BREAKING NEWS! New Member Added to AWL Faction!

                Ladies and gentlemen, it has just been brought to my attention that Ma-Ji-Ku has been officially welcomed to the AWL All Stars!  “Peacemaker” Luke James made this announcement just a few moments ago:

                “We are proud to welcome the longest reigning champion of any division in AWL History to the AWL All Stars.  It’s our hope that this infusion of news blood will help revitalize the AWL All Stars and bring us greater success in and out of the ring.”

                Additionally, it appears that Ma-Ji-Ku’s first match as an AWL All Star will be the AWL vs. NJPW Atomicos Match tomorrow at AWL 234: Prelude to a Golden War.

Interview with Matt Classic Jr.

                As was announced yesterday, the Test of Ten continues tomorrow with Matt Classic Jr. facing Tanaka Kenichi in the 3^rd match of the series.  His stated intention from the beginning was to earn a Golden Opportunity to make up for costing Shin Jidai a tag team title match about a month ago.  However, since then, the Shin Jidai duo of Wyvern and Azteckaizer NEO have won the tag gauntlet and thus have a tag team title match of their own at Golden War 2018.  I caught up with The Invoker to see if these recent developments have affected his thoughts going into the third match of the series this weekend:

Matt Classic Jr.:

                This doesn’t change a thing.  I’m happy Wyvern and NEO are going to the Golden War.  I’m sure they’re going to bring the tag team titles and a couple tiger skin rugs back to Shin Jidai.  But this wasn’t about them.  It’s always been about me.  About me proving myself to the team.  About me having an accomplishment that was mine, not my father’s and not my team’s.  Yes, I planned to use the Golden Opportunity to challenge for the tag titles, but now I can just use it to challenge for the AWL Grand Championship.  Like I said, nothing has changed.  Tomorrow, I have Tanaka Kenichi.  Next week, it’ll be someone else.  I’m going to pass this test with flying colors.

Full Card for AWL 234: Prelude to a Golden War

MAIN EVENT:

Hassan vs. Bigfoot vs. Luke James vs. Project Tetsu 2.0

Reshuffle Match—Winner challenges at Golden War 2018

Team AWL vs. Team NJPW

Atomicos Match

Matt Classic Jr. (OOX) vs. THUGLIFE Tanaka Kenichi

Test of Ten Match #3

El Hijo Del Ma-Ji-Ku vs. El Rudo Rojo

Mr. Smiles vs. John Hero

Dragoness & Akira Merune vs. Athena Jane & Usa-chan

Joshi Championship Preview Tag Team Match

Don't forget about this week!

                Golden War 2018 may be just around the corner, but don’t forget about this weekend’s AWL 234 event!  In the main event, all 4 members of the AWL Best 4 will face off in a Reshuffle Match.  The last man or machine standing will challenge HAKAISHA! for the AWL Grand Championship at Golden War 2013.

                Even though Shin Jidai have earned 3 points in the tag team division, the Test of Ten must continue.  This week, in Match #3, Matt Classic Jr. pits his wits and skills against a man who has neither.  That’s right, THUGLIFE Tanaka Kenichi is the next opponent.

                The main event for Golden War 2018 is set, but before that, the 4 women who will vie for the right to all themselves champion will share the ring…in a tag team match playa!  (I’m sorry, that just comes out sometimes when a tag team match is made on a go home show.)

                Lastly for this post, with the challenge offered and accepted, New Japan and the AWL will clash in an Atomicos Match!

                We expect the card to be finalized some time in the next
24 hours.  Stay tuned because we’ll update you on the full card as soon as we have it.

Throwing down the gauntlet match!

                If you remember back at our Season 12 premier, we had a friendly contest between the AWL and New Japan Pro Wrestling that ended in a time limit draw.  Well, we were perfectly happy to part as equals, but New Japan has other ideas apparently.

                According to my sources, the Golden*Lovers showing up in the Tag Team Gauntlet Match was the casting of the gauntlet…er…pun not intended.  We have been challenged to an inter-promotional series of matches at Golden War 2018.

                I speak on behalf of the entire Animated Wrestling League, wrestlers, staff, and administration: WE ACCEPT!  New Japan, bring your best, we’ll see you on Golden Week!

Golden War 2018 card so far.

