2019 Ongoing MOTY List: Savio Vega vs. Manny Ferno GLOBE OF DEATH!

23. Savio Vega vs. Manny Ferno IWA Puerto Rico 9/7

ER: Shout out to Tim Evans for being one of the sets of eyes keeping a look out for modern Puerto Rico, otherwise I might have never even heard of this absolute dynamite keg of weirdo ultraviolence. I have never seen a wrestling match held in a Globe of Death. This was One Step Beyond Lion's Den Match right here, a bloody ass fight that was like my family went for a weekend Reno trip and stayed at the Circus, Circus, and I'd play arcade games all day in their actually weird in-hotel midway, and I'd watch every single one of those Globe of Death motorcycle stunt shows. I can't even ride a bicycle, but looking up at two motocross racers driving upside down inches away from each other, I was fucking transfixed. And this is me watching those stunt shows, only this time one of the racers fucked up a stunt and the other racer has stopped the performance to beat the shit out of him. This was incredible, a bizarre setting with a bunch of old dirty weapons in that Globe of Death, Savio bleeding from the first minute and nothing but hard spills into slatted metal and thick old metal road signs bouncing off heads. It's a real dirty fight and Vega spends much of the match looking like a guy who is going to pass out from blood loss. Outside of great visuals like signs and heavy trash can lids being covered in blood, the unique environment added a ton to our few highspots: Savio Vega's leaping spinning heel kick and a big back drop inside the Globe of Death. Those two moments felt epic in this setting, happening amid ragged end board stabbings and bloody hard punches. This was an awesome concept worked exceptionally violently.

PAS: The Globe of Death was such an awesome looking structure. It felt like they bought it at a bankruptcy auction of a Circus which went out of business years ago. It was rusty and neglected looking, and all of the old stop signs and wooden boards they were smashing each other with looked old and dilapidated too. It felt like a Tetanus death match. Nothing fancy here, no big set up spots, just two guys bleeding profusely and smashing each other with things they had lying around. Manny Ferno absolutely wears Savio out with board shots, smashing it until it was pulverised. Savio is old and not particularly mobile, but he took the biggest bump of the match, eating a high backdrop into the globe allowing Ferno to escape. I am a sucker for weirdo gimmick matches, and this was a cool idea executed flawlessly.


2019 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Eddie Kingston Be Popping Them Uzi's, Copping Them Coogi's

Eddie Kingston vs. Joker CZW 1/14/12 - EPIC

PAS: This was a street fight between ex-tag partners and was a FUTEN level asskicking by both guys. Joker is an all time crowbar, he throws his forearms like he is aiming at a point behind Kingston's head, there were multiple points in this match where I audibly gasped at the force of the shots. Kingston is such a master at these kind of slugfest matches, that you give him a heater like Joker he is going to deliver something great. While Joker is throwing fastballs all match, Kingston modulates his shots, there is a forearm exchange where Kingston throws a couple of weaker shots, before he musters all of his power and just smashes Joker, the weaker shots made the big shot even more impactful. There is a table spot, because it's CZW, but most of this street fight was just guys putting their hands on each other, and holy hell what a finish. Kingston throws one of the hardest backfists I have ever seen right to the point where Joker's spine meets his head, no way Joker didn't at least lose feeling in his extremities briefly.

ER: Phil watched this match last night, and wrote it up in a draft. I woke up this morning, saw there was a new Kingston match draft, opened it up and saw that Phil deemed it EPIC, and read nothing more. I went on IWTV, watched the match immediately, and then later Phil called to tell me about the match only to laugh knowingly when I said I watched it before doing anything else that day. EPIC Kingston matches have that effect on me, as they should, because they consistently warrant that treatment. Kingston gets into fights, and a street fight with a former partner is something that he's not going to drop the ball on. Kingston knows just what kind of intensity to approach that kind of match with. Joker is a guy who is criminally underwatched by me (I was not a CZW guy, meaning it is a fed with 20 years of potential hidden gems for my eyes), as he's got the stiffness and unprofessionalism of Low-Ki, but doesn't have the high profile internet enemies that Ki has. 

And here he acts like a jilted ex-partner and aims to bruise King's whole body. He was throwing shots violent enough to make me get vocal with my computer, and is there anybody better at selling those kind of shots than one Eddie Kingston? Every Kingston match I watch, ever, has him doing some kind of sell that I don't remember, and he had those peppered all through this match. Joker threw a couple of absolutely cruel/unnecessary/illegal capture snap suplexes that dumped Kingston directly onto the back of his head and neck, and after the first one Kingston just sits there on his knees holding one extended vocal note while staring at the mat. It was so perfect, and so perfectly Kingston. He also clonks Joker with a hard as hell headbutt, and immediately drops to his knees and onto his face. The best. Phil makes a great point about King saving his shots, and it really makes a played out tired ass kneeling strike exchange fresh and interesting, with a couple of weak elbows suddenly boiling into him wrecking Joker. He's the only one adding nuance to played out situations. This had some real fun floor brawling (with Joker flying insanely hard into King with a cannonball), a big suplex into a table, and we end with Kingston hitting literally the greatest spinning backfist in history (and yes I know about Aja Kong and Shonie Carter, and also goddamn Chikara book them as Team Backfist for a KoT and I'll give you a bunch of money) right to Joker's cerebellum. It's possible that backfist lead to Joker frequently forgetting whether he was retired or not, a 50 First Dates scenario where he can't remember whether he is a wrestler or not.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE EDDIE KINGSTON

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WWE Big 3: Lorcan, Gallagher, Gulak 9/22 - 9/28

205 Live 9/24

Oney Lorcan/Danny Burch vs. Drew Gulak/Tony Nese

ER: Man I was cool with all of this. You wanna give me 15 minute 205 Live matches? Sure, make them more like this and then never ever go off the air. I've grown too accustomed to spending my Saturday mornings with you, 205, and I can't bear the thought of you leaving me now. I really liked the progression of this tag, starting out with Burch and Lorcan in control, building to Gulak and Nese separating Lorcan, and then setting off everyone's fireworks down a hot stretch. It lead to two different peaked hot tags (even though crowds do just seem like they are going to be permanently not-hot for 205). Burch and Gulak were a fun start, and Gulak was a real MVP during this whole tag. Everything he did showed more attention to detail than you typically see from these fast paced affairs. He was expert at setting up offense for Lorcan and Burch, while not skimping on little things that are very easy to skimp on when pace quickens. Every time he was supposed to miss something, he looked like he was actually missing something, not just leaning into a move. He had short quick missed clotheslines in ring, and the best was him jumping off the apron into a Lorcan uppercut, and the fact that Gulak looked like he was throwing a lariat off the apron before getting hit. Taking dangerous offense is hard! It would make sense had he merely jumped off the apron into an uppercut, making sure he was taking it as safely as possible. But here he is joining all the dots, showing that movements matter. Lorcan's hot tag was a blast, love how he levels people with that shot out of a cannon uppercut, and he was also the guy tasked with wrangling Tony Nese which doesn't always seem easy. Nese - as we've stated before - seems to only be interesting when his shots don't land cleanly. When things are going as planned and he's all brainless combos, I have no use. But when he's landing knees first on a moonsault or flying recklessly over the ropes to the floor and off Lorcan, I'm more into it. I liked the way the teams would come together, liked the tandem submissions, thought the Doomsday Device looked fantastic, and really liked how the teams worked together.

