THE MOTHERFUCKING INTERNET: Red v. Ki x2

Red v. Low-Ki ICW 8/25/01

Red v. Low-Ki ICW 9/14/01

ICW has put up a bunch of matches from their first run in 2000-2002 on youtube in the last couple of weeks. This pre ROH period in the East Coast indies, was just full of young guys having amazing matches on tiny little shows up and down Jersey, Delaware and NYC. This was two Puerto Rican kids taking the WCW cruiserweight matches and combining them with Kung Fu movies and doing something no one had seen before. Low-Ki at this point was a total phenomenon, completely home grown guy out of a garage in Brooklyn reinventing US wrestling. It is weird to say this about something as tiny as ROH, but even at its best it never captured the spirit of this kind of stuff, it almost corporatized it, it wasn't about guys stealing the show from a Tommy Dreamer v. Crowbar main event, it was package and presented and never this great again.

Both of these matches totally stand the test of time, the 8/25 match is by far the less well known of the two, but I may have liked it the best. Almost the whole match was the Jackie Chan style of evading and countering and flipping. It was like watching two totally in sync luchadores work an exchange, except it wasn't lucha it was something they were inventing on the spot. Ki was also so great at bringing a beating, really before him most East Coast indy wrestling was super loose, so when you saw Ki flip kick someone, you would totally lose it. 8/25 match had no finish, with Xavier and Kid Kruel running in and attacking both guys, so it definitely felt undercooked, but man was it great.

I imagine the 9/14 show may have been one of the first public events in NYC after the attack on the twin towers, and it had a really surreal aura. Ki comes out with the ICW (or maybe UCW) belt with the American flag folded in it, and he passes the flag to the ref before the match. They start with a Kung Fu stand off which ruled, but the match turns into a more traditional Cruiserweight style match after that. It was a really great Cruiserweight match, stiff, dramatic, cool moves and super nasty clean finish, but I think I prefer the rawer stuff in the first match. Go check both of these out if you haven't seen them or haven't seen them in years, totally holds up.