Breaking TMW Radio Silence

Yes I know it seems that I have forgotten about this blog. I get it, and I understand why.

But let me, if I can, explain why this is the case. When i started this blog my main mission statement, as much as I had one, was to enjoy wrestling deeply and passionately wherever I found it. That's what I have been doing. The funny thing however is that I wasn't motivated to write what I was enjoying. Just enjoying it felt good enough.

That stops. When i get home tonight, i'll try and write something about the biggest story of the weekend for me. Mike Quackenbush and Jigsaw, and how we might be one step closer to the complete re-drawing of what it means to be face and heel, and whether or not I care for it.

How to Build A Light Heavyweight Division In The WWF Part 1: The Roster

This Could Be A Big Deal.
Photo Credit: Stock Image

There was a time, maybe in the heyday of WCW, where the Light Heavyweight or Cruiserweight Title was a supremely important belt. Through a combination of WCW's gigantic talent budget, and their affiliations with New Japan and AAA, the end result was that the championship seemed like a huge deal even with what was WCW's dismissiveness towards it. But with the demise of WCW, and the confusion about who could step into the breach,  one thing died.  And that was the relevancy of the Light Heavyweight Title. Sure, WWE paid lip service to the idea for a little while but since, at its core, WWE is run as a "big man's territory" it was only too long before the cruiserweight champion became a joke.

But I want to fix it. I want to make it work again. Sure, this is probably a 1-man crusade. But it's my crusade. Want to join me?

Flyin' Brian: A Gushing Appreciation

Flyin' Brian: My Favorite Junior Heavyweight Ever.

If, by some minor fluke, you listened to this you may have discovered that I sincerely love 1992-era WCW. And above all else, there was one reason I enjoyed that era of WCW (shortly before Bill Watts came in and it all went to hell in a handbasket). It was Flyin' Brian. And believe me when i tell you, because this is the absolute truth, we are never going to see his like again. No matter how hard you may want it, no matter how good it may be for wrestling as a whole, the cold hard fact is that it will never happen.

Free Wrestling On The Internet: The Midnight Express

The best part about the internet, besides reading this fine blog, is the sheer preponderance of awesome wrestling from a variety of sources that you can find. All you need to know how to do, really, is look for what YOU like. I'm not asking you to enjoy what I enjoy, but that you enjoy something. 

What do I enjoy? The Midnight Express for one. Watching them do what they did was awesome. Admittedly, the Eaton-Condrey variant doesn't have nearly as much tape available. But from what you hear from people who were around during that time period, they were as good as it got. But the Eaton-Lane version? That's the fun stuff. 

Below are links to matches against the Fantastics, and the Rock N' Roll Express. You can find more. I recommend you do just that. 

The Dream Match To End All Dream Matches, Or Discussion Of Them

KANA. 1\2 of the greatest dream match ever.

(Full disclosure: I root passionately, unabashedly, and shamelessly for both KANA and her opponent in this match. I don't think that will change the way I write this match, but I needed to clear that up before I kept going in this piece.)

One of the beautiful things about this blog is that I get the chance to spitball ideas for this blog of mine on Twitter. For some reason, my mind and my heart has been drawing me to discuss dream matches. For whatever reason, they've always captivated me. The idea that 2 wrestlers who are clearly stars coming together to figure out which one of the 2 is the better has always interested me. And when I think about what dream matches are left, there's really one left. And it's so beautiful that I had to talk about it, write about it, and hopefully do my small part to make it happen.

It's not Working: Jim Cornette & ROH

I know a lot of people who would argue vociferously that somehow everything from the current era of wrestling is superior than what came before. But that isn't true all the time. Yes, in terms of innovative offense, 2012 has it all over 1988. But are the workers better, smarter, more capable now than then? Depending on who you ask, you'll get a different answer.

Jim Cornette is one of those people. He has argued, in the multitude of shoots that he's done, that wrestlers today are less qualified, less skilled, than their peers from eras past. Combine this with his admitted obsession with making pro wrestling more like MMA, and you have a very strange booking philosophy. How do you fix it? And what are the problems?

A Welcome, and something new on the agenda

Firstly, before I write the rest of this, a big thanks to Thomas Holzerman, Brandon Stroud, and Dirty Dirty Sheets for being nice enough to RT the Team Texas article I posted earlier today. I really do appreciate it, because for a long while, this blog lay dormant and fallow. I didn't post enough, and that's my fault. But that ends. There's enough cool wrestling, both past and present to get lots of cool topics out of. Which actually is the subject of my article today.

