My Personal White Whale: Revisiting The Best Way To Build A Light Heavyweight Division In The WWE

When i wrote this blogpost, I left it as it was. Namely, an idea for something cool that I thought you could do in the WWE if given enough time and inclination. But as I think about it more,  I realize that if I want a chance for younger fans to be dazzled by pro wrestling beyond what the 'E gives them I have to really sit down and try to make this work for both promotions. Because, if it's done right, what the WCW cruiserweight division meant to so many, and what Michinoku Pro and Dragon Gate mean to so many now, these two divisions can mean now if they're done right. That last sentence, though, is the important part. Because, for both the large company in Stamford, there are lots of things that need to be explained, and fixed, about the way that the juniors have been viewed during all of the previous times that they have tried this.

Now I know that this is my white whale, and i accept it. I am, if nothing else, a man who loves wrestling big and small, past and present, and I'd like very much to see something I know could work done the right way.

The New Japan Juniors 1990-1999 Pt. 1: Jushin "Thunder" Liger

If you're going to write a multi-part tribute to the finest era of junior heavyweight wrestling that has existed anywhere in the world, which was 1990-to-2000 in New Japan, there really isn't a better place for anyone to start than with the man who was, and still remains this in some ways now, the personification of what the junior heavyweight ace is supposed to be. We're starting with the king, the gold standard, the guy who is to junior heavyweight wrestling what the 4 Corners of Heaven are to heavyweight wrestling: Jushin "Thunder" Liger.

Now to be fair, the title up there and the first paragraph might very well give you a very real expectation that somehow the junior heavyweight division of New Japan just sort of went into thin air in 2000. It didn't. Right now, Prince Devitt is doing some good work as is matinee-idol in training Kota Ibushi and a lot of other people. But when I, and the people who love this era, talk about the New Japan Juniors we mean the Liger, Kanemoto, El Samurai, Pegasus Kid, Shinjiro Ohtani, and Great Sasuke era. That's the era everyone means, and that's the era I'm talking about here.

What I'm watching: Mike Quackenbush vs Johnny Saint

I admit this freely. I am a huge junkie for top-notch technical wrestling. But here's the problem: So much of what people understand as top-notch technical wrestling really isn't. It's not just knowing a billion million holds. It's knowing how to apply them. It's being slick and artistic without having it look forced, and making your trademarks look like you were smart to get your opponent in that position rather than you and your opponent both were playing off of the same script. This is harder than it seems. And two of the masters of this style are perhaps best known as partners, but I'm watching one of their matches when they were as opponents. The only trouble with this is that I can't find this match, and I'm not about to send you off to torrent it. I like the people at Chikara too much for that. So what I would suggest is google Mike Quackenbush vs Johnny Saint and then buy the match. It's worth it. It really is. To whet your appetite, here is a video of Johnny Saint doing what he does followed by a video of Mike Quackenbush doing what he does.

Shooting Star Presses: A Compendium

When you're a young wrestling fan, the things that boggle your mind sometimes feel embarrassing. Maybe, you were completely gobsmacked by the Ultimate Warrior, or Jake Roberts's DDT. For me though, it was one of my friends in junior high showed me this:



As you might understand, I was through. Jaw on the floor, mouth open, and everything.. As time has gone on, people have added variations to it, twists and planchas with it. But honestly, the simple act of heading to the top rope and hitting this maneuver proves you are, if not the king of the high-flyers, than someone not too far off.  It remains the true apex test of a high flyer, the one thing that separates someone who is billed that way by a lazy promotional structure (looking at you Kofi Kingston) and someone who actually has the go

With that in mind, here are the best Shooting Star Presses ever.



Paul London's bad-ass, and for my money the best, SSP.



And the new king on the throne, Matt Sydal\Evan Bourne

(Side note: You'll notice I didn't put any of the variations in here. The Shooting Star Presses i loved the most are the classics. Find the standing variations as you need to.) 

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.

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.

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 #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.

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.

TMW Dream Matches Pt. 1

It's an old habit of wrestling fans, no matter what kind you're thinking of. Give us some time, and we'll immediately start trying to figure out dream matches. And if nothing else has become apparent about this blog, it should be this. I pride myself on being a wrestling fan. So, these are the matches that I have always thought about. Am I gonna pick winners? Sure. Why the hell not?

The First Ever TMW Trivia Post

I like very much to keep this place humming. And I have not been. I'm sorry for that.

So, with that in mind, I decided to do the best thing to keep things going. A trivia post.

Answer if you dare~!

The Conversion Progress Featuring ESPN Columnist Jemele Hill

It's amazing the things you think about doing when you have a bunch of free time.


One of those things you think about doing is bothering all of your friends on Twitter to watch some wrestling matches, and tell you what they think of them. But that wasn't enough. Rather, I wanted them to watch stuff that wasn't from the WWE. I'm doing this in the same way that Dirty Dirty Sheets is trying to show people good wrestling anywhere that you can find it is just as valuable and important to get the enjoyment you should out of this watching hours upon hours of corporate wrestling where the template for what you see is made in cement. And after some internal debate about who I could convince I went to the one person I know would try this and enjoy it. ESPN columnist Jemele Hill.




It's not that she's written some really acclaimed articles (although she has). It's not that she's been on First Take, the Sports Reporters, Rome is Burning, and Around The Horn (although she has). Truthfully, this is because when she's on twitter I always got the sense that she was open-minded, a sense that was proven right when she agreed to do this.


A pair of quick ground rules because this, Hashimoto willing, is not going to be the last time that I do this:
1: I burned these videos from my own collections before they were give to Ms. Hill. If you want to see everything she saw, go on youtube or find a tape trading site. I'll link the best at the bottom of this post. Ok? Good.


2: I'll be adding my own comments on these matches below Jemele's. Her comments, then, will be in blue to differentiate.

Technical Wrestling Master Class: The USA

I have a massive library of wrestling on my computer. It's not anything to be ashamed of to my way of thinking. Rather, I'm proud of it. And in the course of one day reviewing what I have I came to a sort of conclusion about the sort of wrestling i like. It's not the mindless WWF Main Event Style, and it's not the head-droppy OMG MOVEZ~! stuff that passes for main event work in Ring of Honor currently. What do I enjoy at its core? Technical wrestling. and the high-end stuff. Curious as to what I like and how you could find some of it for yourself? Follow me.