PAS: This was the least I have been annoyed with Nese maybe ever. All three of his big spots (the moonsault, the dive and the 450) landed with violence and force and he didn't do any of his two step dance spots. Burch is a guy I should like more then I do, but he was fine in his role. This was mostly a great Lorcan and Gulak performance, these guys have been matching up for years and it is so fun that they are getting to do their stuff on the WWE network. They have so many different big moves that look great, and small flourishes which add to a match. The way Gulak fell on the doomsday device was great it felt less like a backflip and more like someone falling off a painting ladder. I am hoping we get one more big Lorcan vs. Gulak singles, before the show ends or the title feud moves on.

NXT 9/25

Oney Lorcan/Danny Burch vs. Ever-Rise (Chase Parker/Matt Martel)

PAS: This was fine, pretty much a semi competitive squash. Parker and Martel didn't show me a ton of flash, but they were solid, and I liked the backbreaker running knee combo.  Lorcan is a fun face in peril, and I thought the summoning to the heavens by Burch was a neat touch. Nothing anyone would remember in a week or two but I am glad to see Lorcan and Burch get a push.

ER: This felt like a more-competitive-than-usual Wrestling Challenge match, like the Smoking Gunns were giving Well Dunn an extra control segment they wouldn't typically get. Ever-Rise were pretty unmemorable on control, nothing offensive but definitely a team that is there to just fill time until Burch and Lorcan get their much more exciting offense in. These matches are important because it gives guys some showcase while allowing them to work on mid-match schtick. This week on 205 and NXT they do they Burch Summoning Lorcan spot and this one captures the better angle, actually seeing Lorcan pop up from behind the apron, like someone Teen Wolfing on a crowded train. Burch throws some really nice punches, nice enough that I think he should throw those instead of his forearms, and he gets to land his nice Zidane headbutt. A win on 205, good showcase here, I think that the interest in these two is ramping up as we go into NXT head to head week.

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New Footage Friday: AWA SuperClash IV

ER: Before our first match we find out that Junkyard Dog injured his knee the night before and was being replaced by Baron von Raschke as Col. DeBeers's opponent. I think I would have quite liked even 1990 JYD vs. DeBeers, as DeBeers is a good big bumping match for that era JYD. But there are also no records that JYD fought anywhere nearby the night before this show, or even the prior month, so I assume this was some false advertising leading up to the day of the show. Also, this being a Sunday afternoon in Minnesota, most of the crowd looks like a bunch of guys meeting up at a bar for their local Teamsters meeting. The crowd is Teamsters and 10 year olds, and that's a GREAT wrestling crowd.

Jake Milliman vs. Todd Becker

ER: An opening match that felt like an opening match. I have a soft spot for Milliman and he's a fun area favorite, a barrel bodied man billed suspiciously at 5'6". I know wrestlers exaggerate but that seems beyond the pale. This is 5 minutes and feels like a people getting in their seats match, Becker drops some decent elbows and tries to ground Milliman, Jake throws his weird arms close to body armdrags and a nice monkey flip that gets a good reaction. He also has a nice Super Porkyesque sunset flip where his large solid and compact body stays close to his opponent all the way over. There was a weird missed spot where Milliman hits a low shoulderblock right to Becker's stomach and Becker just stands there, so Jake bumps. Jake should have had way more torpedo body block moves, the guy was a toy tank. This was simple, easy, did what it needed to.

Texas Hangmen vs. Brad Rheingans/DJ Peterson

ER: Solid house show tag, always going to be excited about the Network putting up new Bull Pain and one of Mean Mike/Tough Tom footage. Bull Pain works a lot of this, building spots by complaining of hair/mask pulls early, all to just eventually land one great cheap shot punch. Face team was hiptosses and armdrags and dropkicks through much of this, while Hangmen played big bullies. I dug the Hangmen cheating and liked how Rheingans played Morton, it's cool when the more powerful guy on a team is the Morton, switches up the dynamic. DJ Peterson is kind of boring Mark Starr on hot tag, so it's more interesting to have Rheingans build to a big Saito suplex and German suplex, and I like Hangmen's accidental middle rope clothesline miscommunication to set up the hot tag. I wasn't expecting the Hangmen to get the win here so that was a fun surprise. Also, I am loving how we get no commentary, and instead get audio of a couple kids getting picked up by the camera mics, yelling at wrestlers (they must be sitting in an area where guys are walking in and out backstage). It's fun hearing them tell DeBeers that he sucks, or flip out trying to get Tully Blanchard or Greg Gagne's autograph.

MD: This was a pretty enjoyable house show feeling tag match (Hey, I just looked at what Eric wrote and he went the exact same way with it. Good for us) with the crowd playing along. Rheingans, edging towards 40, was the world's least explosive Kurt Angle, able to hit suplexes with a little effort and manage at least one cool roll up at 75% speed. The Hangmen were underrated and fed well, sold properly, and kept things interesting enough while on top. Some weird timing things throughout, like the long, droning, extended announcement (Gagne daughter maybe?) of the 10 minute mark happening right during the hot tag build up, or Brad getting in the way on the apron during the double-clothesline set up. The Hangmen should have gotten a better run somewhere.

Col. DeBeers vs. Baron von Raschke

MD: This was originally supposed to be JYD vs DeBeers which is a kind of fascinating thought but would have been much more so in 1982. I think the crowd was actually happier with the Baron in there, which is MN for you (not that 90 JYD was any great shakes but you get the idea). DeBeers had lots of heat throughout the night, even when it wasn't his match. This was by the numbers with Baron's stuff (even his knee lift which he used twice to set up the Claw tease) pretty rough. I did like the briefcase block of the claw late in the match. Since it was a replacement, the babyface went over but they immediately beat him down to cover for it.

ER: I liked the sound of this on paper, just because DeBeers is a big guy who bumps big - and bumps plausibly - for old or otherwise immobile guys. DeBeers is big enough that he can easily control and bully, and he's someone who works in his stooging well. And it turns out I like the match even more in execution than I did on paper! They kept it short (around 6 minutes) and Baron (who is just about 50 here) doesn't have any time to get in trouble, so what we do get is DeBeers bumping big for kneelifts that don't quite lift, and working a few really fun sequences around a limited opponent. DeBeers has a great bump through the ropes to the floor, which leads to him slam dunking Baron's neck right over the top rope in an awesome visual. DeBeers controls with nice punches, backing Baron into the corner and throwing uppercuts, short shots to the face, and nice headlock punches, Baron throws some nice comeback punches, and the finish had two VERY great pieces, two things that I absolutely loved: DeBeers gets tied up in the ropes Andre style, Baron calls for the claw, gets people all exciting with some babyface goose stepping, comes in for the claw...and Sheik Adnan blocks the claw with his briefcase!! Honestly, I was way into the rest of this match already, but if the rest of this match had been a 5 minute chinlock leading to that spot, I'd be writing just as favorably about this match. The fact that they roll to the floor and set up a spot where DeBeers accidentally lobs a straight right hand into the ringpost was the tastiest icing. This ruled.