A Trio Whose Time Has Come: Team Texas

With Chikara Pro's King of Trios upcoming, we've already seen a whole bunch of trios announced. Traditional Chikara trios like The Batiri, The Spectral Envoy, FIST, and the Throwbacks. Add to this the outside trios of The Extreme Trio (2 Cold Scorpio, Jerry Lynn, and Tommy Dreamer), Team JWP (Commando Bolshoi, Tsubasa Kuragaki, and Kaori Yoneyama), and Team ROH (The Young Bucks and Mike Bennett) and it seems like the King of Trios tournament is on the verge of being absolutely awesome. But there is a trio that hasn't been announced yet. Frankly, I am not sure it ever will be. Which is a shame. Because if they put this trio together, Millions of Buys. The trio I'm talking about? Team Texas.

Chikara vs WCW: An Idea whose time has come

WHen I think of my 2 favorite promotions, from the past and the future, there are only 2 right answers.





I actually started this with my last dream match:  Pillman\Liger vs Quackensaw.

So with that post in mind, I am announcing Chikara vs WCW on this blog. But I can't figure out what to write. What matches should I pick? That's where you come in, readers. Leave something on the comments here about what you would like to see. Donst vs Bagwell? Tell me. Eddie Kingston vs Barry Windham? let me know. 

Brian Pillman And Jushin Liger vs Mike Quackenbush and Jigsaw: A Dream Match.

When I was a kid, as I was sure the case with a lot of people, I wanted to be a Pro Wrestler. The only problem was that, as I got older, the knowledge of my low pain threshold outweighed that desire. So what i decided to do instead was become a pro wrestling fan. And ever since I became a fan, I had 2 favorite wrestlers. One was Jushin "Thunder" Liger. I like him so much that I started a Daily Liger feature, which you may or may not have read on this very same blog. But the other favorite is a bit more complicated.

The other favorite hasn't been around nearly as long, and he is perhaps best known not for his workrate apex but rather for a persona. And this is a shame. Because make no mistake, if we didn't have Brian Pillman, we wouldn't have the 1-2-3 kid. And thus we wouldn't have Rey Misterio Jr.

So what do I do with my 2 favorite wrestlers you might be asking? Easy. I do what WCW did with them. Team them up.


Pillman & Liger vs Benoit & Wellington by Hook_Line_and_Sinker

But question: Who in the world do I team them up against? What team could I trust to do this junior heavyweight dream team justice?



That's easy. The team that is, for a lot of people, the junior heavyweight dream team of this decade. Mike Quackenbush and Jigsaw. The former Campeonatos de Parejas of Chikara, and tag team specialists on par with any team in the world. But it isn't just that this dream team of the '00s was brought together to face the dream team of the 1990's because Quack's dream was to face Liger, and Jigsaw reminds me of a prime Flyin' Brian (although thankfully,without the bengal-print speedos.) It's also because Quackensaw is perhaps the tag team most suited to studying these 2 men, and finding a weakness. In fact, Mike Quackenbush was kind enough to submit to the Majesty of Wrestling what his strategy would have been. 


 Pillman is the weak link. His flying moves never had the precision that Liger's did. You just have to wait for him to make a mistake, even if you bait him a bit. Both those guys are stronger than Jig and I. In their primes, they were faster than us. But they were never really good teammates, and so you wait for a mistake and lay on the double teams. Smother them with double team moves. That's the way to win. 

LMQ

 

How would Liger and Pillman win this match? Use their experience, and extend the match. Because while Quack and Jigsaw are the equals, and perhaps superior, to Liger\Pillman in terms of tag team work their bodies might have trouble keeping a long and demanding pace. Quack's back and wrist problems are well-documented, as are Jigsaw's knee issues. If the Liger-Pillman tandem can cut the ring off and attack one of those weakened body parts, they might have a chance. 

Will we ever see this match? No. And that's a shame. But believe me when I tell you, if any promotion would ever put it on, it wouldn't be WWE or TNA. Curious to the promotion that would have the foresight to do it, and do it with the care and love that a match like this would require? Good. Because I am about to tell you.

Chikara. That is the company with the foresight to book a match of this quality, the respect to give it to you with a minimum of fluff, and the environment where that match means as much as it should. 

Thank you for reading this. I hope you enjoy the perspective I brought to this.

Tag Team Wrestling: A Gushing Appreciation, And Announcing The First Annual TMW Tag Team Tournament

There are many things i find troubling about current WWE. Many many things. But chief amongst them is the way that they de-emphasized what was once one of the coolest things about old WWF, and the thing that got me into modern wrestling: Tag Teams.

