HUSTLE-1 1/4/2004

 HUSTLE-1 1/4/2004

 NOTE - Whoever uploaded this chose a DVD that has a bunch of skipping on it which made gif'ing some of this hard.

 

Low Ki vs. Jun Kasai vs. King Adamo vs. MIKAMI

To get things started off on the wrong foot, everyone in the first mathc comes out together. This makes no sense since there's nothing stopping anyone from hitting the other before the bell. Mikami does a dive and the camera's miss most of it. Kasai gets backdropped onto Adamo on the outside. Ki does a flying space tiger drop on the outside which again the camera's aren't in the best position to catch. Adam rubs his butt on Mikami's face like a stinkface and he throws him up and then down for a slam, but the video froze and I couldn't gif it. Kasai moved on an Adamo butt drop and they do a tower of doom with Adamo. Kasai goes on top of a ladder and Adamo shakes it, giving Kasai a scary fall. Adamo keeps losing his pants and showing his crack. Mikiami does a swanton off the ladder and then gets thrown into it and moonsaults off it. Ki hits the reverse shining wizard on Kasai and does a handspring kick into Mikami who is sitting on the top rope. The video had issues again there and I couldn't gif it. Ki then beat Kasai with a Ki Krusher. This was just a spotfest without any meaning or story.

Ikuto Hidaka vs Zebraman

The finish

They do some basic stuff and a face-off to start. They go outside and Hidaka goes out to the second area before the mats and rails. They come in and Hidaka grabs the ref while low blowing Zebra, then tries to rip the mask. Hidaka took a foward rolling samoan drop and a legdrop from the top for 2. Zebra climbs up the ropes and Hidaka does a sunset bomb. They both recover and Zebra crossbodies Hidaka on the apron. Zebra then gorilla presses Hidaka from the ramp to the inside. Zebra crossbodies him then does a reverse firemans carry into a sit down slam for the win. They did too much and didn't sell any of it. I also couldn't really figure out who was the face or the heel.

We then see Zebra take off his mask and gloves backstage and we get a Takada and Goldberg segment.

Takada is eating chicken and calls it bad chicken. He talks with Goldberg and they say Ogawa is the good chicken and that it's time to eat him. Ogawa IIRC used to say something like "I'm Chicken", hence this.

"Do the Hustle..yeahhhh" - Golderg

Ogawa is backstage reading a book and the announcer tries to get him to say "Do the Hustle". He elbows him and Ogawa and Hashimoto say "3-2-1 Hustle Hustle".

Dos Caras Jr. and Solar vs Kaz Hayashi and Satoshi Kojima

Dos and Solar come out to "Sky High". It's kind of weird because that's Mil Mascaras' song and he's on the show. Dos Caras Jr. is the future Alberto Del Rio and is actually Dos Caras' son.

To start, Solar and Kaz do a nice lucha mat sequence but Solar starts to lose his balance during the tail end of it. Dos does a nice flying double cross chop and a nice double underhook front suplex into a pin attempt. Kaz hit a nice spinwheel kick. Solar and Koji did bad plancha's on the outside. Dos and Kaz's dives were better. Solar did a lucha cradle submission and hit Kaz with a nice superkick. Dos did his gorilla press into a german suplex move that I never liked because he lets his opponent down on his feet in-between the gorilla press and the german. Solar did another cool lucha submission on Kojima and tripped Koji into a la magistral for 2 off a lariat attempt. Koji then lariated him for the win. The crowd was totally dead for this but this wasn't bad at all. A real shame since the guys tried but there's no hope with this crowd...or this show. Dos Caras Jr. looks like the next big thing here and looks 100% different than the Alberto Del Rio you might be used to.

Kevin Randleman and The Predator vs Emblem (Masato Tanaka and Shinjiro Ohtani)

Predator goes through the crowd in his Bruiser Brody impersonation schtick(he would later go on to be Sylvester Terkay) and knocks over a fan. Randleman JUMPS OVER the top rope to get in. Randleman jumps over a legsweep then does a nice spear on Ohtani. Ohtani slaps Randleman hard and hits some nice forearms on him. Emblem beat up on Predator which is not how you do monster heels at all. Randleman bit Tanaka's leg and then Tanaka bit his finger with Ohtani. Ohtani did a facewash that the camera's mostly missed. Randleman jumped over a Tanaka spear then did a springboard crossbody. Ohtani hit a big backdrop on Predator and then Tanaka took him down with a pair of clotheslines. Tanaka did his DDT/Cutter combo and frogsplashed Predator. Predator and Randleman did a sideslam/elbow combo. Randleman hit a big elbow from the top and Predator did a big knee from the top. Predator got the win with a muscle buster here. Randleman was pretty good but this match needed to be the Japanese guys getting beat up by Predator before making a comeback and going to the finish. That didn't really happen and instead we had Tanaka going 1v1 clean with The Predator most of the time.

