Finlay Lend Me Ten Pounds and I'll Buy You a Drink, and Mother Wake Me Early in the Morning

Finlay v. Jon Ryan, WXW 8/13/11

PAS: Solid Finlay performance marred a bit by the awful WXW crowd and a nothing showing from Jon Ryan. Finlay is touring around working a bunch of random guys and this feels like what your standard "Finlay v. a Scrub" match is going to look like. There were some really nice moments of slick matwork, including an awesome headscissors reversal. Finlay also laid in some thudding forearms and kicks. Still Ryan couldn't really live up to his end of the match and his stuff in the end run was especially off. More for your Finlay completists.

ER: I love the "wipe my brow and toss the sweat at my opponent" spot that Finlay has been starting every one of this 2011 indie matches with. As this match goes on, you pretty much realize that this is maybe Finlay's worse opponent of the last 15 years, and just think of the ground that covers. Off the top of my head I can't think of a Finlay WCW opponent that came off worse than Ryan. Lorenzo was probably worse, but we really don't have enough footage to judge from. But here we have 15 minutes of proof that Jon Ryan is a total load. He looks awkward, moves around awkwardly, and throws those lousy little straight arm clotheslines with no follow through (like Randy Orton's, but worse, and without a shred of charisma). But you know what? The match still totally works for me, and it's all because of Fit. The opening matwork was really good, and I'm confident Finlay could've had just as good a segment with me in there, or one of those first aid practice dummies. The headscissor spot Phil mentioned was one of the coolest things I've seen on the mat, ever. When you see a mat spot and think "Jeez, Negro Navarro or Fujiwara should steal that spot!" then you know you've got a bank full of money. Instead of rolling through and doing a kip up out of the headscissors like most do, Finlay does this neat thing where he rolls over onto his stomach, pushes up and kinda...hits Ryan's ankles together to free up space. Looked really cool and seemed just too natural. Total match was fun and Ryan's lousiness didn't seem to get in the way much. Matwork built to some nice clubbing, built to a nice tumble to the floor (both took nice bumps to get there). Finlay saves Ryan's end-run offense. For as much credit Finlay gets for making his offense look great and always looking active, he deserves just as much credit for making everybody else's offense look great. I shudder to think what Ryan's offense would have looked like if it were being taken by some other WXW guy like Axeman. Fun match, well worth checking out.

FINLAYS INDY TOUR