Gaffney Mat Chronicles Volume 1: Pilot

Somehow or someway, Pro Wrestling remains a regular enough constant for me in 2026, and somehow, it has never been something I've written about regularly, until now, that is. Here, we'll begin a new series, Gaffney Mat Chronicles, where we'll review a pair of matches on a somewhat regular basis. I talk and tweet enough about it as is, and quite frankly, have been wanting to dip my toes into some classic stuff enough as it is, and quite frankly, we have a perfectly good New Japan World subscription that I might as well put to good use one way or another. So, every week or two, we'll be reviewing one "classic" match, which we'll define as at least 20 years old, and then a relatively recent match, preferably something that isn't from somewhere I'm watching regularly, but if there's something noteworthy enough, we'll make exceptions.

Now, the main goal here is to ultimately expand our horizons beyond mainly just watching AEW and hints of New Japan and CMLL here and there, but also dip into the past to see a variety of stuff we've never had the chance to. That absolute will range from matches among the best in the history of the medium to matches that sound fun on paper to matches that reach hilariously bad territory, and everything in between, including old school WWF, Jim Crockett Promotions, FMW, NOAH, etc. For part one, though, we're sticking with a fun, quick TV match from the near beginning of the Monday Night War, and a Joshi classic that's among the early front-runners for Match of the Year in 2026.

Retro Match: Randy Savage vs. Scott Norton, WCW Nitro (9/11/95)

It would've been malpractice if the first retro match wasn't a Nitro outing, given the logo of this series, and we're going to the second ever episode, held in Miami, Florida, where the Macho Man Randy Savage collided with a man who unfortunately never hit the highs in the U.S as he did in Japan, former two-time IWGP Heavyweight Champion Scott Norton.

A notable spot for Norton here in that his only prior WCW matches were either at the co-promoted Collision in (North) Korea events earlier that year, vs. the late great Shinya Hashimoto, and then teaming up with New Japan great Masahiro Chono the next night in a sub-10 minute tag match, and then before that, a slew of WCW Staturday Night dates in early 1993. No small thing for Norton here, nevermind that he got a dedicated angle on Nitro's premier going after Mongo McMichael and Savage to set this bout up.

As far as your matches in the five-minute ballpark go, this one is pretty fun, with Savage selling like rents due for Norton, who's working on the Macho Man's back in this one. Loved the sequence of Macho Man doing the borderline obligatory double axe-handle off the top rope to the floor, which sets up a top rope splash attempt back in the ring to a standing Norton who destroys him with a bear hug. Really liked the slew of offense Norton got here, some forearms to the kidneys, scoop slam off an Irish whip, a powerbomb to a ring with no give, and Savage is again, selling great, with Norton either screaming at Mongo from the ring, or proclaiming that Macho's back is broken once every 45 seconds.

A missed heat-check splash by Norton is what turns the tide here, and in the middle of Savage's short comeback, we get a run-in from The Dungeon of Doom's John Tenta (better known as Earthquake, but is The Shark here). Ultimately, it's whatever, since "we" have to sell Fall Brawl in six nights (brother), but the finish, revolving around Tenta, getting knocked out from an inadvertent knee by Norton, falling on Norton's legs, and setting up the Savage elbow drop, was actually a fun touch. Not anything revolutionary here, but a fun, quick TV match by any estimation, and I'll always pop for some Scott Norton graps, and he gets a ton of really cool offense in here. It's genuinely a shame his ceiling wasn't even a little bit higher as a worker on U.S. TV. We'll always have this clip, though, and for that I'm grateful.

As a sidebar, watching this episode of Nitro through (link starts at Norton vs. Savage), I never thought that WCW/Bischoff were spoiling stuff for Raw this early into the Monday Night Wars, but sure enough they were!! Great line from Mongo during the Sting-Wall Street/IRS match a little before Savage-Norton though, "Who cares about [Raw], they named it after a bunch of uncooked eggs? This thing sizzles over here baby."

The Gaffney Rating: 2.75 Stars

Modern Match: Miu Watanabe vs. Suzume, TJPW: Tokyo Joshi Pro '26 at Korakuen Hall (1/4/26)

At the time of writing, three of the top four matches of 2026, according to Cagematch users, all took place in Tokyo, Japan, on January 4th. Before this, the Miu Watanabe vs. Suzume matchup at TJPW's Korakuen Hall show, hours before Wrestle Kingdom 20 in the Tokyo Dome, was the lone matchup of those three I hadn't seen, and I can now say it is worthy of the rave reviews; Miu Watanabe vs. Suzume.

Watanabe, like most of TJPW outside of a few talents like Miyu Yamashita, is admittedly a blind spot for me, but is someone who you hear about in passing as one of the best in Japan, and this was as good a first impression as I could've hoped for, and her dance partner, Suzume, wasn't half bad here either. After some 50/50 chain work to start, this match really revolves around Suzume having answers to the wide bulk of the offense Watanabe throws her way, which has her on the backfoot for a decent portion of the opening half.

Having never really seen anything of Watanabe before, I was not even remotely prepared for how strong she is as a woman who's only listed as 5'3". There's a spot about midway through this match where Suzume tries to hit her running cutter (dubbed the Ring a Bell) and Watanabe essentially catches her mid-air and gets off a giant swing, and I was losing my mind. This was also maybe a minute of her being stuck in a crucifix submission, where she was walking around with Suzume still in the hold before transferring into a DDT. I couldn't believe it, and she does the Claudio Castagnoli variation of this regularly, as I've since found out.

From here on out, it's all systems go. Suzume breaks out a Gory Bomb, Watanabe then fires up out of that, and we get a fallaway powerslam off the second rope to get ahead of Suzume (presumably), going for a crossbody off the top for a false finish. That's then follwed up by Suzume countering Watanabe's Tear Drop finish (an over the shoulder fallaway facebuster) in the Ring a Bell for a two count, follows that up by tight roping the top rope to hit a jumping facebuster to a dazed Watanabe, before Watanabe gets her last fire up, and gets the Tear Drop off for the three and the win.

Unreal match, and beyond that, I can say that I agree with those who (rightfully) believe that Watanabe is as good a visual seller throughout a match, physically and emotionally. A spectacular Joshi worker if there ever was one. The only real complaints I could have is it felt like Suzume was a little bit too married to the facebuster at times, although the one off the tightrope walk was incredible, and I would've liked if there were a few more minutes to flesh out the the finishing portion of this one more, but this is as good a match as you'll see so far in 2026, and count me in as a fan of Miu Watanabe if that wasn't already evident.

The Gaffney Rating: 4.5 Stars