Tully Blanchard vs. Tommy Jammer

MD: This was a Tully performance that would have worked at almost any time, in almost any place, except in front of this crowd and against this opponent. They had been running with Jammer a bit. He was undefeated. There just wasn't anything there. Tully had Christopher Love with him and the subtitles on the network (since I couldn't make it out at first) said that he had the Perfect Ten Baby Doll with him, which merged together, was kind of a horrifying thought. They went fifteen minutes with Tully sneaking a win at the end due to a foot grab from the outside by Love. This was obviously an attempt for Tully to help make Jammer by giving him the near-entirety of a long-ish match, but the fans wanted nothing to do with it. To Tully's credit, when he realized how little they were engaged, he worked even harder from underneath and tried engaging them more, but it was blood from the stone here. Part of it was them not caring about Jammer and part was the fact that Tully wasn't a regular in the area. I honestly don't know what more he could have done here.

ER: 90s Tully feels like one of the bigger things that we wrestling fans missed out on. He was still in his mid 30s here, and his Muga match 5 years later showed he was still a clear top in-ring guy. It sucks to think of how many fun Tully matches could have happened during those 5 years if things had gone differently. And a match like this really showcased the kind of match Tully could craft without...well without much of anything. Tommy Jammer was basically a Tony Garea style good looking babyface with one hold, and not much else. And I thought it was great. It was a cool glimpse at what Tully could do with just about...well, just about literally anybody. This is a 15 minute match and the first 9-10 minutes is Jammer holding Tully's arm behind his back and Tully actually making that interesting. There are a couple times Jammer loses his grip and Tully holds the whole thing together, and I was completely engaged the whole time by just how engaging Tully was while wrestling a match on his back with one arm. 

I thought Tully made the pinfall attempts way more interesting than they should have been, thought he feebly fought back well and made it seem like Jammer was actually bossing him through things, and loved the moments like his little panicked expression when Jammer was dragging him back to the center by his arm, and Bert Prentice yanking his leg from the floor, just Tully panicking hilariously at his potential quartering. Tully took 15 minutes of minimalist wrestling and made me interested at any turn. He hardly used any offense, with his biggest spots being the two times he grabbed Jammer by the front of the trunks and flung him to the floor (for his part, Jammer falls nice and recklessly to the floor). Tully works some interesting stuff with an incomplete Sharpshooter, holding Jammer up vertically and trying to leverage a pinfall out of it, and I loved it all. I was kind of transfixed by Tully the whole match, really begging off and making Jammer look like someone he was actually threatened by. The fans don't seem to care one lick about Jammer, but there is no way in hell that was Tully's fault. There are so many other wrestlers throughout history who would have benefitted from a legend like Tully crafting a match like this around them. I loved it.

Yukon John Nord vs. Kokina Maximus

PAS: This was a little disappointing, both these guys are such huge bump freaks, you would hope this match would have some big bumps, instead we got a lot of Kokina nerve holds. There are some fun clubbering exchanges, and Sheik Adnan getting his comeuppance, and Nord has an all time great big boot, I just wanted more.

MD: This was lead-babyface Nord, and by damn, I think that it could have worked on a bigger stage. Maybe not with the Lumberjack gimmick, but you almost didn't need a gimmick. He was a big crazy guy who could kick people in the face. Kokina here makes me think we were robbed with the scowling sumo gimmick. He had so much swagger and cockiness, like a proto-heel Uso. He could move a hundred and fifty pounds heavier but he could really move here. The match itself was a little too nervelock heavy but Nord really worked it well from underneath. The gimmick was that Al-Kaissie had a 50K bounty on Nord but that the briefcase was actually just full of paper, so after 1.) the colossally big boot (as in the biggest boot ever, as in if they were going to keep doing TV, it should have been the very last thing in the opening montage) 2.) Kokina accidentally squashing Kaissie, and 3.) Nord flattened him with it for the pin, causing it to fly open, Kokina had a babyface turn which the crowd was mostly into. Twin Wars had Nord and Norton face the Hangmen and how great would the team of Nord and Kokina have been instead?

ER: How did it take so long for us all, collectively, as a fully undivided group, to realize how incredible John Nord was. Even just his pre-match routine of putting his giant fur trapper hat on the ref while taking his rapid fire back bump, that stuff just cracks me up every time. I love this guy. This is also a look at super skinny (on his scale, and by that I mean when his weight would have still shown up on a normal human scale) Kokina, and I had a blast with this. Nord is such a gigantic guy, with a big goofy personality and tons of skill, and he really makes this whole thing work. It's a lumberjack stip, even though it really only comes into play when Adnan is thrown back in after the match, but he's the one actually engaging the lumberjacks and putting on a spectacle for fans in the back. We get fun early moments of shrugged off shoulderblocks, and Nord is someone who will run as hard as possible into a shoulderblock, and I loved all the ways Nord made a nerve hold interesting (my favorite was him grabbing at Kokina's hair, leading to a dramatic hair whip from Kokina as he sank the hold back in). 

Things get really good as Nord is left staggered by a thrust kick, so Kokina clotheslines him over the top to the floor. You knew Nord was going to take SOME bump to the floor, and here's where he plays it to the back. Once on the floor, being larger than any of the lumberjacks containing him, he starts stumbling his way through all of them, a man lost in a mosh pit. Nobody is hitting him, he's just making his own action, falling into chairs and then getting tangled in a chair, throwing that chair into the air, and then pie facing Jake Milliman; honestly it felt like he was channeling Terry Funk, and a gigantic Terry Funk is too much fun to even consider. Back in the ring we build to Nord hitting a tremendous big boot, just an all time highlight reel big boot, with him practically doing a mid air splits as his right leg is fully extended and kicking right through Kokina. Now you're talking about boots, kid. These two, both heels by then, obviously never crossed paths in WWF, so this was a dream match for me. It didn't live up to my internal expectations, but I knew those were too high to live up to. It certainly left me smiling and satisfied, and still perplexed wondering how Nord wasn't an absolute megastar.

Larry Zbyszko vs. Masa Saito

MD: Not a ton here. They worked it a little bit like Larry was the vulnerable challenger (likely because he was going over) including a long sleeper. There were flashes of great matwork at the beginning, counter-heavy instead of moving in and out to spots like you'd expect in a title match but it didn't last long. Saito had history but maybe not the right sort and he wasn't the right guy for this role in front of this crowd. The finish felt five years before its time though, with Larry surviving one Saito suplex only to get his feet up on the ropes to press back harder on the second which theoretically (physics be damned) let him get his shoulder up at the last second.

ER: Whose physical appearance in pro wrestling reads more "Badass Motherfucker" than Masa Saito? And here he looks even more badass wearing that big beautiful title belt (truly one of the better belt wearers in wrestling, as this footage shows) while standing next to Business BBQ Riki Choshu in his dad jeans and ponytail. But I really dug this match. Neither man really felt like they were sticking to assigned face/heel dynamics; you assume Saito would be the heel just because "not American" but Zbyszko doesn't really work like a face for large parts of this. But I liked all the work and when heel work would happen it was never cheating, it just meant each guy worked more aggressively, and that's more interesting to me. I thought the early grappling was really tight and a lot of this felt hard fought, more of a struggle than the match structure I was expecting. It looked like Larry tried to take Saito down right at the beginning and Saito blocked it and immediately turned it into a shoot Fujiwara, with both then scrambling for dominance. The standing grappling down to even stuff like their knucklelocks were totally engaging to me.

