IWA Mid-South Top 18 Matches, #11: Jonathan Gresham v. Tyler Black 5/16/10

#11 Jonathan Gresham v. Tyler Black 5/16/10



PAS: This was a juniors workrate match in its baseline form. Both guys looked fine, their execution was solid, and they had a couple of interesting ideas. But I have seen this sort of match so many times that I could call the reversals and near falls before they were happening. Also Gresham is a little dude - probably about 5'6 - and at no point did the size differential play into the match at all. Black towers over him, and they work it as complete equals. I can see why people liked this match, but for me to get into this kind of wrestling, something has to pop out, and really nothing did here.

ER: Boy I do not understand the placement here. There have to be dozens of these kind of matches throughout IWA's history. What stood out about this one? Phil beat me to the punch on the size difference, as the announcers talk about how small Gresham is the whole match, but apparently nobody told Rollins that. Phil's giving him a little bit of a pro wrestling boost with his guess as there is no way Gresham is an inch over 5'3", and even though Rollins looks like a behemoth next to him, AND had nastier looking offense, you have a straight faced 50/50 match just worked in a total space vacuum. Big bump to the floor? No matter, get back in and go right back on offense. Match almost ends with a shooting star? No matter, you've recovered fine just moments later. Both guys looked good from an execution standpoint. They have cool offense. They worked a real impressively fast pace for 15 solid minutes. But they didn't make a single moment of it mean anything. Neither man ever had even a 30 second advantage over the other, both guys were constantly "in this thing", and moves were done until one move held a guy's shoulders down slightly longer than other, earlier moves.