CWF Mid-Atlantic Worldwide Episode 102

Episode 102

1. Chip Day vs. Trevor Lee

PAS: This match had a lot of hype with people who watched it live calling it the Match of the Year and giving it five stars, I enjoyed their interactions a lot in the six way, and was looking forward to seeing if this lived up to the hype. I think it both lived up and didn't live up to it for me, this was an excellent match, but a very 2017 style match, and 2017 style wrestling isn't the thing I have loved about CWF.  This was long, but I felt like they kept both the audiences interest and my interest throughout. Early matwork was nifty, felt more like Lee was trying to force his shoulders on the mat, looking for pins then working a body part. I loved the gator rolls and how Lee always kept connected with Day's body. I also loved the announcers talking about the pace difference, how Lee wanted to keep it deliberate while Day wanted to speed it up, Scott and Stutts are the best around and inserting those kind of in match storylines. I also really liked how Day kept missing the early kicks with Lee really selling it like it would be a KO blow. The later stuff is where it got a bit modern for me, it seems like every match in wrestling has to do tough guy "you hit me, I hit you" sections, this was one of the better ones I have seen, the match was worked like a battle for respect and everything was sold well, but I am so sick of that spot and would have liked something more creative for the finish run. This was a match with a ton of shots to the head, and at some point these big shots lose their impact, they were treating Day's kicks like killers at the beginning of the match, but by the end he must have hit 25 of them. I loved the last two minutes, with Day laying in this huge run of offense, including stomping Lee in the back of the head, Lee firing back with a big run of his but only getting a one count, a great fast slap exchange and an awesome brainbuster into a guillotine choke. I just thing that finish run would have had a bigger impact if they hadn't had 10 minutes before that of both guys absorbing KO headshots . Still a hell of a match, and I enjoyed it way more then WWE main event or NJ main event versions of the same style.

ER: I'm kind of bad at rating matches like these, and kind of bad at talking about matches like these. It's too reductive to say "They did many things I liked, also other things I didn't like, and it went long enough that I managed to lose the narrative several times." Those things are all true, but it doesn't feel fair to these two. I really really like Trevor Lee. He was a guy I liked on the indies  but loved once I started watching weekly CWF. He carries himself like a major star and has a great almost regional star charisma. And when working this long kind of epic match, you need that kind of charisma, and a lot of guys I see working that style do not. They want to have the matches of prime Misawa, without any of the character qualities or years long build of Misawa. But Lee brings a bit of sobriety to things and it makes it better. There were so many individual moments I loved, like Day kicking Lee's legs out from the middle rope, resulting in Lee smashing his face on the buckle; or Day kicking out Lee's legs on the punt with Lee faceplanting the apron. Lee is really good at faceplanting things. I liked all the....well, I don't know if I'd call all of it matwork, but all their work around arm wringers was really cool. I've been a big fan of the Catch Point grappling resurgence of the last few years, and this standing arm wringer stuff is like a modern alternative to a grindy/grapply style. They still hit the mat a bit and I especially liked Day's big cocky build to a wrenched in surfboard, only for Lee to roll right through it into a pinfall. Where these matches can lose me is during the post-peak peak. There's always the moment about 20 minutes in where it feels like things are climaxing, one guy is on his last legs...and then things ramp back down and the guy who was just almost beat goes back to being normal for the next 10. Chip Day looked like he had Lee beat and things were getting hot, but there's that 8 minute dip where it becomes clear Day isn't winning, and we get the march to Lee's inevitable win. Lee's finish run was killer (that brainbuster!) and looked like the finish, but it seemed a little lost in the wilderness for quite awhile leading up to that. And maybe that's me, maybe I got lost and distracted, but I think a good long match always holds my interests and drags me along for the ride. This lost me at a certain point, and while it never kicked me too far away and got me back, I can't discount those moments that seemed more unnecessary. So I'll enjoy something like the Ducklings sprint from last week more, while recognizing that these two were going for something bigger. It's a hard thing for my wrestling review brain to reconcile. So these two deserve a lot of credit for what they did...but I also think they have better things ahead.

2. All-Stars vs. Sandwich Squad

ER: This wasn't bad, but felt like they were stretching out the runtime to justify it being the finals of a tournament. Everything seemed slower, some sections felt like they were repeated, and it just didn't click like other matches throughout the tournament. We got treated to a lot of short sprints from both teams, and I think this would have benefitted from being all killer no filler 8 minutes. We start out slow, but things never really felt like they ramped up. My favorite moment of the match was actually the Kernodles coming out to stiff up Gemini and the other All-Stars second. Kernodle threw a big meaty fist and it was the first time in the match I got excited (although I guess we've written up enough matches on this blog with us flipping out about Social Security eligible combatants that this isn't too surprising), but things within the match felt too set in their ways. The ending with Wilkins getting a chair taken away by the ref was odd, as Red pulled the chair away and then Wilkins just had to stand still in the middle of the ring, selling damage from...a chair being taken from him. It felt like we got several of those moments, moments of poor set-up to get to a spot that everybody involved typically find better ways to get to.

PAS: I liked this more then Eric, I really liked all of the sections with the All-Stars trying to chop down the big trees. There was a great spot where Royal keep pounding at Mecha Mercenary only to met by a huge clothesline which looked like it cleaned Royals teeth. I also really love the golf swing as a strike and Wilkins hits a bunch of times including wasting the referee with it.  I did think the finish may have had a few too many pieces of horseshit. Feels like you can have a Kernodle brother run in, or a ref bump, or a Brad Attitude run in, or a Nick Richards run in, or the ref grabbing the chair, but you really should have them all. It is like the old piece of advice about dressing well, look at yourself in the mirror and take off one accessory. The booking need to look themself in the mirror and remover one bit of business.

ER: Reading it back, and my portion of the review sounds more negative than my actual feelings watching the show. Maybe I'm a grouchy person. I don't know (but I do know I was definitely more disappointed in the Kernodle finals than Phil). BUT we both thought the Day/Lee match was good enough to land on our 2017 Ongoing MOTY List, and I'm sure they'll show up again before the year is out.