                That…was the longest…freaking…match…I have ever called!  DAMN!  The next Tag Team Gauntlet Match isn’t scheduled until this fall at the Tag Matsuri.  At this point, that’s not nearly far enough away.  But the good news is that we now have #1 Contenders for the AWL World’s Tag Team Championships at Golden War 2018.  That means the card so far is as follows:

MAIN EVENT:

Athena Jane vs. Dragoness vs. Akira Merune vs. Usa-Chan

AWL Joshi Championship LADDER MATCH

Tiger Mask W (C) vs. Shin Jidai (Wyvern & Azteckaizer Neo) (3)

AWL World Tag Team Championship Match

1^st Title Defense

AWL 233: Tag Team Gauntlet

Full card for AWL 233: Tag Team Gauntlet

AWL 233: Tag Team Gauntlet!

MAIN EVENT:

Tag Team Gauntlet Match!

To be contested to 3 points!

Project 鉄 2.0 vs. Project Z

Fight for 4

Matt Classic Jr. (OOX) vs. El Rudo Rojo

Test of Ten Match 2

Must be a winner!

                I can only assume the idea of making the top two power houses of The Augments fight each other in a Fight for 4 is the AWL Commissioner’s idea of a joke.  But it does the job of keeping The Augments out of the gauntlet.  The card for Golden War 2018 is beginning to take shape, so stay tuned for all the news and match announcements for the Animated Wrestling League!

HUGE match announcement (Seriously, it'll be more than half the episode!)

                By order of the AWL Commissioner, the main event of 
AWL 233 will be a Tag Team Gauntlet Match.  Two teams will begin, after every fall, another team enters.  The first team to earn 3 points will challenge new champions Tiger Mask W at Golden War 2018.  All registered tag teams other than the reigning champions are eligible to compete.

About that El Rudo Rojo match...

Last weekend there was an unfortunate mistake on the part of AWL Senior Official Joey Babaganoush of the famous Babaganoush wrestling family.  In the final pinfall, EL Rudo Rojo had his feet on the ropes granting him unfair leverage and constituting an illegal hold.  Unfortunately, Referee Babaganoush didn’t see the violation and counted to three anyway.

The decision of an AWL official is final and irreversible.  However, this error cost Matt Classic Jr. his second life in the Test of Ten.  After days of deliberation, the AWL Commissioner has made the following decision:

1. The match result stands and will remain in the AWL Win-Loss Records.

2. El Rudo Rojo has been fined an amount equal to what he would have been paid for winning the match.

3. Matt Classic Jr. HAS NOT lost a life!  He remains with 2 lives and 8 matches remaining including a rematch with El Rudo Rojo.

              
               4. That match will take place this weekend and there must be a winner.

AWL 232: Shorter Than Last Week AND LWP WM Fleur dis Lis Review LIVE...ish.

First and foremost, the AWL:


And now my thoughts on Wrestlemania:

Tag Team Promos

As per AWL custom, I turn this final blog entry before AWL 232 over to the champions and challengers in this weekend’s title match.  First, the challengers:

Spring Tiger (Translated from the original Japanese):

                For as long as anyone can remember, there have been two schools of the Tiger Style, the Tiger’s Den and the Tiger’s Cave.  Think of them as the Golden Tiger Style and the Black Tiger Style.  The Golden Style is the one practiced by the Tiger Mask dynasty and the Black Tiger Style is practiced by…well, duh!

                Tiger Mask W is the first attempt in recorded history to unify the two schools.  Tiger the Dark has more than proven himself as a hero despite his history and the skill and character of Tiger Mask II are beyond question.  There are no better candidates to bring the schools together.  Forming the team was the first step.  The second will be to win and hold the AWL World’s Tag Team Titles.  If a Tiger Mask and a Black Tiger can be tag team champions, anything is possible.

                I’ve been asked about 500 times since last weekend why we don’t want to wait until Golden War to challenge for the titles.  Well, like T49P, we’re eager for the challenge.  But beyond that, we want to go INTO Golden War as champions and retain against whomever the 3-point system can put before us.  We don’t want Golden War to be about the Tiger Style coming together.  We want it to be about the Tiger Style dominating the AWL Tag Team Division.

T49P:

Hassan:

FINALLY!  A chance to defend the titles!  I’ve been AWL Tag Team Champion before (with a bug who shall remain nameless) and I can tell you from experience that this is the hardest part.  Waiting for someone to earn 3 points.  Not that I want the AWL to switch to something stupid like “You get a title shot because the boss said so.”  But there has to be a way to avoid literally months without a chance to get in the ring and prove to the world what we can do.  HAKAISHA! has the V6 project, maybe we need a V7 project.

