Pro Wrestling Iron "Hot August Fights"

** all matches were clipped (except main) to some degree (ex. slow spots, rest holds)

1) Bart Blaxxon v. Lars Dauger- 3
2) Solo Snuka/ Vito Thomaselli v. Boom Boom Comini/ J.J. Perez- 2
3) Tony Jones v. Doc Schutlz- 3
4) Ace Steele/ Danny Dominion v. Tommy Drake/ Bison Smith- 3
5) Hook Bomberry/ Jett Taylor v. Ric Thompson/ Apollo Kahn- 4
6) Takao Omori/ Maxx Justice v. Michael Modest/ Donovan Morgan- 4
7) Mitsuharu Misawa/ Yoshinari Ogawa v. Vinnie Massaro/ Doug Williams- 5

Blaxxon is a large brute who takes control easily and quickly in this match. Much to my surprise, the whole gets turned around on him by Dauger, who's apparently a British submission expert. He takes a licks and then pulls out a kimora, or hammerlock for the win. 2nd match sees Vito & J.J work the majority of the match, both lighter weight guys who are quicky and look decent in the ring, despite their lack of experience. Snuka is treated as the star of the match but his offense is so goofy i think even Superfly would be thinking "...the fuck?" Boom Boom shouldn't be in a wrestling ring; he should be deep frying french fries at your local Rallys'. Match just goes down hill after that with a lackluster finish. Jones had a cameo as Modest's opponent in "Beyond the Mat", the announcers go on talking about how he is about to sign that big deal he was so close to in the film.....news flash that movie came out in '99, if you haven't gotten that big break 8 years later, it ain't happening. Schultz looks like the poster child for steriods, he's being pushed as the next big thing here but he runs out of gas like my old '92 Cutlass Supreme with the faulty electronic gas gauge. It's decently physical though so I throw it some mercy points.

Next tag is built all around Bison, who I've lambasted before as a big, meaty faux-powerhouse with not a lot of skills. He further pushes that description here, not getting a lot of ring time, and when he does, he's on offense. It's mostly his partner Drake in the ring, who's another rookie, and this guy needs a lot more work. His selling is the shits, no emotion and no believablility, just flops to the ground spot after spot. Steele is a pissant heel, along with his partner, both with long blond Cobain-esque hair. They don't bring a lot, offensively to the table, so the match is quite stagnant. Also a word on the production values; they're in the toilet. Lame, early 90's Windows computer graphic opens the Menu portion of the DVD, and the action itself is the ring, mired in darkness. You can't see the crowd, you can't hear the noise of the ring because of Modest and some other schlub doing commentary. We have yet another tag match, featuring Ric Thompson, Modest' trainer who gets a verbal blowjay throughout. His partner Kahn is pretty atlhletic and puts together some decent stuff with fellow rookie, Bomberry, who's a tiny Little Guido-esque shooter character. He and Thomson did pull off some nice shoulderblocks and hiptosses and made the whole firsthalf enjoyable. Jett Taylor, on the other hand, was looked like an out of shape Reggie Miller, tall, lanky, and droopy. He pulled off some dropkicks that fell short of the mark and that's about it. Finish was a backbend backbridge like Owen Hart used to pull off and I"m impressed.

PWI heads Modest & Morgan show up in ring and provide a decent tag match that would be a filler on any other show, but here they are co-main. Apparently they both have heated fueds with Justice, who's a big tall dufus. They bounce him around with suplexes and such and on offense, he uses all the coolest moves he ripped from Smackdown: Bring the Pain to try out. Omori is a really bland Japanese wrestler, doesn't even chop well. He doesn't add a lot to this match except add another body to get broken by our heroes strong style. Modest self-commentates this match and really strokes his own "lower horn" way too much for my liking. Our main is the only match shown in it's entirety, rest spots and all, and is a decent treat, if only for the novelty of seeing beloved NOAH stars Misawa & Ogawa. Ogawa & Williams work a lot of this together and use some brisk, and plausible reversal sequences much to my enjoyment. Massaro, who's supposedly a die hard Misawa fan, def. needs to lay off the Italian food because he's a bloated meatball. He doesn't do a lot here, despite Modest constantly shoving his work ethic down our throats- his best contribution was getting the shit elbowed out of him by Misawa. Williams doesn't push the match into upper levels, which was disappointing, but he's known to hang back sometimes, inexplicably. In the end, the Japanese contigent got the win, in fairly easy fashion to be honest, but the match was on the length of 20 minutes or so, so at least we got a decent way to bring the show home.