I liked them working holds, and I thought that was a good way to highlight the other nice feature of the match, an Actual Good Guest Referee in Nick Bockwinkel. I liked how he would handle the holds and pinfalls, getting down athletically and engagingly without ever being tempted to get in the way of action or drawing attention to himself. If it wasn't Nick Bockwinkel and just some guy, he would just come off like a really good ref. It's not a surprise that Bockwinkel is a good referee. It feels like something he would excel at. I loved how they made big parts of this look like a fight, and the turnbuckle spots were some of the absolute best in recent memory. I was impressed with how great Saito was making shots into the buckles look, really looking like Larry was forcing his face into them....and then moments later Zbyszko was ramming that top buckle so ferociously that he looked like he was trying to hardway bleed. You watch Saito slamming Larry's head into the buckles for a 10 count, and you tell me the last time you saw that spot done as well. 

The Saito suplexes were great, loved the way he drops Larry straight down. But man did I hate this finish. It felt both ahead of its time, and completely annoying and nonsensical. Saito lifts for a Saito suplex, Larry walks up and pushes up off the ropes, sending him backwards even harder than the other suplexes he took...the suplex even harder than he took any other suplex in the match. He landed higher up on his shoulders and it looked hard as hell...but then he just got his shoulder up at the 3 count. I hate that fucking finish, and if this was the first time I'd have seen it I'd have hated it for the first time. There's a big muddled confusion as Saito is announced as winner and Bockwinkel slowly and too casually walks over to Zbyszko and raises his hand, and then Zbyszko acts surprised and disbelieving that he won, which came off like a really bizarre reaction. A fan is shown in the crowd holding a "Larry Does Not Suck" sign, which I am still actually laughing about. It's calmly and sincerely meaning to answer a question I didn't realize was being asked, and it open-faced honesty is so hilarious to me. Not "Larry Rocks" or "Larry Rules", but taking the opposite approach and saying "Larry Isn't Bad at This" or "Larry is Trying and I Noticed". I love it and hate every part of the ending, even my favorite front row Teamster immediately understanding what happened and trying to alert officials that Larry got his shoulder up, even Saito sending Larry into a killer postmatch beatdown backdrop (okay no I obviously loved it because I'd probably love a backdrop in any part of a match). This match has now left me confused.

The Destruction Crew vs. Paul Diamond/The Trooper

MD: The more I think about this, the more I like it. Given the purpose it had, it was nearly perfect, actually. The only issue was that the crowd kind of loved the Destruction Crew. There's not a lot that they could do about that, I guess. So the deal here was this: one of the big matches at Twin Wars was going to be Rheingans teaming with Benchwarmer Bob Lurtsema - a local sports star/sports bar owner pushing 50 - against the Destruction Crew. This was going to set it up by having him be a special ref. It follows the formula of Zbyszko vs Ledoux a bit, which feels like it was a success for the AWA but I can't at all quantify that. Two ref shots for Lurtsema (this being the second) and then the match. Therefore, instead of the babyfaces getting a real comeback here, Lurtsema was going to cannibalize that pop.

With that in mind, they sort of flipped the script. At first I thought it was because Wilkes was super green and enthusiastic, but it's because of this. The first half of the match is Enos being petrified of getting into the cage and then tossed into it by the babyfaces again and again and again as he bleeds all over the place. Generally, I like cage matches where they really build to the use of the catch, where the babyfaces barely get to use it at all until their comeback, but it made sense to topload it here. The transition was Trooper missing a ridiculously big elbow drop off the top and what really kept putting him down was Tully putting a chair up to the cage from the outside so that the Crew could toss him into a completely no-give situation. The fans were generally behind the Crew over the babyfaces but that still got heat every time they went to it. Honestly, I get what they were going here and I think, if you add in the post-match promos (of which we have a litany of, including Verne, from off camera, completely browbeating Bischoff who looked like the most uncomfortable sap in the world), it was a fairly successful promotional tactic. The problem is that this was shaping up to be a pretty solid cage match and we got robbed of a comeback. I wish they didn't eminent domain away Verne's collateral so that we would have gotten another year of the Tully/Crew pairing.

PAS: I thought this was really good, and if the Lurtsema stuff had worked for the crowd, it could have been an all timer. Man the 90s pairing of Destruction Crew and Tully Blanchard has to be an all time What Ifs. I could just see that trio running rampant all over a fed with more of a future. Enos takes a big time thrashing early and it was some really good babyface standing tall stuff. Trooper's big missed elbow ruled, and the beatdown was great stuff. I agree that putting all the heat on Benchwarmer made the match feel incomplete, the Trooper just gets wrecked, we never get a big Paul Diamond hot tag or Trooper comeback. You could have still had that, and then run some business with Benchwarmer Bob. I actually like this roster, they are a little light on babyfaces, Saito should always be a heel, and really Nord is better as a heel too, but the heel roster is pretty great.

ER: I thought this was legitimately great. I thought it stood up among the greatest tag matches in AWA history, and honestly it's my favorite tag match I've watch in 2019, and it's one of the greatest tag team cage matches I've seen. I loved this, every bit of it. It was a perfectly condensed 10 minutes of bell to bell asskicking. Both teams were so good, Diamond and Trooper exceeding all expectations and beating so much ass that this was like watching Destruction Crew vs. Destruction Crew. Mike Enos eats a beating on every single inch of that cage, he was such a great meathead pinball, flopping onto his face and comically stepping over the whole ring, taking all sorts of hard face first shots into the cage, and bouncing back and forth between big Diamond and Trooper punches. Enos gets busted open and his big bumping doesn't slow when he gets bloodied up, and watching Diamond and Trooper punch away at a loopy Enos's bloody head gives me a full head of respect for Diamond and Del Wilkes. 

Wayne Bloom comes in and I love what he does with all of this, scrambling up and over the top and getting pulled over, getting punched on the top of the cage, and then coming up with several dramatic blocks of his face going into the cage, all leading to an eyepoke to finally get the Destruction Crew out of the red. Then we get Trooper flying 2/3 across the ring with a missed elbow, and you get Enos and Bloom throwing their dickhead elbows (Enos would run at the faces and hit these rad almost standing elbowdrops, running into them at a nice lean elbow first, whereas Bloom has one of my favorite traditional elbows and all of his elbow strikes look even better with his sharp ass 'bows), and by the time Tully was holding up a steel chair on the floor for the Crew to run the faces into, I was over the moon. And that was before Destruction Crew's insane Doomsday Device had even happened. Swoon. Say what you will about the Lurtsema stuff, I thought it was fine minor celeb involvement. I have no idea how much of an actual local legend Lurtsema was to people 15 years after he was a Viking, like would a 2019 Minnesota native get excited for Lew Ford dropping a leg drop on someone in a cage match? Probably! This whole thing ruled. I genuinely do think it stands up with the greatest AWA tag matches in history, and completely unheralded matches than many knew existed are some of the greatest joys in wrestling. I already knew I was going to eventually do a Destruction Crew/Beverly Bros. C&A; I didn't realize I would be looking through Paul Diamond or Del Wilkes' careers either...

