XCW Midwest Payback Time 10/17/09

Todd Morton v. The Real Deal Derrick Neal

TKG: It’s Todd Morton working a pretty straight opener . No heat garnering horseshit. I assume Derrick Neal is a trainee or something as this was laid out really well but Neal’s execution felt really rookie level.

PAS: Todd Morton is a tremendous wrestler, but we only got to see flashes of this here. I loved the spot where he backed Neal into the corner and mule kicked him low, and the payback spot out of the knuckle lock and bridge was cool too. Still Neal didn’t contribute much and we only got a page or two of the Morton playbook

New Age Assassin v. Platinum Chris Phoenix

PAS: Platinum Chris Phoenix (which is a god awful name) is a really thick guy who kind of looks and wrestles like an indy Brock Lesner. Assassin does a nice job bumping around for all of Phoenixes shoulder blocks and bodyslams, and sneaks in shots here and there. Phoenix was clearly pretty early in his training, but he hit a nasty finishing supelex and was an impressive specimen for indy wrestling. I think he would be pretty good as a Mitch Ryder tag partner to work the apron and come into hit big spots on the heels.

TKG: Yeah I dug this. New Age Assassin flies around for Chris Phoenix and then does the SNME face chases heel around ring till face is ambushed coming into ring. I really dug all of New Age Assassin’s cheap shot into offense moves as he never did anything that was unbelievable given the size difference, but when he was in control you totally bought him in control

Simon Sezz v. Jason Bradley

TKG: Last two matches had kind of bulky oiled up babyfaces. This one had Simon Sezz. And we are in workrate T-shirted indy wrestling territory here.I’ve really been digging Simon Sezz of late as he is a guy who works real 2002 Alex Shelley offense but works it into this really old school face/heel context without it coming off as either masturbatory moves or ironic winking. I’ve never seen Jason Bradley but he was fun as heavyset T-shirted heel vs skinny T shirted face, doing amusing stooge bumps and cutting Sezz off with big throws.

PAS: I am not sure whether Simon Sezz would stand out in Evolve, but having one guy do Evolvish offense in a fed like this kind of works. He really knows how to put 2000 ends offense in context. His fancy shit looks less Chris Sabin and more Skip Young.

Bull Pain v. Flash Flanagan

TKG: So I’ve really been enjoying title match Flash Flannigan as a guy who always has neat finishes done well. Here unfortunately the finish felt abrupt and semi blown. Everything up to the finish was amazing. Bull Pain is just a wrecking machine, and Flash is a guy who comes off tough for taking Pain’s stuff and waiting for his spots to crotch Pain against the ring post. I’ve seen lots of distract a ref spots and there is just something natural about Flash’s distract a ref spots where it feels less formula and more like the way you actually distract a cashier in a store before robbing them.

PAS: Bull Pain is one of the more believably violent guys in all of wrestling. I have seen a lot of great looking headbutts in my day, but Pain aims his forehead right at Flash’s temple and just looks debilitating. Flash fires back just as rough, and he is truly one of the best wrestlers I have ever seen at timing his comebacks, there is an awesome moment where he catches Pain with a DDT right as he is entering the ring and it is just perfectly done. It is too bad the finish was so awkward, because this was pretty close to a tremendous match

Mitch Ryder v. Chris Michaels

PAS: This was that tremendous match though. This was a feud ending falls count anywhere match, and was one of the times where XCW-Midwest reached the big time Memphis main event heights that they aim for. They start with a pretty great arena tour with both guys exchanging big shots and they climb up and down the bleachers. This is a fed full of guys with great looking right hands, but Michaels was winning the contests with some corkers. It slows down some in the middle with both guys bleeding and selling fatigue, and then they build again to a big time finish run with a bunch of spots around a steel chair. They weren’t using the chair innovatively, it was just an exclamation point to all of their shots. XCW is a fed with some questionable finishes to big matches, this finish felt like the ending of both a match and a feud. Great shit, and exactly why I watch this fed.

TKG: Yeah this was the match. This was a pretty fun card top to bottom. And this match on the top is not just the reason why you watch this fed, but pretty much the reason why you watch wrestling. They just go at it all over the arena with Ryder attacking Chris to start and then the bleacher tour with constant teases of big falls. The look on Ryder’s face when he realizes he has drawn first blood, looking at the blood on his hands and realizing where it came from, is great. The crowd is totally behind Ryder and you feel yourself chanting “Go Mitch Go” too. All of the nearfalls are really dramatic, with nothing feeling thrown away.

