2018 Ongoing MOTY List: PCO vs. Walter 2

107. WALTER vs. PCO IWS 7/14

PAS: This was the rematch from the big Spring Break match which was PCO's breakout, and WALTER continues to be his best opponent.  We have had a big sample size of PCO matches at this point, enough to judge what he does best, and I think he is much more effective working from below, as an underdog taking a beating. He is a good bumper and willing to take a beating, and his offense works better in spurts then with a long control section (he had the worst Darby Allin match I have seen all year, and that seemed promising on paper.) IWS is Montreal based, so this was a homecoming, and the crowd was totally into PCO, with WALTER working straight heel. The chops in this were the main course, and WALTER just pulverized PCO's chest, PCO fired some nice ones too, but WALTER was on another level, WALTER also landed some unsafe chair shots and hit his John Woo dropkick which sent PCO flying into a chair with the back of his head. I don't love the Destro car battery hulk up, although it worked better here then in the Darby match, and I really dug his second hulk up where he just started punching chairs out of the air. Fun stuff, and I hope their Iowa match ends up showing up somehow.

ER: Babyface underdog PCO is really fun and it's great to see him on his home turf wrecking his body in super painful ways. Nothing garners sympathy like going against a man who, had he been a robot on Futurama, would likely be called Chopper. There can be yawning holes in PCO matches the longer they go, with extended prop set up, awkward moments of getting into position, and a now skippable Destro moment, but it helps when the parts of the match that aren't that are just two big guys clubbing each other. WALTER is really punishing here with his big chops and boots to the face, and I especially flipped for his running dropkick that sent PCO flying middle of spine first into the front of a seated chair, crushing it. WALTER murders him with a couple powerbombs, one through a table, but PCO fighting back was good fun. He gets reenergized, fires back with a ton of chops, hits his crazy guy tope, and starts punching thrown chairs out of the air (thrown by WALTER) before catching one, tossing it back, and punching WALTER right through it. PCO ends up winning with a huge moonsault while WALTER was buried under a half dozen chairs, and while I think the bloom is just about off the rose with him (for me), I can still get behind this kind of crazy, in the same way it was amusing seeing 50+ year old Terry Funk decide to do moonsaults.


2018 MOTY MASTER LIST