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Thursday AIW: Bad Boy For Life Live Blog!!

PAS: AIW is my favorite promotion in the world, and while I really don't care about Janela vs. Alex Shelly, the idea of an AIW show with a surprise card intrigues me, so I figured I would check it out live.

Tre Lamar vs. Lee Moriarty

PAS: Fun start with both guys throwing bombs from the start. Moriarty didn't really do any of his goofy WOS I don't care for, and hit coolest spot of the match wasting Lamar with a tope into the guardrail that looked like it broke his back. Lamar is really good at using his leaping and flipping into stuff that looks really painful, his Pele kick is really high and fast and he rolls into nasty suplexes. Not a ton of selling, and Lamar just goes back on offense after getting smashed with nasty kicks for near falls. Still cool opener and this show is 1 for 1.

Zach Thomas vs. KTB

PAS: This is another bit of good match making, the local corn fed powerhouse, against the imported monster. Really fun slugfest, both guys have really fun powerhouse offense. I love Thomas's spinebuster, and he lands some big chops and forearms and a great jumping kick. KTB even breaks out the Mr. Fuji diving headbutt which is a great spot to steal. There is a one count spot which is a little played out, otherwise this was exactly what you want it to be. Old school UWF style slugfest heavyweight wrestling.

Weird World vs. Dr. Daniel C. Rockingham/Parker Pierce

PAS: Weird World matches have a super high floor, you know at a minimum you are going to get some cool Baba chops, and some sick Weird Body bumps, I have never seen a Weird World match I haven't at least enjoyed. This was on the higher end of Weird World stuff, Weird Body really takes a beating from Pierce who is a fun crowbar,  I like how the announcers put over his baseball background as an advantage for his chops and clotheslines. Dr. Dan stretches out Weird Body with a cool torture rack variation too. Then we get a huge Dr. Dan bump, as Weird Body climbs everyone in the match to give Dr. Dan a sunset flip powerbomb right on the stage, totally uncalled for and totally gross.

Joey Janela vs. Alex Shelley

PAS I really didn't like Alex Shelley versus Dom from last week, as it felt like Shelley just ran through his stuff without too much concern for what his opponent was doing. Here Shelley wasn't in exhibition mode, he was in super indy "Fight Forever" mode, which is a little better, but still basically tiring. Janela hung with Shelley's mat stuff early, and I enjoyed Shelley's heel stuff including just grinding his boot into Janela's balls. This had some big stuff, but eventually just turned into a 2019 2.9 near fall match, which I am pretty much done with. I think this is what Janela was hoping to do, and he showed he can hang in this type of PWG match, not my thing though

Danhausen vs. PB Smooth

PAS: I really liked this match with the face and heel orientations reversed, and it was even better with Danhausen as a plucky creeper underdog. Loved how Danhausen used his speed to stick and move and let PB Smooth beat himself, including Smooth chopping the top of the guardrail. When Smooth catches him, he just chucks him around the ring like he was throwing bags of wheat. With Danhausen getting in shots here and there. The spot where Danhausen puts spare teeth in someone's mouth is pretty creepy but for a signature comedy spot (horror spot?) it is pretty rad. Love every version of the 40 Acres vs. Production feud and want it to go on forever

The Duke/Bitcoin Boys vs. PME/Allie Cat

PAS: Starts out with some comedy wrestling varying from pretty funny (Marino stealing Mikey Montgomery's phone) to pretty stupid (Eric Taylor being allergic to cats). It breaks down into a pretty fun tag team, not a big Allie Cat fan,  but she will stiff a Bitcoin Boy, and PME are pretty unassailable at this point. Duke is in a weird position, as he is way bigger and more violent then either of the guys he is managing, pretty weird to do a six man tag match where the manager is the heater. Dug the finish run and the double Sunset Dreams is a cool finish

Manders vs. Big Twan Tucker

PAS: Their first match was one of my favorite matches of the year, just an insane intense fist fight from two giant psychos. This wasn't at that level, but it was still great and had moments which rivaled the best of that match. I think this went a bit longer and they stretched out and did some things that weren't just distilled face punching. The distilled face punching was there though and there was some moments where they were just flinging stiff slaps and forearms right into each others jaws that it jumped up a level, this may have had the only good looking hockey fight spot I can remember seeing in wrestling. I loved how they were slapping the teeth out of each others mouths all match, but they even ramped it up another level for the final exchange. They are 1 and 1 now, so we have to get a rubber match, and I am amped.

Dominic Garrini vs. Joshua Bishop

PAS: We get back to back rematches of my two favorite AIW matches of the year. These guys had a truly harrowing brawl WrestleMania weekend, and they get right back after it. Dom opens up with a tope and they just rip after each other. There are some real old school brain damaging chair shots in this match, some big moves through doors and Bishop getting skewers jammed into his heart. At one point Dom gives Bishop an F5 chest first on a barbed wire law chair. Wes Barkley comes in with a neck brace and I hope he isn't really hurt, because he gets mangled in this match, jerked about by his neck and F5ed on the Necro tops of the chairs. It didn't have the insane ending of the I Quit match, but man this had almost the level of violence, these two boys are crazy.

Eric Ryan vs. Matthew Justice

PAS Man they don't give you a break. AIW follows the crazy violence of the Dom vs. Bishop match, with these two nuts. They open the match with a barfight, with Ryan having his fist wrapped in a chain of forks, and Justice wrapping his fist in bullets. They must have dumped five coffee cups full of thumbtacks on the mat and took some gross bumps into the tack (at one point Ryan just throws a handful of tacks into Fonzie's face and Fonzie seems to be pulling one out of his eye, gross) We get guys tossed through fork doors, and finally Justice giving Ryan a Vertebreaker through a huge light tube bundle. Totally extra, in every way, two of the nuttier death matches guys around doing a nutty deathmatch

PAS: Killer show, this is a roster I love to see mix and matched like this and I enjoyed every match, with a couple of rematches which totally banged.

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NXT on USA Workrate Report 9/25/19

This is the last week of this half and half NXT, the official war starts next week and they are loading up three title matches and I imagine a big surprise or two. This was still sort of a soft opening, and I am hesitant to judge fully until I see next week

WHAT WORKED

-Keith Lee came off like a big star, Dijakovic is his touring partner, but this felt less like a showcase of both of them, and more like a showcase for Lee. This matchup is one of my least favorite Lee matchups, he has shockingly impressive athletic explosion, and it is less impressive when there is a tall guy doing shittier looking versions of the same sort of stuff. I was amused how Dijakovic's tale of the tape listed his striking as an advantage, because his stuff looked crappy, while Lee was throwing forearms right through him. Dijakovic is DOA, his haircut and gear look awful, as do his tough guy faces. Tall guys who can do a moonsault are a positional glut in wrestling, no need to see anymore. Lee should be moving on and up. Also as a 80s baby raised on reruns I appreciate how much Lee looks like Bookman from Good Times.

WHAT DIDN'T WORK

-I want to like Taynara Conti, but outside of her Judo throw, she looked green and off. Dakota Kai had some kicks that landed, and some kicks which did not. They probably should keep both of these ladies off TV for a bit. Feels like if NXT is going to be on USA, these type of matches should be on EVOLVE shows or NXT UK.

