Wrestlemaina Weekend Thursday Cherry Picking: EVOLVE 102

We are going to try to cover much of WrestleMania weekend, but can't watch every second of everything. Here are some cherry picked matches from EVOLVE 102.

EVOLVE 102

Jaka/Chris Dickinson vs. Workhorseman vs. The End vs. Dominic Garrini/Tracy Williams

PAS: This was kind of clusterfuck, but it had some fun individual moments. At one point Dickinson and James Drake just started wailing on each other, and all of a sudden this was fight not just a demonstration of double teams. Some of the double teams were cool though, I like Doom Patrols top rope falcon arrow superfly splash combo, and the Ends powerbomb guys into their partners back. Still lots of this was messy, and this kind of match really works against Garrini's strengths, also since the champs needed to pinned to lose the belt, what is the point of trying to pin anyone else?

Darby Allin vs. Keith Lee

PAS: Really fun match, exactly what you want out of this matchup. Allin spinning and flipping and diving trying to stay out of Lee's hands, and Lee catching him and smashing him into little pieces. Lee is a really fun manhandler, he spins Allin around like a top during a lockup, catches him during a dive like he was catching a frisbee and yanks him into the ring by his jeans. He also catches Allin mid coffin drop with a pounce which I though might send Allin into the lobby. All of Allin's offense looked good too, he is super elusive and I loved how he set up the coffin drop on the small of Lee's back. Finish was fun with Lee bouncing Allin off the mat with a Spirit Bomb and Allin crawling his way up Lee only to get crushed again.

ER: This was really fun, I like how these two match up (and how could you not love a guy with a death wish getting crushed by a monster!?), although this felt like more of a squash than I've seen from them. Darby has some fascinating landings, dude is like a little cat, and I like how his movements seem reckless and controlled (controlled frenzy of Darby Allin!!). He's really clever about coming up with odd ways to set up offense, loved his Coffin Drop to a hunched over Lee, and right after he bounced backwards off the ropes to land on Lee's back for a sunset flip, really outside the box stuff. But you knew this would mostly be about Lee seeing how far he could chuck Allin, and boy did he. He did a beal that was like a Last Ride powerbomb, just launching him with one arm and at Darby's apex Lee actually lifts him higher before letting go. before that he just picks Allin up by the waistband of his shorts, like a mama cat carrying her kitten around by the neck scruff, and just throws him (an announcer compares it to tossing a bale of hay, and that's accurate). His Darby throws in an extra theatrical bounce on a sitout powerbomb, flipping over onto his stomach. I've never seen that and it looked pretty nuts. But overall this felt a little too squashy, felt like another nearfall from Allin would have elevated this, especially if it came off a huge Lee crash and burn (like early in the match when Lee went for a short spear and fell through the ropes). Lee crushing Allin goes on a bit too long, and starts to feel a bit like a geek show. There aren't guys who take a more innovative beating than Allin, but I want a little give and take.

Daisuke Sekimoto/Munenori Sawa vs. WALTER/Timothy Thatcher

PAS: Nifty match which was mainly a showcase for the puro teams offense. Commentary mentions that Thatcher was hugely inspired by BattlArts and Yuki Ishikawa and I am grumbling about how Ishikawa is just hanging out in Canada waiting to be booked. Thatcher vs Sawa sections are really fun, although a little sidelined. Sawa still moves really fast and smooth for a guy who has been retired for 7 years. Main focus on the match was WALTER and Sekimoto chopping the nipples off of each other and WALTER looks like he going to set some sort of record for busting blood vessels over this weekend of shows. Fun finish run too, with some big shots by all of the guys. More of a fun exhibition then a great match, but I enjoyed it