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IWRG 10/22/09

La Rata v. Exodia

TKG: I don’t think I’ve seen La Rata in over a decade. Was he always this bad? I think one of the problems with the DVD revolution is that everything looks so clean. La Rata with live rats on his head on a third generation dubbed videotape off Mexican TV really looked scummy. On a DVD on an HD flatscreen, the rats just look clean and well cared for. I’ve also seen Crispin Glover sing Ben, and it takes more than one rat in someone’s hair to make me go “ick”.

PAS: This maybe one of the only Exodia matches I have ever seen where he didn’t seriously injure himself. Considering how awkward and sloppy La Rata looked you wouldn’t think this would be the match he would break his streak.

El Hijo del Diablo & Gringo Loco vs. Pendulo & Star Boy

PAS: I wasn’t expecting this to be much, as Gringo Loco didn’t seem to catch fire in his 2009 stuff, but this was surprisingly great. Star Boy is both the ugliest and talented of the guys working stripper gimmicks in the indies and he looked totally awesome, working some very fast exchanges with both rudos. Pendulo had some cool roll ups. Diablo is tremendous and this was his debut in the Gringo gimmick, his stuff lands with a nice thud and he really is really expressive in everything he does.

TKG: I thought Pendulo was more hit and miss than usual but Star Boy was hitting everything on all cylinders. His opening mat exchanges with Diablo were really cool, as were his last fall opening quick exchanges with Gringo Loco (they do an awesome sweep the leg spot), all his highflying was really violent looking and he gets huge height for a guy who looks like he’d have trouble getting off a barstool. Both the technicos and the rudos try to counter getting thrown into their own partners through a whole series of “grab your partner doesy doe spins” only for the tecnicos to catch the rudos in a star. This match put a big smile on my face.

Black Terry, Pirata Morgan, Tóxico vs. Brazo de Plata, Chico Che, Suicida

TKG: Man! Man, this was the good stuff! So I was kind of expecting this to be guys doing a match of nothing but comedy spots and charisma but not expecting anything near this good. We saw Brazo de Plata live around the same time and he was enormous, I didn’t expect him to be able to leave his feet let alone do the flying take down of two heels spot or eating a ridiculous slam from Pirata (where Porky looks to go up rotate so he looks like he is falling head first and then follow through to land on back). Plata is a guy who knows how to work comedy but also knows how to work in and out of that comedy. Chico Che hurt himself in the ropes on a dive in the first fall, which leads to Black Terry spending the second fall blading him and working him over on the floor. Third fall is built around Chico Che bleeding like a stuck pig and fighting three on ones trying to get the tag. Lots of near tag spots with the refs missing the tag and lots of heels cutting off ring till Chico Che can get off his in ring shoulder tackle tope and every one goes at it. Really elaborate finish that makes you want to see a revancha.

PAS: Yeah this was a totally great match. Chico Che has a huge shit eating grin during the opening Porky dance, you can tell this is a dream come true for him. We start with some really slick Black Terry v. Suicida matwork. They are a pair of guys who have worked against each other for years, and they clearly have their stuff down pat. This is by far the best Toxico has ever looked, he is a guy who clearly spent a ton on his gear, but nothing on his training, but he looks perfectly mediocre brawling, and beat Suicida with a sick looking lifted flatliner. Third fall is truly awesome as Porky and Pirata start brawling, and Chico Che continues to be one of the best sympathy sellers in the world.


Flor Metalica vs. Atsuko Emoto

TKG: This is a show that didn’t look like much on paper but outside of the opener has delivered the goods. This isn’t a particularly good match but it is a really fun spectacle. This is worked very much joshi style where the whole match is built around seconds interference. In lucha you expect the ref to throw out the seconds or the commissioner to throw out the ref or something. In joshi the face’s seconds would constantly run in and interfere on the heels’s seconds interference. But this is lucha where the ref had to pretend not to see stuff, and Metalica’s second had to play Robert Gibson role of guy distracting the ref with complaints. I don’t know how much johsi or RnR Express Bushi has seen but he didn’t add much. Still Flor Metalica took a beating (Emoto would braid her hair into a pony tail before hair mareing her around ring) , bled a bunch and would comeback with nasty crowbar offense and a spectacularly stiff silla dive.

PAS: This was tremendously entertaining stuff although I am not sure how good it was. Flor Metlaica gets triple teamed choked and bloodied with chain, and she fires back with some absolutely teeth loosening shots. Emoto apparently fights MMA and I don’t know if anyone in Smackgirl hit her harder then she got hit with that corner clothesline. Tom was really accurate about the style clash, Emoto isn’t particularly good at LCO joshi shtick, but even that shtick done well wouldn’t really fit in lucha libre.

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