-I have watched a ton of Matt Riddle matches, and have loved some and hated some, this was one of the duller Riddle matches I can remember. He brought so little of what makes him a compelling guy to watch. This was a typical walk around the arena WWE brawl. I wanted Riddle to at least bring some spice to that, and outside of a cool Fujiwara finish, I didn't see much cool or interesting. Tough spot for Dain to be main eventing a show with a Keith Lee opener. Lee really exposes Dain's fat guy flying. Not sure why they switched Riddle's finisher from a twister to a Fujiwara, especially since Becky Lynch is using a shittier version main eventing shows.

-Adam Cole looks like Bagel Boss coming down and trying to intimidate Riddle. He should be celebrity boxing Lenny Dykstra not holding the main title on a cable wrestling show.

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By Request: Shotaro Ashino vs. Seigo Tachibana

Shotaro Ashino vs. Seigo Tachibana Wrestle-1 6/2/19

ER: I'm nowhere near involved in the current puro landscape as I was a decade ago, partly lack of time, partly my favorites retiring/dying/getting old and not being replaced by people I like anywhere near as much. So I always appreciate recommendations for things like this, something I assuredly would have never seen. And while I think it narrowly misses our Match of the Year List, there were plenty of elements of the match that made it a contender for the list all the way through. In some ways it was a fun throwback 2002 "Sell the Arm" kind of match, with Ashino muscling Tachibana around early, hitting a hard snap German, throwing him through chairs, and - in probably my favorite spot of the match - hitting a killer overhead belly to belly on the floor. I love how the belly to belly was set up, Tachibana charging into Ashino and then hitting a brick wall - that THWACK Tachibana made when he ran straight into Ashino and stopped dead - and then getting chucked. I liked the focus once Tachibana shifted to working the arm, and loved how he set it up: He kept slamming Ashino's left arm into the mat and their holding it for a pin, and after trying that a few times and maneuvered smoothly into an armbar. The threat of a good armbar added more to this for me, and Ashino did a mostly nice job of selling it. It was cool seeing him work off balance, not able to throw as much weight behind his great uppercuts, his rhythm thrown by this swinging dead weight left arm. When he would fight through and use the dead arm, his shots would land harder but the recovery would take longer, leaving Tachibana openings.

That kind of simple acknowledgment could have really taken the match the rest of the way, but they wanted to do more things, limbwork be damned. I think Eddie Kingston might be the only wrestler brave enough (Brave? Dedicated? Smart?) to work a match with a bad limb, but not be tempted to get his shit in. Not everybody is Eddie Kingston, and he has the charisma and knowledge to work a compelling match with any restrictions. Shoot, lets make some sort of Dogme 95 list but for wrestling mat restrictions and see who can make the most compelling match within the parameters. And I like how Ashino uses that dead weight arm to his advantage, but also flipped when Tachibana caught him in a straight armbar or Fujiwara. Things got a little muddled when he started working ankle locks on Tachibana. I don't think the match needed dueling limbwork, and Tachibana really had no real interest in paying attention to it, screaming nicely while trapped in them, but not long after doing deadlift squats to get Ashino up. Some of the reversals around the anklelocks were nice, and some of the slams by both were good, but we also got a standing exchange that went too long, and some questionable things like Tachibana taking three Germans and selling them by grabbing an armbar. And that stuff wasn't bad, but it felt very predictable, and that was much worse to me. It was worse because they felt like they were moving to their own path, carving out their own fun armwork story, and then at some point it became clear we were going to get more 2019 tropes because it's 2019. I liked much more of this than I disliked, and also appreciate that they kept it a tidy 15 minutes, but an interesting Act I and II moving into a somewhat unrelated and muddled and busy Act III won't usually make list.

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Monday AIW - Bobblehead Night 9/20/19

Bitcoin Boys (Mikey Montgomery/Eric Taylor) vs. Aeroform (Louis Lyndon/Flip Kendrick) vs. The Production (Danhausen/Derek Director) vs. 40 Acres (AJ Gray/Tre Lamar)

PAS: AIW four team scrambles are maybe my favorite thing in current wrestling. This match was missing some of the regular standouts (WHERE ARE THE FUCK-ITS?!?!), but was still a blast. This match was really high flyer heavy and we got some really nifty dives by the Bitcoin Boys, Aeroform and Tre Lamar. There was also some nasty double teams, including a spot where Derek Director takes Tre Lamar on his back and smushes a Bitcoin Boy with a cannonball in the corner. The Bitcoin Boys had some moments of questionable offense, but took huge uncalled for beatings in this match, and that is always fun to watch. I didn't love the finish, and this wasn't at the level of the best AIW 4 way tags, but that is a super high bar to clear.

Dominic Garrini vs. Alex Shelley

PAS: There were moments in this I liked, but overall came away disappointed. Dom looked great, and the opening sections where you had Shelley doing his flashy matwork, only to be countered by cool Ju-Jitsu flourishes was a lot of fun. Outside of that though, I thought this was way too much of Garrini being a dance partner to Shelley's do-si-doing. It looked like a dance routine, and Garrini went down way too easily for such a top guy in this promotion. I can't remember the last time I saw Shelley, and I want to forget this time.

D'Lo Brown/Twan Tucker vs. Parker Pierce/Dr. Dan Montgomery

PAS: AIW does a nice job of delivering on their nostalgia acts. D'Lo hit all of his big spots, albeit quite a bit slower then in the 90s (no Low Down, but he did miss a second rope moonsault). Dr. Dan is a nice foil for whoever they bring in, and took an insane Powerbomb neck first on the guardrail from Twan which was uncalled for. Twan brought the intensity to what was otherwise basically a comedy match, and the Parker Pierce feud is fun, if not a bit of a side drain to a guy who was building big momentum. I am ready for Twan to move on to bigger and better things, or at a minimum getting a Manders rematch.

Erick Stevens vs. Wheeler Yuta vs. Lee Moriarty vs. Zach 

PAS: This had some moments I liked, and some moments I didn't care for. I enjoyed watching Thomas and Stevens hit each other, and didn't love watching Yuta and Moriarty find athletic ways to miss each other. Thomas is a big boy and wrestles like it. He had some fun power spots and he and Stevens would lace into each other whenever possible. Moriarty is seemingly on every AIW show in a four way and I still don't get it, he and Yuta really feel like they are counting dance steps in their head. I gripe about the guys AIW isn't booking, but there is no reason for Young Studs, Fuck It's and Weird World to be on the sidelines and have a match with these guys spinning each other around like they are on America's Next Great Dance Crew.

Mercedes Martinez vs. Dr. Britt Baker

PAS: This is Baker's swan song in AIW before going to AEW, and it really makes you wonder why she is the one of these two ladies who is signed. Martinez had one of the best matches of last year with Meiko Satomura, and looks like a killer in this match. Baker looks tentative and her stuff looks weak. She does slingblades and slowly rolls Mercedes into submissions, and I just don't see it. I give Baker credit for taking the beating she took, but come on, someone pay Mercedes.

