And I'm way into this vault of UWA Hardcore matches we tapped into these past two weeks.

There's A New Generation Coming And We Really Gotta Stand Up To Them

Jushin Thunder Liger/Ultimo Dragon VS Motor City Machine Guns - UWA Hardcore 5/26/2007

CJD: I had a few matches in mind for my pick and this was absolutely not one of them. It was a total curiosity while searching for other stuff and I'm so glad made time for it. It's deceptively good, on the surface it might seem to merely be fan service to two legends coming in from overseas. If you dig deeper though it's really fundamentally sound tag wrestling. If you were to put this in front of a modern NJPW crowd it would gets tons of attention as opposed to something I never knew existed that has a few hundred views.

JJZ: This was a fun match. Pretty basic psychology but the crowd was super into it which made even the smallest things seem huge. Shelley and Sabin played the heel role well and the crowd ate up the hot tag. I couldn't tell the time frame of the match because the video quality was poor but Ultimo and Liger seem ageless anyway so it doesn't really matter. I'm like 50/50 on Sabin. He didn't do anything to blow me away this match but he did provide a strong base for the two vets. Shelley as always impressed me with the smallest things. He never disappoints with his attention to details. I'll have some happy hunting for the new champ.

They Don't Just Call Him The Good Sasuke

the Great Sasuke VS Ultimo Dragon - J-Crown Finals 5/8/1996

JJZ: To my surprise finding a Great Sasuke match from 2000-2010s that I wanted to play forward was really hard. So I got to the point where I said screw it I'm picking something that I just feel like watching. I picked a match against my favorite junior of all time in possibly the greatest year in wrestling history. I'm sure we've seen this match before probably many times over. It's an amazing match. A match that should be studied by the juniors of today. The match is part of a tourney so the pace is slightly different than a normal title defense. I loved the finish and could watch these matches all day.

CJD: Last week I talked about how I'm sure one of us had that Hayabusa/Sasuke match on a VHS comp buried somewhere. Well this week I absolutely know I have this match on a Best of Ultimo Dragon tape in storage. Ultimo was my brother's favorite wrestler and we watched that thing beginning to end so many times over that we started to rank Ultimo's gear in each match from favorite to least favorite (this one fared pretty well).

Needless to say I was really curious to see what I'd think with fresh eyes. Play It Forward is a perpetual motion machine of pro wrestling positivity so I'm going to get the negative out of the way quickly. I didn't like the execution of the finish. And I disagree that it's a match that should be studied by young wrestlers today. I think they needed to slow down, do a little less, and sell a little more in the second half to make everything they were doing count as much as it should. It would have been the difference between a very good match and a great match in my opinion.

But make no mistake that what we have here is very good. I liked the pace for a tournament final, it felt like both guys needed to press the advantage early and often to put the other away quickly. I liked the matwork this era so often gets criticized for. I liked the story of Ultimo largely having Sasuke's number, and Sasuke needing to take every risk imaginable to even the playing field. And I loved two moments from Sasuke in particular, his sell draped over the guard rail, and the look of total "well, fuck me" every inch of his body communicated as he went for that one dive off his back foot from the top to the outside. That might not have required much in the way of showmanship but it was still awesome.

I want to keep this blog largely spoiler free, so I'll giver readers the option to go forward with the answer to the next question... what exactly did you like about the finish?

Best. Entrance Song. Ever.

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6izoct

Hayabusa VS Great Sasuke - FMW 12/11/1996

CJD: There's no way we both haven't seen this match before and own it on some terrible VQ Aerial Assault or Best of '96 VHS tape buried in a closet somewhere. That said, I remember nothing about this match or that it even happened. High flyer VS high flyer is actually a very difficult dynamic to pull off, in the majority of the great junior singles matches and feuds one wrestler acts as more of a base. Here both guys get their chances to fly and everything is done masterfully.

JJZ: So this match is a greatest hits of both wrestlers imo. Every move I wanted them to do they did. The slow build of the match with the high risk highspots is the exact way I remember these 90s matches playing out. Love it. What I didn't love was once again having to sit through the most uninterested announcing ever. I always hated that about FMW, they would put out announcers that sometimes would kill the match for me. This match was strong enough to overcome it though. Now I get to choose a Sasuke match. Man do I have options open here.

Takayamamania Runnin' Wild On PIF

Hayabusa/Jinsei Shinzaki (c) VS Yoshihiro Takayama/Takao Omori - AJPW All Asia Tag Team Championship 6/4/1999

JJZ: After recently watching Hayabusa in one of the greatest deathmatches of all time with you Chris, it's eye opening to see Hayabusa's depth as a wrestler. This is a classic All Japan style tag match built brick by brick. Omori is catching my eye and I'm realizing I need to seek his matches out more. Takayama with the dark locks is interesting. I just have a set image of him in my head. Shinzaki is such a solid worker which brings a great base to this match. I'd love to really dive into Hayabusa's and Shinzaki's AJPW run. I've seen stuff here and there but never went all in on it. After all these years of watching 90s AJPW it feels like this vault will never end.

CJD: You know I've been on a tag team wrestling binge lately and this match is such good fundamental tag wrestling. I don't think Shinzaki & Hayabusa's run in AJPW was extensive but they were a welcome breath of fresh air when they were booked.  I loved the way both teams worked this match, great cut offs and counters and tandem offense. Late 90s was definitely when the halcyon days of AJPW were waning but the fact that a match like this happened under the radar just goes to show the decade that promotion had will probably never be touched by anyone else.