IWA Mid-South Top 18 Matches, #8: Chris Candido/Steve Stone/Nigel McGuiness/Claudio Castagnoli v. CM Punk/Ace Steel/Danny Daniels/Matt Sydal 10/22/04

Chris Candido/Steve Stone/Nigel McGuiness/Claudio Castagnoli v. CM Punk/Ace Steel/Danny Daniels/Matt Sydal 10/22/04



ER: IWA-MS advertises this match as "the funniest match in the history of [the promotion]". "Funniest" and "pro wrestling" are typically words I don't care to seek out when they're together, like "saltiest cocktail" or "silliest guitar solo" or "leakiest gas tank" or "most pleated khakis". And it's tough going into a match knowing that it's advertised as "the funniest pro wrestling match", because it's definitely something that is going to work better in a live setting, within the context of the other wrestling you had already seen that night. This match was the THIRTEENTH MATCH of this specific card, some type of "Strong Style Tournament" (whatever that means) that also featured non-tourney matches such as an Abyss singles match and a Chad Collyer 3 way. Fourteen matches on the card, and this match went on thirteenth. So it was probably a long night of wrestling, and we can assume that with a name like "Strong Style Tournament" all of the tourney matches were probably pretty serious business. So live, at the end of a long night of wrestling on a Friday night (Friday night is the night I most often crash early, tired from the end of the work week), the crowd got a comedy match that was probably much needed. For me at home, watching the match in a vacuum, it was merely okay. We get a pre-match pat down where several forks, a dumbbell, and a jumprope are all found on members of Candido's team. Candido gets his trunks pulled down (dangerously low) on a sunset flip, and stumbles around getting bodyslammed by everybody, including ref Bryce Remsburg. There is a chicken fight with Sydal and Claudio fighting on top of Punk and Candido's shoulders (ending with Claudio taking an unexpectedly nasty bump on the back of his head), Nigel had a bulky foreign object stuffed in the bulge of his trunks that eventually backfired when he got atomic dropped, and we got some yuks involving multiple guys assisting an abdominal stretch. Truthfully the only time I actually laughed was seeing Ace Steel dance to "Early in the Morning" before and after the match. But Candido was really on fire throughout, his passion for all the bullshit of wrestling really shining through. He stooges like the best John Tatum you've seen, takes some big bumps while still horsing around, worked the apron and the overall match gimmick better than everyone else, a real showcase. Steve Stone looked much better than I remember Steve Stone looking, CM Punk looked much worse than I remember CM Punk looking, and I wish we got more Ace Steel vs. Candido during the match.

PAS: I could have sworn I did a draft of this, Eric wrote this up and I am in the unenviable position of having to watch this match twice. I enjoyed Candido in this, as he worked this more like a SMW match then a indy winkathon. Outside of Candido I also enjoyed Steve Stone doing World of Sport armwork and forcing Nigel to give himself the finger. Otherwise I found this rather mirthless. Sydal's actual wrestling looked cool, but otherwise this was long and dumb