Nick Gage vs. Wes Barkley

PAS: This opens with Josh Bishop clanking Gage with a Kendo stick from the audience, and Barkley and Bishop double team Gage for a bit, busting him open and Wes slams him on thumbtacks and Legos. After that bit of offense, its the violent squash you would expect with Barkley getting tossed around the ring into things and bleeding badly (he tries the mid air Michaels blade job, but does it really obviously, someone needs to do an AIW school seminar on blading secretly). Finish has Gage spearing Bishop through a table, and giving Barkley a chokebreaker on the top of a chair. Props to Wes for taking a pounding, this was basically the worlds most violent Ultimate Warrior vs. Bobby Heenan.

Philly Marino Experience (Philly C/Marino T) vs. To Infinity and Beyond (Cheech/Colin Delaney)

PAS: Another absolute banger from these two teams, I can't remember the last time a tag rivalry has been this consistently excellent (maybe Usos vs. New Day although that got worn out after a while.) The storytelling of this match was a bit different, your previous matches have been all about PME trying to climb the mountain and unseat the champs, here they have knocked TIAB off that mountain and are trying to keep them down. Cheech and Colin are a bit less sure of themselves, a little more desperate and PME are on a roll. Philly takes a huge backdrop onto the ramp and sells a bad back for the finishing run really well, that little bit of tentativeness costs him a couple of times. We get good heat sections on both PMErs and a cool hot run, with Infinity trying all of their dirty tricks. I loved the couple of big near falls after the hot tag, and the super Sunset Dreams is a great escalation finish.  I also appreciate how both team work towards real heel and face reactions, there is no "Fight Forever" or "Both These Guys" chants in their matches, just beloved babyfaces fighting against dastardly heels.

Matthew Justice vs. Mance Warner

PAS: This was a fun ECW nostalgia brawl, lots of unprotected chairs right to the top of the head, and long construction projects leading to hard painful falls. I really like Mancer's facial expression when he gets hit hard in the head, he is one of the better looking bloody faces in wrestling. If Wrestling Eye was still a thing he would make a great cover model. I enjoyed this, even though it was pretty dumb. Justice kicks out of a top rope piledriver through two tables for fucks sake. Sort of a stepson of Sabu versus third cousin of Terry Funk and it is hard not to at least be glad you watched it.

Tom Lawlor vs. KTB

PAS: This was good stuff, one of the better Lawlor title defense for sure. KTB brings this fun sprint intensity to all of his matches, and these guys go right at each other reckless from the start. They wing punches and chops and don't pause to stare and make faces at each other. KTB has really fun power spots, including just powering Lawlor over the top rope when Lawlor was stomping on his chest, and Lawlor does some cool MMA counters, like catching KTB mid spear in a guillotine choke, and snatching him out of the air into triangle chokes. Never lets up and ends cool and clean. Really a house show title match, and the post match Bishop angle sets up the next big title defense perfectly.

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2018 Ongoing MOTY List: Hungarian Shootstyle!!

66. Norbert Novenyi vs. Renato Makai HCW 5/26

PAS: Novenyi is a 60 year old Olympic Greco Roman Gold Medalist (in 1980!!) and Kickboxing champion, while Makai is a super jacked Heavyweight MMA fighter. This had a huge main event feel, sort of like Vader vs. Ric Flair if neither guy had a ton of wrestling experience, but it felt like Novenyi had that same sort of connection to the crowd. Really wild feel with Makai sending Novenyi into the crowd as Hungarians scatter. Novenyi took a pretty big beating for a guy in his sixties, but he was pretty barrel chested and looked like an old man who could kick your ass. I loved how he kept slipping into that choke and Makai did a good job of putting over all of his stuff. There was a bit of jaggedness which you might expect from guys without a ton of ring time, but that almost added to the match. Big props to our friend Jetlag for finding this, it is a treat.

ER: Bless the weirdos that we choose to run with in our online circles, for finding the readily available Hungarian shootstyle YouTube. I have a feeling there is excellent untapped YouTube wrestling out there, lurking in the unsearchable titles that don't get picked up by search engine algorithms. Novenyi won an Olympic gold medal before I was born, and I'm old enough that there are only 5 guys playing in Major League Baseball who are older than I am. This felt like the best possible version of current Kurt Angle vs. current Goldberg (though who are we kidding, both would do something crazy and get seriously hurt), but this was even more exciting due to the home connection to and maybe even pride the crowd had for Novenyi. Makai played a goon real well, and he had a stable of horror mask wearing MMA cannon fodder back-up that came off like skeleton costume Cobra Kai backing up Billy Zabka. If there had been a huge fight in the ring with Novenyi's boys scrapping with Makai's jacked MMA dudes, this could have been bumped up to early FMW Onita status. Makai knows his role as big lug well, and throws a bunch of hard knees to Novenyi's gut while Novenyi throws a bunch of low kicks to Makai's gut. Makai even takes a few big (unexpected) bumps, going over really fast on a dragon screw and then throwing himself backward over the ropes to the floor off a Novenyi kick. I liked the rough edges approach of these two; there were seams that wouldn't likely be there with more experienced guys, but that roughness made things feel more dangerous and added to the atmosphere. Makai was a good bully - I dug him getting a double leg on the floor and dumping Novenyi on the apron - who generously set up big moments for Novenyi even while burying knees in his stomach. I love these kind of surprises, two guys you've never heard of and likely won't hear of again, dipping their toe creatively and violently into pro wrestling.


2018 MOTY MASTER LIST

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WWE Big 3: Lorcan, Gallagher, Gulak 9/15 - 9/21

Clash of the Champions 9/15

Drew Gulak vs. Humberto Carrillo vs. Lince Dorado

ER: Fun match with typical problems that curse three ways. I don't know why Lince was added to the match, but I would have been far more interested in Gulak vs. Carrillo or Gulak vs. Dorado. But we got a three way instead, and it had awkward three way moments where timing was off or someone accidentally kinda took a move instead of dodging it, and of course disappearing for minutes. But it was genuinely fun, in spite of those accurate complaints. Dorado had a cool pescado with his arms at his side, following it up with a slick rana to Gulak on the floor, and then turns a potential silly hot shot bump into a dangerous tumble to the floor. I like Gulak against lucha guys, like how he can make flippy offense seem legit, and Carrillo is someone who tries a lot of things even if they don't always work flush. They try a wild tower spot with a Doomsday Device dive to the floor, I enjoyed the moment where Gulak got his feet up on Carrillo's moonsault but Carrillo anticipated it, Carrillo takes a great posting bump, Gulak breaks out cool things like a gutbuster, and then some other things don't work. But it was a fun opener on a PPV pre-show.


205 Live 9/17

Jack Gallagher vs. Brian Kendrick

ER: This is the cruel opposite of what we've been getting from 205 Live. We've been getting 20 minute matches from guys who I don't want to see go 20, but that's way better than this. This was 2 really great minutes followed by a dead ass ending that got no reaction from the crowd. I mean, the 2 minutes of awesome action they gave us got no reaction either, but fans are idiots fuck 'em. I'd love to see these two work a Bloodsport match. If Kendrick ever gets released (fyi I'm really glad Kendrick has been cashing a nice WWE check for a few years now, he's earned it) he'd be a cool out of the box guy to have on some cards. He and Gallagher on the mat just made me want to see more of that and made me made we got deprived of it. Gallagher doing his recline while trapping Kendrick's arms, and Kendrick escaping by hooking Gallagher's calf. There standing exchanges were really cool and I thought the work around the apron on the floor was slick. Kendrick finds cool ways of getting into position for offense, really approaches moves and takes moves from cool angles. He and Gallagher clearly have a series of classics in them, and I hope they get the platform to have them. Also, I realize I have not watched a single bit of their 2017/2018 205 Live output teaming with each other, or opposite each other. I'm going to change that.

