2017 Ongoing MOTY List: Demus vs. Wotan! Beard vs. Hair!

89. Demus 3:16 vs. Wotan Generation XX1 12/18

PAS: This was a hair v. beard match which adds to Demus's under the radar wrestler of the year candidacy. Wotan is too enamored with goof lightube shit to really be on a list of the greatest wrestlers in the world, but a couple of times a year he puts that to the side and just has these filthy hellacious brawls and they are awesome. We open in the crowd and Wotan is already bloody and Demus is throwing him recklessly into walls and chairs. I love how Demus uses his tiny body, he will just hurl it at whoever he is fighting, at one point they are both on their knees throwing punches and Demus just pounced forward into Wotan with a tiny tackle. I didn't love the finish, lots of setting up a particle board on some chairs and the Demus misses a splash and gets pinned, still there was plenty of this to love, and I am super sad about Demus shaving his awesome beard.

ER: I don't believe I have ever seen a mask vs. beard match, so it was weird seeing "Barba vs. Cabellera" at the top of the screen. It's also weird that a guy with a mask is putting up his hair, and a guy with hair is putting up his beard. Did Albert ever work a back hair match? If Lucha Underground never does a beard vs. beard match with Mrs. Madness and Mrs. Havok's sons then they're idiots. Joey Ryan feels like someone who should have already been touring with a "I shave ALL my body hair if I lose" match. Santino could have worked a unibrow match. Really, now that we know that a beard match is a thing, it just highlights how uncreative every other apuestas match has been, with proper credit given to Bill Dundee putting up his wife's hair.

And aside from an absolutely terrible, woeful ending, this match was awesome. Both guys are big bleeders, and the first shot we get of Wotan is him already covered in that deep, dark cherry blood that luchadors wear so well. We've already seen Wotan in maybe the best brawl of the decade, and sadly for him his best performances seem to come when he's opposite a total powder keg who will bring a beating to him. And Demus is certainly the most powder keg guy around these days. Demus-as-projectile is a guaranteed win, he's like this heavy medicine ball getting thrown at opponents. His cannonball always crushes, he flies into splashes and sentons, and he looks exactly like one of the aliens in Critters (seriously, tell me I'm wrong). Wotan has some nice offense (I really like his ankle roll senton, like Brad Attitude does, but with a little more lucha flair) and is a huge bumper (watch him fully commit to a massive missed dive as Demus sidesteps him). Both guys bleed buckets and throw big bombs into cuts, and really this match could have ended with both men just punching each other out and it would have landed in our top 25. But my heavens this ending was bad. We had an interminable prop set up, with the flimsiest board getting set up limply on 6 chairs, with the REF getting involved to help Wotan set up this spot that was never going to look good. Demus is selling this whole time, finally gets up and punches both men, then Demus takes time to readjust the awful prop, tries to splash Wotan but crashes through it and gets fast counted. What a terrible finish tacked on to a tremendous brawl. We would have been so much better off getting the video cut off and missing the finish. The match would have gone down as this legendarily clipped brawl and "Oh my god if only the match was complete!! Who knows what greatness we missed!?" Sometimes it's just better not to know.


2017 MOTY MASTER LIST