Beyond Wrestling Secret Show 4/13

I heard some good things about this show, and I always like Beyond Wrestling more then I should, so I threw down $5 and checked it out

Connor Claxton v. Frankie Pickard

Both of these guys are CZW trainees, and this was a hell of a four minutes. Really aggressive amateur wrestling by both guys. Reminded me of the Steiners v. Gordy and Williams matches in WCW, like UWFI with a colligate wrestling base, instead of a Martial arts base. We had one strike, a great headbutt by Claxton, and one suplex an overhead by Pickard. The rest was just grappling. I am not sure if they have a longer match in them, but they are on my radar.

Supercop Dick Justice v. Leon St. Giovanni

Justice looks like a young Ron Jeremy and is working a 80's patriotic babyface gimmick. Giovanni hams it up as a heel. A couple of clever spots, but the whole thing was turned up to 11, and I didn't find it nearly as amusing as the participants did.

DJ Hyde v. AR Fox

Really surprised at how much I enjoyed this. Fox was working heel, as was fun as a cocky asshole who would flip around and taunt Hyde. Meanwhile Hyde was working as kind of a poor man's Ian Rotten, as he was countering the flippy taunts with some nasty potato shots. I really liked him countering Fox's lucha armdrag by just chucking him face first into the mat, and he threw a elbow that knocked Fox across the ring. Finish was cool as Hyde survived a couple of cool in ring dives before obliterating Fox with a lariat.

Darius Carter/TJ Marconi v. Det Dan Berry/Monsta Mack v. Kevin Graham/Punisher Van Slyke v. Thomas Dubois/Mathieu St. Jacques

I like that they have been keeping these matches pretty short, without the bloat which can effect indy wrestling. This gave everyone a chance to hit some big impressive stuff, get in and get out. Mack is the vet here and he looked the best, he took a bunch of big bumps, hit a diving rana off the top, and a superfly splash. The Dubois/ St. Jacques team looked like the French Canadian mafia guys that killed Dino Bravo and I wouldn't mind seeing more of them.

Jay Freddie v. Eric Corvis

I have always dug Corvis, he was a JAPW guy back in the day, and is a Beyond guy I look out for. He kind of reminds me of Sami Callihan. He has an innovator gimmick, but usually has pretty cool sensible innovations. Here he seemed to be less about innovation, and more about Tenryuish stiff shots from odd angles. He had this great spot, where he placed his foot on Freddie's knee and smacked him with a jab. Freddie is a little bland, but isn't afraid to deliver some shots of his own. Fun stuff and Corvis is as nifty as I remember him.

Brandon Watts/Randy Summers v. Sugar Dunkington/Pinkie Sanchez

Didn't love this. Lots of dancing and gay shtick with out much substance. There was a nice running boot by Watts, but not much else of note. Smirky Beyond Wrestling is not my bag, it comes off like a a bunch of Vine making hipsters winking at their inside jokes.

"Dirty" Buxx Belmar v. "Speedball" Mike Bailey

I like Bailey, he is a spot guy with some fun variations on spots, kind of like Matt Sydal back in the ROH days. Belmar is working a dirty guy gimmick, and this match was a victim of him needing to get in all of his "I don't take a shower" spots. We only get glimpses of what Bailey can do, fun glimpses and I want to see more, but this was a waste.

Nicholas Kaye v. Benny Martinez v. Ryan Rush v. Shyron

Spotfest with four dudes doing some stuff. Not as many big spots as the tag spotfest, but everything was executed fine. This kind of match has diminishing returns this late on the show, probably would have been better off as an opener.

JT Dunn/David Starr v. Jaka/Chris Dickinson

This was set up earlier in the show with an angle and was a big workrate tag. Workrate tag wrestling is not my cup of tea in 2014, but I enjoyed this. Dickinson, Starr and Dunn are basic indy American Wolvesalikes, but Jaka is working as indy Haku, and indy Haku makes the rest of guys more tolerable, Dickinson has gotten a lot better too, his stuff is really solid looking, stiff kicks and nice amateur take downs. Dunn and Starr didn't make a huge impression on me, but this built to an exciting finish and didn't have an overdose of near falls.

