2014 Ongoing Match of the Year List

24. Timothy Thatcher v. Joe Graves PREMIER 11/29

PAS: Really great end to a stellar year from Thatcher. I hadn't seen or heard of Graves before, but he slotted right into the Thatcher style match great. He had some power moves including a great delayed Karelin throw, and it made it feel a little like a amateur wrestler versus a submission guy. Graves did a lot of controlling the back and getting hooks in too. Thatcher was nasty as usual, snapping fingers, uppercutting to the back of the neck, and even breaking out an Olympic hell, which made the Honda fanboy in me smile. Only real downside was the time limit draw, which kind of came out of nowhere without any real drama.

ER: I thought I had already watched this match, and the joke's on me for not diving onto this right away. This was killer and as I've gotten more familiar with local-ish fed Premier (they typically run 2 hours away from me) I've come to expect some pretty big things for them. They certainly have their own style, much more grappling and strike based than most feds, like Foxcatcher but if it were run by just some guy instead of a billionaire with mommy issues. And what's always exciting when I watch their stuff is how into it the crowd gets. I've been to a 2015 show that also had a Thatcher/Graves match (eventually to be written up for our 2015 MOTY list) and the crowd reacts to stuff like a real fight. There was even a guy behind us yelling out amateur wrestling advice throughout, and I mean actual wrestling coach, shouted advice. "Roll the shoulder! Duck under! Keep your hips in!" It was absurd, and also completely awesome and appropriate. Because these two are so convincing and so legit, my eyes are always glued to every single thing they're doing, and I find myself wanting to yell the same kind of things (no, there's not going to be a twist revealing that the weird guy yelling advice was actually me). The detail work is so damn impressive, the work seems to physically exhausting, and there's constant fear (from me) of ligaments getting torn, shoulders being dislocated, anything. That's how convincing they are. Thatcher fights over the arm like few, and I loved the various twists and horribly cramped positions he would get Graves into. Graves has some impressive strength, but really both men do. The struggle was real as they would fight over throws. At one point Graves reverses out of a hold by walking his feet up the ring ropes and pushing off a turnbuckle. At another point Thatcher locks in a brutal indian deathlock and starts holding down one of Graves' arms with a leg, and then starts bending the other back at an impossible angle. You can practically hear Stu Hart's creepy "heh heh heh" laugh while these two stretch each other. I loved every second of this, genuinely don't believe there was a single misstep in the whole thing. So what is TRAGIC, I mean just absolutely tragic, is the time limit draw. Before that this was well on its way to being a top 5 MOTY for me. But right in the middle of this struggle, right in the middle of seeing which one of these world class guys would break first, the ring bell just rings and some guy plainly says "Time!" Gutted. There was no build to a time limit, not guys scrambling to try and get the win, no mention that I noticed of a time limit (it's very possible it was mentioned in the opening intros, but I didn't notice it). With almost any sort of finish, really anything to actually give us a definitive ending, I think this lands in the top 10. As it is it feels like a friend made you a comp tape and this match was the last match on the tape, and the tape just runs out before the end. So you're just watching this awesome struggle,  and suddenly the tape automatically stops and begins rewinding. That would have been preferable. It is worse to know. As it stands, the work is excellent, and you couldn't even call the finish disgustingly bad. It's not like there was a goofy run-in or belt shot or something. This is more of a passively cruel finish. But, thank goodness it exists at all.


2014 MOTY MASTER LIST