Now to be clear, the "Rock 'N Wrestling" era didn't have the tag team situation all to themselves. It was the southern wrestling scene that started it, and you could argue, perfected it. The southern tag structure is still the basis upon which your best tag matches have always been built. And Jim Cornette, no matter what you might think of him as a man with anger issues, does know how to make tag team wrestling work. The Midnight Express were state-of-the-art tag team wrestling for decades. And ever since the Midnights and the Rock N' Rolls, teams with the mastery of this art have always had a special place in my heart.

So it's in honor of that aesthetic, and frankly because I need a few more hits on this blog, that I am announcing the first-ever TMW Tag Team Tournament. If I knew someone who made trophies, I'd hand one out to the winner. But I don't. So instead the winner will just have to be confident in the knowledge that they were the first-ever winners of the Tag Team Tournament on the Majesty of Wrestling.

Here are the 4 regions of the Tournament.

East. First-Round matches to be held in the Asylum Arena, Second-Round Matches to be held in Madison Square Garden, and the Regional Finals to be held in the Barclays Center.

Midwest. First-Round matches to be held in the Frontier Fieldhouse in Chicago, 2nd-round matches to be held in the AllState Arena, and the Finals to be held in the United Center.

South. First-Round matches to be held in the Mohawk in Austin, TX, 2nd-Round Matches to be held in the Philips Arena, and finals to be held in the Fed-Ex Forum.

West: First-Round Matches to be held in the American Legion Hall in Reseda, CA, 2nd-round matches to be held in the Rose Garden in Portland, finals in the Great Western Forum.

Where will the final four be you ask? The Tokyo Dome.

But i know what you're thinking. I haven't listed any teams yet. And you're right I haven't. Because in the next couple of days, I am going to release the names of the teams who have made the cut. And believe me, you will be surprised as to who does make the cut as well as who DOESN'T.

Thank you for reading.

What Not To Wear: The Wrestling Edition #1: Eve Torres

It's time to start a new feature on the Majesty of Wrestling. And after thinking about this a while, I came to the realization that the best thing that could be done was to fix the problems we see on big-box wrestling every week. But how to do that? I'm not qualified to be a writer for the 'E (although considering some of the crappy storylines they've been putting out recently, I may need to rethink this opinion.) I can't teach people how to wrestle. So what to do then? Easy. Fix the gear of some people who desperately need it.

The Daily Liger: A Break From the Norm

I've posted a lot of matches in this Daily Liger feature. But every once in a while you need a break. This video here is about the Best moves liger ever did. Watch and enjoy.

The Daily Liger: A Return to America

The funny thing about Jushin Liger's occasional excursions to America is that they are far more about the kind of promotions that he works for, and the people he is willing to face than anything else. This was for JAPW, sort of the place between the deathmatchy bs of CZW (a promotion I will never review on this blog, ever) and the elitist approach of ROH. Watch and enjoy.

The Daily Liger: Open For Suggestions, And A Great Rivalry

I am running out of ideas for this really. So if anyone actually reads this blog or follows me on Twitter, please by all means let me know what you would like to see on this blog or even what you wouldn't. Now then, to the business of the Daily Liger.

This match I linked above is from the WCW\New Japan supershow of 1993, thus making this one of the rare times where WCW fans got to see Liger in his element which was in the Tokyo Dome. Also notable: The Blue and Red alternate liger outfit. Watch and enjoy. 

The Daily Liger: One of His Classics

The fun thing about doing this Daily Liger post is to see the classics that I remember as a kid, and reminisce about them. I don't have much to say about this.   Just watch Liger vs Samurai.

The Daily Liger: Another gaijin into the breach

 The funny thing, and the sad thing too, about the WWF in the 1990's was that unless you fit a very narrow box you probably weren't going to get the kind of shot commensurate with your abilities. Proof in point: Owen Hart. Clearly he had the skills to be an important part of the WWF, as evidenced by the fact that he was around for the spectacular Brother vs Brother angle just a few years later. But here, he's not doing that. here he's in the ring with a man who was almost peerless athletically during this time frame. Watch and enjoy.

The Daily Liger: The Grumpy Master

 The interesting thing about this Daily Liger project is to find the matches that aren't super-hyped. I mean everyone can talk about the Liger-Ohtani matches, and I have. But to be honest, the fun is in finding matches like this one. It's also the fun of watching the Untouchables tandem of Liger\Kanemoto grump their way through a match against a pair of young juniors. As I said, grumpy liger is the best liger. try and enjoy.