They had a segment with Silva and Ogawa almost getting into it. Boy, what a match that would be.

Handicap Match - Giant Silva vs Katsuhisa Fuji and Kohei Sato

Silva got Andre's old Japanese music, because no wrestler here can possibly just be their own personality. This was a quick squash with Silva destroying both guys. I would have never have done this if I were Sato.

Vader vs Shinya Hashimoto

About 10 years later on this one. Peak Hash vs Vader would have been epic.  Vader teases throwing his mask to the crowd, then doesn't. Vader is just a little off early and have a not great strike exchange. Vader just kind of laid on him for a little and then Hash made a comeback quickly and armbar'd him. Vader called the ref a cocksucker as he took more offense. They did some bad brawling on the outside and Hashimoto won by DDT'ing Vader on the floor outside for the countout. Well, he got the loudest pop of the night so far. Unfortunately, it was all boos. This was garbage and a sad display.

They had some diva girls out in the ring posing and stuff, which I'm glad I fast forwarded through. Takada and Goldberg told us to do the hustle again and the announcer who Ogawa nailed earlier went back into his space. Ogawa was running in place over Takada photos.

Corino did a promo with Dusty and Tom Howard yelling "ichiban" and mostly just saying their names.

Tom Howard, Dusty Rhodes and Steve Corino vs Mil Mascaras, Dos Caras and Sicodelico Jr. 

They tease starting off with Mil and Dusty, which Corino spoils, thankfully. I still would have saved Mil for last. Mil does his headscissors on Corino. Mil stretches out Corino, does his flying double chop and Dos joins him for a second one. The problem is we are only a few minutes in and we've seen all the main Mil spots. Dusty takes a couple shots on Sico and Corino comes back in. Sico tries a corkscrew splash from the corner but Corino moves and they trade superkicks. Dos and Tom came in, Dos hit the flying double chop and a dropkick and Howard scurried out when he tried to wrap his legs out.  Dos then hit a plancha on the outside on him.  Tom tagged Dusty in and right when Dusty was going to fight Mil, Corino tagged himself in. Mil 2v1'd Howard and Corino. Then Corino started beating up on Dos and trying to get heat. Dos stretched out Corino. We got near the finish and Dos tied up Dusty near the corner, then Corino pushed both and got a crossbody from Mil for the Mil win. Hey you wanted Mil vs Dusty? Not today. Probably the last chance to ever see these two go at it and it never happened. What a shitty show.

Corino turned on Dusty after, but who cares?

Toshiaki Kawada vs Mark Coleman

I think this actually could be good if they work it right, but Coleman's not really a wrestler and it probably won't happen. They did some quick strikes and Mark got the edge, before Kawada made a nice comeback with slaps. Coleman did a big slam and an eh ground and pound on Kawada. Coleman did another slam and took an armbar from Kawada. Coleman got a great right hand on Kawada and Kawada sold it like a knockdown but then just kicked him and got back up soon after. Coleman did a great belly to belly which Kawada didn't sell, then Kawada kicked him in the face. Coleman then hit two more belly to belly suplexes and did a head and arm choke on Kawada. Kawada and Coleman had a kick and punch exchange and Kawada did a rolling legbar. Then they both hit legbars. Kawada broke out of Coleman's and beat him with a legbar. I really liked this and thought Coleman actually outworked Kawada. There was nothing wrong with this at all minus Kawada no selling the suplexes and this was a good mma vs wrestling match.

Naoya Ogawa vs Goldberg

They traded small headbutts to start and Goldberg hit a big clothesline. Goldberg grabbed Ogawa by the throat and gorilla pressed him into a near spear. Goldberg did a rolling knee bar and Ogawa turned it into a leglock of his own. Ogawa did a nice judo throw and then hooked another legbar. They traded some weak slaps in the legbar position and Goldberg turnd it into a single leg crab. Goldberg hit a big single underhook suplex. They fought over a backdrop which Ogawa hit and Ogawa put him in the choke. Goldberg went to the corner to break it up and Ogawa hit the ref who went down. Goldberg hit a big spear. Ogawa sidestepped another spear and hit an STO. Ogawa hit another STO, though this one wasn't any good. Goldberg fell down due to exhaustion and Ogawa went to attack him but Giant Silva tripped him on the ropes and then hit him. They both got back up and Goldberg hit another spear. Goldberg then hit the jackhammer, woke the ref up and pinned Ogawa.

The match wasn't that bad, but the interference and ref bumps were pretty dumb. I get that they were trying to build to Silva/Ogawa at another show...but it's Giant Silva and it's the first show.

Hashimoto came out for Ogawa and they argued with Takada, Goldberg and crew. Ogawa hit Takada and Hashimoto challenged Goldberg, but that never came to be.

Overall thoughts: A pretty bad show. It didn't have to be. The MMA guys came to work and did a pretty good job, but the WWE-style segments sucked, the finishes and booking of the matches wasn't very good and it capped off with a dirty finish on the first show.