But this weekend’s all about the tigers.  Tiger Mask II, you’ve been in the AWL almost as long as I have.  I’ve seen you grow from a green as grass kid under Tiger Mask I’s shadow into being your own man.  You’ve earned everything you’ve gotten in this sport and I know you’re going to be AWL Grand Champion one day.  Tiger the Dark, you I don’t know that well.  All I know about you was you trying to take over the AWL, succeeding, and forcing our titles to be vacated less than an hour after we won them.  So, thanks for that.

            However, you’re not going to cement your legacy by stepping over Kid Canada and myself.  We’ve waited too long to defend these titles to be taken down by anyone.  So, bring your Tiger Styles, and we’ll show you just how hard it is to make a Border Crossing!

Danger Zone Update #1

                It’s that time of the season again!  While we’re all focused on Golden War 2018, the Joshi Championship Ladder Match, all the titles being defended, etc. AWL 240 is only about 2 months away meaning that it’s time to talk about the Danger Zone.

                The 4 wrestlers with the worst career win-loss records are considered to be in the Danger Zone and must wrestle each other in a Batsumania Match at the Season 12 Finale.  The loser of that match will be immediately FIRED from the Animated Wrestling League!

                As of AWL 231: SakuraMania WrestleGenesis (I love that name and it’s coming back next year for our Wrestlemania week show), the danger zone looks like this:

Wrestler	Win	Loss	Total	as of AWL 231
Tanaka Kenichi	40	-53	-13	G.O.
Mr. Smiles	7	-18	-11
Cage	3	-12	-9
El Rudo Rojo	40	-49	-9

                G.O. stands for Golden Opportunity.  Yes, that annoying little idiot is STILL sitting on his free title match for some reason God only knows and I don’t care about.  Additionally, while it may look like Cage and El Rudo Rojo are just a match away from saving themselves, the next lowest ranked wrestler (Luke James) is a full three wins ahead of them.  While it’s certainly possible that the rankings could change between now and AWL 40, it doesn’t look likely.

Graduation Match Announced!!

                For the first time since the return of the Animated Wrestling League, AWL Head Trainer (and first AWL Champion) Dragon has informed the AWL Commissioner that he has two students who are ready to face each other in their Graduation Match!

                A Graduation Match is the final step in completing your studies at the AWL Dojo and becoming a full time member of the AWL Roster.  It’s a one on one match contested under standard AWL Rules.  The only unusual thing is that it’s NOT counted in the AWL Win-Loss Records.  That’s so the loser, if and when they win a Graduation Match in the future, doesn’t start their AWL career in negative numbers.

                What makes this Graduation match interesting is who’s in it.  We at the AWL have had a long unofficial association with Chikara.  Their wrestlers are always welcome on our shows, their Grand Champion competed in the Kyukyoku no Summit last year, and now I can finally announce that Chikara has been sending some of their Wrestle Factory prospects to us as a form of excursion similar to what the Young Lions in New Japan go through.  So, if this first name sounds familiar to you that’s why:

Equinox IV

                Long time Chikara fans know the history of that name and that mask so you’ll understand why we here at the AWL consider it an honor to have contributed to his training.

                The next name?  You don’t have to know a single thing about a single wrestler or promotion outside of the AWL to know that this is a big freaking deal:

El Hijo del Ma-Ji-Ku

                You.  Read.  That.  Right!  The son of Ma-Ji-Ku has been training in secret in the AWL Dojo with his father’s blessing for over a year.  That’s one reason Ma-Ji-Ku never signed a full-time deal with GWM, he didn’t want his son exposed to that kind of wrestling.

                In Lucha Libre culture, it’s a big deal for a father to pass his name, and more importantly his mask, on to the next generation.  It’s an honor that has to be earned and the fact that El Hijo del Ma-Ji-Ku has earned his mask before even having a single professional match says a lot about the potential of this young man.

                So, at AWL 232, it will be legacy vs. legacy and we’ll see which legend begins anew.

Equinox IV vs. El Hijo del Ma-Ji-Ku

Graduation Match

Here we go again.

                Greetings wrestling fans!  While most of us are in the middle of our post Wrestlemania week hangovers (both figurative and literal as the case may be), the twelfth season of the Animated Wrestling League waits for no man!  At least this week we have a far saner number of matches scheduled.  Two of which, we already know about:

T49P (C) vs. Tiger Mask W (3)

AWL World’s Tag Team Championship Match

2^nd Title Defense

                Tiger Mask W earned their third point at SakuraMania Wrestle Genesis and, from what I hear, the AWL Commissioner wanted to save this title match for the Golden War and would have do if Team Victory had earned #1 contender status instead, but both Spring Tiger (speaking for Tiger Mask W) and T49P demanded that the match take place as soon as possible.  I can only guess as to the tiger team’s reasoning, but I know for a fact that Hassan and Kid Canada have been spoiling for a fight since their last title match was over 2 months ago!  Are they being hasty?  How will we find new challengers in time for Golden War 2018?  There are a lot of questions going into this, but one thing is certain, this is going to be one hell of a main event!