Biff Busick v. Timothy Thatcher

These are two of the three (along with Drew Gulak) of the most exciting new group of guys in Indy wrestling. They are working Euro style matches, although Euro style that owes more to Billy Robinson and Terry Rudge then Johnny Saint and Mark Rocco. Tight agressive mat wrestling and nasty uppercuts and punches. Nothing fancy just hard hitting and rough.  The big highspot was an uppercut that knocked Busick into the wall, and came off as a bigger deal then any of the crazy shit in earlier matches. I loved Busick finish here too, great sensible counter to lock in the choke nastier and looked really tight, I bought Thatcher going out. I could watch these guys work each other a ton of times.

This show was really good, 5 matches which I enjoyed and nothing I hated. Worth your $5, throw them some cash.

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My Lucha Journey: The Marco Corleone Experience 9: Marco Corleone vs Universo 2000, Cabellera vs Cabellera

Homenaje a Dos Leyendas:
Marco Corleone vs Universo 2000, Cabellera vs Cabellera
2007-3-30 @ Arena Mexico

I was going to maybe finish with this, but it's really not a great choice for it. This was another big final match of a big event, with a big trophy at the end and the dancing girls to begin and what not, but frankly, it wasn't all that great, even relative to my current breadth of watching. I think there's one ultimate sin that a hair match can commit, the absolutely worst thing: being boring, and this one sort of was. I was expecting a little more out of Universo based on the scope of the match, but I guess Marco just maybe wasn't ready for something at this level yet.

There wasn't the same feeling of pomp for the entrances or really excitement for the match itself compared to the tag hair match. In general, I do like Universo's look. That's the way to survive losing your mask (which he had only lost a few years before): to have this weird facepaint under the eyes, cowboy hat and goatee look. It was sleazy and iconic all at the same time. The crowd was mostly behind him, though he did work rudo, but in general they weren't into this like they were the previous one.

To be fair, Universo did kick out a number of fairly good touches, even if, in general, he was somewhat sluggish (especially coming off the ropes) for a match of this caliber. His very early beatdown attempt was effective, in part due to the fact it was sold well (like usual) by Marco. The abrupt ending of the primera was pretty good, as it looked like Marco was going to do one of his usual agility reversals, but got his foot caught and dragged into a quick and deep STF. The segunda began with a charging headbutt by Universo to break up the Rude Swivel. They paid some of this off later, somewhat at least, with a missed charge to start the tercera and Marco fighting back against a replication of the early beatdown attempts later in the match. I might have been reading too much into that, though. It wasn't that Universo wasn't trying. He had a nice dive, which Marco caught well, and towards the end of the tercera, he missed a big top rope senton because he was jawing with the second (Rey Bucanero). Best of all was probably his antics to try to avoid the haircut after the match; he did not take it gracefully at all.

The first two caidas were pretty brief. Like I said, I kind of liked how abruptly the first one ended, if only because it was a divergence from the usual Marco comeback. Moreover, his comeback in the segunda was a little different than usual, with a dropkick as the big move and a seated chinlock to end it, so it at least felt different. The tercera caida had a couple of good nearfalls and some fine late match selling, but ultimately didn't really pick up or had the sort of big moments or story beats that would make a match like this.

The finish was fairly clever as it built somewhat upon the mano a mano match, with Cien Caras interfering to stop the pin during the superman dive. This distracted the officials and allowed for Universo to try to try for a foul but Buccanero took one for the team and Marco picked up the roll-up win. Unfortunately, It wasn't enough to overcome an otherwise lackluster match, however. This was probably one of the most disappointing hair matches I've seen since starting to watch lucha. They tried, but this was lacking the smoke and mirrors of the tag cabelleras match and, while Marco would get better (and I've seen plenty of evidence of that), this particular pairing just didn't have enough to bring to the table at this point in time.

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