Of Finlay I like to Speak a Raparee by Name and Deed

Fit Finlay v. Martin Kirby SWE 2/23/12 - GREAT

PAS: One of Finlay's last European matches had him grind up local star Martin Kirby. Hard to get much of a sense of Kirby as Finlay just beast moded him here. Smashing him around the ring, forearming him in the eye, grinding him down with holds. He has this great posting, where he just two hand shoves Kirby spine first into the post. One possible quibble you can have with Finlay's work is that he can decide to eat someone up. It is so much fun to watch Finlay beat on a dude, that I don't mind, but he really treated Kirby like a WCWSN jobber here, and I am not sure the promotion wanted their top guy Lorenzoed.

Fit Finlay v. Chris Jericho WCW 10/17/98 - FUN

ER: If you heard Finlay/Jericho were given 12 minutes then on paper you'd think that would be a really good match, right? Well, it turns out it was pretty disappointing. Most matches on WCWSN don't get this much time, but these two didn't really seem like they had a gameplan to fill that much time. There were plenty of fine individual moments: Jericho hits a cool running shoulderblock on the floor, vaulting off a chair. Jericho does a cool tombstone reversal by doing a reverse rana, planting Finlay vertically. The coolest and weirdest moment sees Jericho go up top for an axehandle, and Finlay catches him in the breadbasket, like ya do. But what makes it super cool is Finlay sells the arm like a 220 pound human just came crashing through it from the top rope. Well, obviously that makes 100% logical sense, but I have never seen anybody do it before. Of course that would destroy your shoulder if you hit somebody while they fell from above. So Jericho instantly pounces on the arm, stomping on it getting to bust out one of his hundreds of armbar variations. But then the weird kicks in, as after a couple minutes of getting his arm worked over, both of them just kind of stand up and Finlay transitions back to offense, doesn't sell his arm again and Jericho never goes back to the arm. And that's really the story of the match, as both guys do things, they hit moves clean, but nothing went anywhere. It was a pretty solid waste of 12 minutes, but a waste indeed as it just never evolved past "just filling some time".

PAS:  I liked this a fair amount more then Eric. I agree it was a little formless, but there was enough cool little moments in it for me to enjoy. This was Jericho at peak douche, and I liked how he would fishook Finlay, and throw in little cheap shots. Finlay is the guy you want mauling a douchebag, and he landed a beautiful elbow drop right on Jericho's throat. The stuff with the chair was a little awkward, but I liked the finish, it was a nuts bump to the floor and a nice variation on the "nobody jobs" syndie finish. Not a great match certainly, but I enjoyed the time I spent watching it.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE FINLAY