Matt Classic Jr. (OOX) vs. El Rudo Rojo

Test of Ten: Match #2

                As you can see from that big black X next to his name, Matt Classic Jr. has lost his first life in the Test of Ten.  Now, he must face El Rudo Rojo again and beat him if he hopes to not only continue his trials and earn a Golden Opportunity for Shin Jidai, but save his AWL Contract and possibly his wrestling career.  El Rudo Rojo?  He just needs to rack up wins if he wants to stay out of Batsumania this year (more on that later this week by the way).

                Those are the matches we already knew about, now for some actual news in this news post.  Last week’s trios match between the AWL team of Luke James, Ganba, and Doombunny versus The Augments went to a time limit draw.  This week, the AWL Commissioner has decided to up the ante to literally unprecedented levels and book the first ever AWL Atomicos Match!

Ganba, Luke James, HAKAISHA!, & The Doombunny vs. The Augments (Tetsu, Z, & X-Drone)

Atomicos Match

                Just in case you’re not familiar with the term, an Atomicos Match is also known as an 8-man tag team match.  It’s wrestled to one fall and standard AWL Rules apply.  As it’s a multi-man match, a 15 minute time limit will be in effect so those eight men (or 3 men, 4 machines, and 1 bunny) had better bring their A-game and have eyes in the back of their heads.  I pity the referee.

                More matches will be announced later this week.

AWL 231: SakuraMania WrestleGenesis!

Full Card for AWL 231.

Greetings Wrestling Fans!

                Sorry for only having one post this week and for being a day late and a dollar short, but it’s been a crazy busy week in both real life and in wrestling as I’m sure you can imagine.  Yes, we WILL have an episode of the Animated Wrestling League this week!  And since all the other companies are having big shows right about now, ours will be no different.  This weekend, the Animated Wrestling League will proudly present:

AWL 231: SakuraMania WrestleGenesis!!

MAIN EVENT:

HAKAISHA! (C) vs. Project Tetsu

AWL Grand Championship Match

4^th Title Defense

                The Japanese Destroyer defends his AWL Grand Championship against the man…machine…whatever that holds the record he’s trying to break.  Hakaisha’s V6 Project runs into an iron wall this weekend.  Dr. Jigoku’s Augments are on a roll lately, will they regain control of the biggest prize in animated wrestling?  You’ll have to tune in to find out.

Team Victory (2) vs. The New Classics (0)

Points in Play

Tiger Mask W (2) vs. Big Time Thug S (1)

Points in Play

                The AWL Tag Team Division needs challengers like Mars needs women!  (There’s a dated reference for you.)  Since we have two teams with two points, they will BOTH get a chance to earn a title match this weekend.  Even if the other guys don’t value tag team wrestling, we do!

Solo Darling 2 vs. Usa-chan 2

Joshi Championship Qualifying Match

                After running the table last weekend, Solo Darling of The Rumblebees is one win away from joining Athena Jane, Dragoness, and Akira Merune in the main event of Golden War 2018 with a chance to become the first ever AWL Joshi Champion.  But so is The Most Dangerous Diva.  After failing against Akira Merune a few weeks ago, this is Usa-Chan’s last chance to make history.

Fredrick Victor vs. Michael Dunne

World of Sport Rules

                It is what it is.  Frederick Victor can’t win under AWL Rules, so he has to make up his own.  The AWL Roster’s newest rookie member made a decent showing of himself against Matt Classic Jr. last week, can he step up against Frederick Victor and claim the first win of his AWL career?

Matt Classic Jr. (OOO) vs. El Rudo Rojo

Test of Ten Match #2

                One down and nine to go!  Matt Classic Jr’s quest for a Golden Opportunity and tag team title match for Shin Jidai continues.  This week, Matt faces fellow second-generation wrestler and perennial resident of the Danger Zone El Rudo Rojo.  The biggest surprise of this match is that El Rudo Rojo still has an AWL contract.

Project-Z set for action!

                All that action and more coming your way at what might me the second best wrestling show of the weekend behind NXT Takeover, AWL 231: SakuraMania WrestleGenesis!

(If you’re wondering, yes.  There will be a Wrestlemania review episode of The Last Wrestling Podcast.  Not sure when that will be however.)

AWL 230: The Long Road