AEW Dynasty (4-21-2024)

LIVE from St. Louis, it’s AEW Dynasty! You only get so many chances to watch a first-ever wrestling event. One, really. If you’re alive and stuff.

Let’s go! SPOILER: Arguably the greatest match on American soil ever happened on this show, and Chris Jericho has done it again!!

(Requests open and tips always appreciated!)

Samoa Joe vs Brad Bradley (IWA Mid-South, 4-9-2005)

IWA Mid-South Simply the Best 6, Highland, IN

A request! This one came in about a month ago from the great Joe Hulbert on my birthday. First of all, thank you. Second of all, the request was “a Samoa Joe match of your choice” and my mind immediately went to digging into his IWA Mid-South run, because I like to take any excuse.

Commentary mentions the night before in Midlothian, Ill., where Joe wrestled Ian Rotten, which was always the greatest honor an indie star could be given in 2003-05 IWA MS, to roll around a little with Ian. And yes, it was a good fucking match.

(Requests open and tips always appreciated!)

Dan Maff & Samoa Joe vs Vader & Mike Awesome (JAPW, 6-5-2004)

JAPW When Worlds Collide, Rahway, NJ

A request! I’m not sure if I’ve ever watched this match or not; I knew of its existence, and I feel like I did watch it once, albeit probably a decade after it happened, but I’m not 100 percent. I do remember watching and loving the Joe vs Balls Mahoney match at the JAPW/ROH co-promoted January ’04 show.

You can watch the match on YouTube.

(Requests open and tips always appreciated!)

Samoa Joe vs Homicide (ROH, 4-23-2004)

ROH Reborn: Stage One, St. Paul, MN

From the first night of the “Reborn” weekend, ROH’s first after the Feinstein scandal, getting their ducks back in a row, getting the company ready to move on, and becoming what it really was to me, because right about here is where I first got into it. The next night was their debut in Chicago (Ridge), and my first ROH live show.

Joe has already held the ROH title a while (I don’t feel like looking it up and don’t remember off hand) and become a true dominant champion, and Homicide had a shot at him and the belt back in May 2003 in Philadelphia, which Joe of course won. They also had a non-title, no holds barred match in October 2003, which Homicide won.

(Requests open and tips always appreciated!)

CM Punk vs Samoa Joe (AEW, 8-27-2023)

AEW All In: London, London, England

Well, I reckon this one really might have been it for ol’ CM Punk, as he did go ahead and get himself fired after this match at Wembley Stadium.

I’m a CM Punk fan. Will always be a CM Punk fan, I suspect, unless he does something more heinous than not like some wrestlers I don’t know personally and may be every bit as annoying as he believes they are. But I also kinda felt like this was going to be it once the reports started flying around. He didn’t seem to want to be there at all. And I think, in the end, that CM Punk and pro wrestling in the 2020s may just be incompatible. It’s a world he’s not built for, and a world not built for him. Something had to give, and it did. Repeatedly.

(Requests open and tips always appreciated!)

REVIEW: ROH Death Before Dishonor (7-21-2023)

From Trenton, New Jersey, at the CURE Insurance Arena, fka Sovereign Bank Arena and Sun National Bank Center! Insane to me that ROH hasn’t been to New Jersey since 2012 and only once since 2009.

I am ready to die before I take part in or even observe any dishonor.

CM Punk vs Samoa Joe (AEW, 7-8-2023)

AEW Collision, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada

I was hoping to get in all the previous Joe vs Punk matches before this inevitably came up, but I didn’t. I only watched rightfully non-famous ROH and PWG matches, but I want to see this without being spoiled and I couldn’t watch live, so I gotta just GIT-R-DONE!!

This is a semifinal match in this year’s Owen Hart Foundation Men’s Tournament.

(Requests open and tips always appreciated!)

Men’s Royal Rumble (WWE, 1-27-2019)

WWE Royal Rumble, Phoenix, AZ

A request! HEY! If you’re the requester of this request, which was a double request, I’ve already done your other request, the requested Brock Lesnar vs Finn Balor match from this same show. Please request another request! @ me on Twitter or DM me there; I may not see either super fast, but I can’t think of another way. Email? tapemachines at gmail dot com.

Anyway, here we are in Phoenix, beginning the Road to WrestleMania 35 proper at the Rooooooyal Rumble. 30 fellas will compete for a chance to challenge for either the WWE Championship, currently at this point held by Daniel Bryan, or the WWE Universal Championship, currently at this point held by Brock Lesnar.

(Requests open and tips always appreciated!)

CM Punk & FTR vs Samoa Joe, Jay White & Juice Robinson (AEW, 6-17-2023)

AEW Collision, Chicago, IL

Went to this show! Great time! My first AEW show, Punk back in the company, Chicago. United Center is a damn sight better venue than Allstate Arena out in Rosemont, I can say that, but Allstate is OK, it’s basically just, you know, a crucial ~15 years older. A lot changes with this stuff in 15 years. And shit, at this pointed the United Center is nearly 30 years old.

I just kinda wanted to watch this back again.

(Requests open and tips always appreciated!)

CM Punk vs Samoa Joe (PWG, 11-15-2003)

PWG An Inch Longer Than Average, Los Angeles, CA

This is at the Westside Jewish Community Center with about 155 fans in attendance, PWG’s fifth-ever show and years before Dave Meltzer proclaimed it the only indie on the planet that mattered because he didn’t want to watch video of any of the other ones, and refused to accept that many of the matches that PWG booked had happened elsewhere first and it was just the local bringing in a touring match.

Now don’t get hard, I don’t hate Meltzer, and in fact I think it’s kind of sweet that in a world of expanding video and later live streaming options, Dave chose to treat it like the territory days without magazines. If it didn’t happen in the Los Angeles area, brother, it didn’t matter.

(Requests open and tips always appreciated!)