ER: I didn't love this, but thought it was a pretty great Ringkampf performance. Sekimoto is just so hokey, and is so gassed that he just moves sluggishly compared to the other guys in the match. A lot of his bumps were wooden and disconnected from the move he was bumping, just an awkward performance. Sawa would have had more of an excuse, and while I didn't love his slap exchanges, I liked a lot of his stuff, rolling with Thatcher, the appropriately renamed Ohtani Punches (though I thought it would have been cool if he used those earlier, and then down the stretch when things got more desperate just punched Thatcher with no gimmicky wind-up), but really this match was all about Ringkampf. They knew that the fans there wanted to see Sekimoto and Sawa do their thing, and RK was able to take the big moves and still look dominant. WALTER had a killer match, really killing guys with running kicks, and I kept waiting for his chops to pop one of Sekimoto's inflated tits. WALTER really launched guys on Germans, showed Sekimoto how to do a shoulderblock, and I love when he overhand chops a Sekimoto lariat attempt out of the air. Thatcher had some great selling, some great wobble legs, and maybe my favorite moment of the match when he snags a Sawa lariat and violently whips it into a Fujiwara and a crossface. Some of this felt way too silly, like Sawa's double dragon screw, and the double German suplex was really stupid. Sekimoto tosses Sawa who tosses Thatcher, with Sawa getting dumped on his head, and Sekimoto does this horrible Red Shoes back row acting when he "realizes what he's done". I'm not sure what he thought would happen when he dumped his partner on his head. I wanted to like this more, and I loved Ringkampf, but Sekimoto just rarely does it for me.

Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Matt Riddle

PAS: Great match and fitting swan song for Sabre's EVOLVE title reign (and his run in EVOLVE overall). Match was set up as Riddle's strikes and throws against Sabre's submissions and we got great versions of both. I loved Sabre torturing Riddle's feet and he was just twisting him up in some really inventive pretzels, Riddle's body is taking a beating this weekend, I can't imagine his knee felt good the way Sabre was twisting it. Sabre also took some pretty big shots to the jaw, Riddle's go to sleeps felt especially reckless. Loved the finish with Riddle attempting a twister, Sabre countering it into some sort of calf slicer, and Riddle able to re counter back into an arm trap twister for the tap. So much of the matwork was dominated by Riddle, it was nice to see the Ju Jitsu brown belt break out some tricks.

ER: Loved this. Riddle is doing some pretty unparalleled workrate this weekend, just a gas tank I can not comprehend. His creativity is inspired as well, and that’s a big plus. The higher profile he’s gotten the more tendencies he’s picked up that I don’t like, and those have been almost totally absent this weekend. Sabre has been a great Evolve champ, and it was going to take a great opponent to grab the belt from him, and Riddle was that guy. Riddle played the long game and took a ton of abuse from Sabre, and then just spammed him with big shots down the stretch. Sabre was in full spider monkey mode, tangling Riddle up like a squid drowning a scuba diver. Sabre bent Riddle’s ankle and toes, locked on a nasty octopus hold, fluidly moved through subs, several in a row, to really disorient Riddle. Riddle slowly started anticipating ZSJ’s offense the longer we went, catching a low kick into one of his best Pele kicks (with a great shaky leg drop down sell from Sabre), and really started cranking in shots. People still weirdly complain about Sabre having weak arm strikes, while ignoring that when he breaks down and starts exchanging strikes that usually spells his downfall in a match. Here he slaps Riddle and gets a kind of “oh shit” look on his face, and that leads to him getting elbowed a ton. There were a couple cracks, the Riddle senton into an armbar was telegraphed a mile away; Riddle is always super accurate with his landings and here he leaps 5 feet to the right so he can land for the spot. This is the first time that spot came off overplanned. But that’s really my only complaint about the finish. The stretch really was smoking, with both men emptying their offense closets and trading who had the advantage without it devolving into move trading. Big shot of the home stretch was Riddle hitting a Rainmaker knee strike that was finisher worthy. The finish was sad in a way. We’ve watched Sabre confidently tie so many guys in knots, that look of confidence when he knows he’s got the win in the bag, and here he was finally on the other end of that. He was fighting Riddle all the way but you could see Riddle slowly moving Sabre’s limbs into the Bromission, Sabre able to slow the inevitable but not stop it. Great match.

2018 MOTY MASTER LIST