Dan Severn Turned Away From it All Like a Blind Man

Dan Severn vs. Bobby Blaze SMW 5/20/95 - GREAT

ER: I had no clue that there were these awesome Pancrase indy matches happening in North Carolina or New Jersey in the mid 90s. This was such a cool scrap. We had never seen Tajiri break out shootstyle before, and I'd never seen Blaze work that style either. Blaze was a guy who always had cool suplexes and wore kickpads when a lot of guys didn't wear them, but I've never seen him do what he did here. Just like the Tajiri match this is a 5 minute, violent scrap. Severn backs Blaze into the ropes and throws him with a belly to belly 45 seconds in, and we're off the races from there. Blaze is fighting from underneath in most of this, but he never looks too far out of the race. After that throw he goes more on the defensive, throwing distance keeping kicks and locking on a cool choke in the corner, which Severn reverses by judo tossing Blaze over his head. The whole match is breathless, quick breaks leading immediately back into both men scrambling, Severn constantly targeting Blaze's arm and Blaze always rolling through looking for any kind of opening. Blaze is tough but as it goes on he shifts a bit more into survival mode, conscious of the ropes, knowing he probably doesn't have the tools to take apart this steamroller. This is another match I probably would have been tricked into thinking was a shoot. The scrambling on the mat felt just unpolished enough that it wouldn't be farfetched. All the mat rolling was cool, Severn breaks out a deadlift snap gutwrench at one point that was Karelin-esque, we get a great dual ankle lock moment with both guys really twisting and wrenching it in and  refusing to let go (was Don Frye cosplaying Dan Severn in that 2002 Shamrock fight!?), the whole quick match was awesome.

PAS: I had no idea that there was an underground RINGS on random US indies. This show had a Thugs v. Gangstas race riot and a Al Snow/Unabomb v. Rock and Rolls cage match main event, and before that Dan Severn is throwing Bobby Blaze around the ring and working armbars from the guard. I did like Blaze catching Severn with a kick when Severn went for a second shoot, but Severn is just relentless. I don't remember UFC Severn being this explosive, but he just explodes into suplexes and throws. That deadlift gutwrench was awesome looking. A little more from Blaze I could see this joining the Tajiri match in the EPIC pile, it was easily GREAT though.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DAN SEVERN NWA TITLE