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The Daily Liger: It really is daily this time now, and the hardest part of this.

Look, I know that I said this would be a daily feature and it hasn't been. So i figure I'll get this re-started with the most difficult match to pick.

It is, to my mind, almost impossible to accurately explain the Liger history without bringing up his greatest Japanese opponent: Chris Benoit. This isn't the time or the place to get into a kind of discussion about what Benoit's last days mean for him as a wrestler.  That might be a later post, I think. But for right now the best thing we can do is discuss Liger vs Benoit. THis is the match WCW used to intro Liger to American Audiences. Because it was against Benoit, a guy they had been tangentially pushing at about the same time, it worked like a charm. Enjoy.

The Daily Liger #3: The Break-Out

For many of us, we discovered Liger when he came to the United States to face Brian Pillman which i covered in this post: http://themajestyofwrestling.blogspot.com/2012/02/daily-liger-1-introduction-and-20th.html . But in actuality his true breakout, the one that proved to fans all over the world that this was a Jr. Heavyweight worth watching, came against Naoki Sano. Sano has had a really interesting career in that he was sort of the gatekeeper to Liger's junior title runs, and then went on to a career competing in shoot-style indies before giving up the ghost altogether and becoming a MMA artist before going back to pro wrestling with a run in NOAH. Here, watch Liger vs Sano.

The Daily Liger #2: vs Eddie Guerrero (or is it Silver King?)

As anyone who has watched puroresu for longer than a few minutes, the Tiger Mask lineage is something to be beheld. From Satoru Sayama to Mitsuharu Misawa to Koji Kanemoto, it's always been a place for young rookies that the Japanese system sees something in to get their career started on the right foot. But just as important has been Tiger Mask's eternal rival, the evil Black Tiger. Now the lineage of this whole thing is far too complicated for me to go into now, but believe me when I tell you that it's as equally valuable a lineage. Some of the best of the best have slipped on the Black Tiger mascara and embraced their inner heel. Here is a perfect example of that. Jushin Thunder Liger vs. Black Tiger. From the J-Cup in 1996.

The Daily Liger #1: An Introduction and a 20th Anniversary

Because I am the sort who likes to create new content for this blog, here we go. Every morning I'll post a match from the man, who for my money, is the best junior heavyweight to ever lace up a pair of boots.

We'll start with this video:

And i know what you're thinking. We need a match here right? Easy. We'll start with the best match to really introduce this man to American fans. It's not nearly enough for it to be a good match. WHat you need is someone that the fans can get behind, someone that the fans can care about. This match is that time. Liger was coming in to WCW presented as the foreign menace, out to keep the World Light Heavyweight Championship from WCW's all-american phenom Flyin' Brian. Even now, 20 years after it happened, the match is still compelling. The way they structured it still works.


Brian Pillman vs. Jushin Liger 2/29/92 by Hook_Line_and_Sinker

Music Videos: Aerial Pyrotechnics.

I am a huge fan of wrestling music videos as an art form. The trouble you have is when they somehow inform the way in which you actually watch wrestling, or what it is that you expect out of a particular worker. But just as an art form, they're glorious. So glorious in fact that i'm going to try and make this a new feature. So, please, journey with me into the world of music videos.

Wednesday Night Wrestling: Rugged Ronnie Garvin vs Greg "The Hammer" Valentine

This is a new feature. Spend your wednesday night watching wrestling on youtube. Here is our first choice.

The Majesty of Wrestling: Rey Mysterio: The Alternate Universe

The Majesty of Wrestling: Rey Mysterio: The Alternate Universe

Rey Mysterio: The Alternate Universe

In the long history of pro wrestling, there have been few prodigies on par with Rey Misterio Jr. Before he even hit the age of 21, he had already worked in Mexico for AAA (Asistencia Asesoría y Administración), in Japan both as part of the Super J-Cup and on the occasional tour with WAR (Wrestle and Romance) and New Japan Pro Wrestling, and in America with ECW and WCW. That’s a run. But he did all of that in the mid-1990’s, when there was much more of a depth of opportunities for unknown luchadores to make a name for themselves. The question is this: What would Rey Misterio Jr. have become if he was coming up now? If he was the aerial phenomenon that he was from 1991 to 1997 from 2006 to 2012, how would his life, career, and the way we view him change? Would it even?

Dream Match #2: Mike Quackenbush vs Blue Panther

It's back again. Our friendly neighborhood Dream Match series.
 This is our first singles match, and it would be an absolute technical master class. Let's introduce the participants.