PAS: This was fun while it lasted, although it didn't last long. We had the opening couple of minutes of a great match, with Gallagher using a bunch of tricky WOS to frustrate Kendrick, and Kendrick getting more and more agitated. Kendrick has a really great wiry junky energy, I could totally see him as a guy in a Abel Ferrara movie who pulls out a straight razor in the middle of a bar. Finish was blah, I grew up on the Sandman, if you are going to clean someones clock with a Kendo stick, make sure that clock is clean.

Oney Lorcan vs. Tony Nese

PAS: I certainly prefer brawling heel Tony Nese to athletic combo babyface Tony Nese, but I would really prefer anyone else to be getting his airtime. Nese is a good bumper, so the highlights of this match were Lorcan beating on him and making him bump, there is a great spot where Oney tosses him into the barricade and Nese lands kidneys first into the top of the barricade and flies into the crowd,  Tony also took a big bump to the floor after an uppercut. It is when he is on offense that it gets more problematic.  His punches and stomps look so bad that it is hard to buy him holding his own in a fight with Lorcan. He also does of couple of his signature do-si-do reversal sequences. Pissed off Lorcan is great, and overall makes this match pretty enjoyable, but goodness elevate someone, anyone else to the long main event matches.

ER: Man Tony Nese has been the scourge of this project. He's a pest and he just will not go away. If he has to exist, why does he have to exist in this close proximity to all of the guys we set out to watch? We've already been forced to write up seven Tony Nese matches this year because of this project! You guys are now reading your seventh Tony Nese joint review instead of whatever seven matches we would have reviewed instead. Think of what seven matches you'd absolutely LOVE to have us review, and now think of how we've instead written about seven Tony Nese matches.

That said, I liked this match, and while I don't like Tony Nese I like this version more than his other forms. Lorcan was obviously the star, but Nese filled in his share. Totally agree with Phil about his punches and stomps, but at least here he was doing delayed one armed vertical suplexes, working a body vice, grabbing a rear waistlock as an offense, that kind of stuff is Tony Nese offense that I like. And he is a good bumper, a guy who when he misses has no problem missing big. His missed Asai moonsault looked really painful, and I loved the match long contest between the two of them to see who could take crazier bumps into the barricade. Nese is brave about flying into Lorcan's offense, and Lorcan is someone who will fly into his own offense. His running elbows and uppercuts and body as weapon abandon is fun against someone who leans in and bumps big. I wrote a paragraph grousing about watching so many Tony Nese matches by choice, but I actually quite liked this one.

NXT 9/18

20. Oney Lorcan vs. Lio Rush

ER: I thought this ruled, with a super fast start and a ton of neat moments peppered throughout. Lio came off more interesting than most of the 205 Live juniors, and Lorcan looked like a guy who needs to be slotted much higher on the roster. Rush was a perfect Lorcan opponent, leaning into his strikes, bumping uniquely for his big shots, and firing back with actual interesting cruiser offense. Rush gets demolished by Lorcan's charging uppercuts and whips his body to the mat for the blockbuster, but soon after he's hitting three straight suicide dives that I guarantee hit harder and looked better than whatever Seth Rollins' three best dives this year have been. This felt like one of the best uses of the suicide dives trio, as they hit flush and I dug how Lorcan sold them. This felt almost like an updated Psicosis/Rey match, the way Lorcan would fling Rush around (look at that gutwrench powerbomb!) and even simple things Lorcan would do like bodyslams would look devastating with Rush taking them. I was super impressed by Rush's body control in this match, felt closer to Low-Ki movements than most guys are capable of. Rush getting whipped into the corner and winding up half out of the ring/half tied up in the ropes was awesome, and it lead to a Lorcan uppercut that looked even cooler with Rush recoiling in the ropes.  Lorcan kept getting meaner, and that STF choke was real nasty, good enough that I would have bought it as a finish, and before long he's grabbing Rush right by the jaw and slapping him. Rush is fast enough to snap off cruiser offense that looks less mapped off than others doing the same, like his cool bottom rope rebound cutter or the fluidity of his one-man Spanish Fly; plenty of other juniors use those moves, but few looked as good as Rush, and it's possible that some of that is because Lorcan is great at taking quick offense. The Spanish Fly transition was unexpected and came at a cool moment, really stopping Lorcan's freight train in its tracks, and it's among the best the spot has looked. I was hoping the match would keep going, not because it ended abruptly, but because I was loving how they worked together so much. To my knowledge they've never matched up together before, and they nailed it on the first shot. Not to mention, this was Rush's first match back in 6 months, and how could you possibly have a better reintroduction than this?

PAS: When I read Eric's review, I went and checked Cagematch, I figured they must have run across each other in CZW, but outside of a house show NXT tag this was a first time matchup. It really felt like a totally polished touring feud, just awesome chemistry. Rush is super flexible, and Lorcan is very willing to twist his body in horrific ways (those may have been the most violent looking single leg crabs I can remember seeing). Loved the way this match was paced, with a crazy opening couple of minutes, some dips in pace, and a big wild finish. They really knew how to work the timing. Rush has real explosiveness which is rare, he hits spots that might look lame normally (think about how bad Gary Jay's multiple tope's look, or most standing Spanish Fly's), but snaps them off with such speed and force that they look awesome. The WWE house style is still toned down enough that we don't have to worry about Rush no selling piledrivers off ladders, so I am excited to see what he can do with that fear removed. This was great, and I am amped for Rush vs. Gulak.


2019 MOTY MASTER LIST

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New Footage Friday: DiBiase, Race, Lawler, Kerry, PS Hayes, Boogie Woogie, John Paul?

Harley Race vs. Ted Dibiase AJPW 10/31/83

ER: This was one of those matches that, for me, highlighted the structural problems that both of these guys have. Race and Dibiase are two guys who do a ton of things I like, but sometimes they do them in a way that does not make me care very much about those things. So we get fistdrops and kneedrops and headbutts and powerslams and brainbusters and big bumps to the floor, and a lot of the time it just feels like stuff they're doing on the way to filling their allotted time, and the transitions often feel like "alright that was fun, now it's my turn to try something!" Everything they do LOOKS good, the order of these things just feels off. I liked how tenacious Dibiase was, as it looked like he was trying to find ways to finish Race early, and before long he was trying to lock in sleepers and a figure 4, and I liked how that would lead to Race anchoring himself and sending Dibiase sprawling. A sleeper leads to Race ducking his body weight and flinging Dibiase to the floor, a figure 4 inevitably leads to Race kicking him off and Dibiase taking a great bump over the ropes to the floor. But a lot of this stuff that looked cool felt like both guys trying to get their cool stuff in, regardless of when it made sense. Race hits a brainbuster on the floor, but misses a headbutt off the apron. The headbutt off the apron could have been missed at any point, why do it when it requires somebody to get up right after you gave them a brainbuster on the floor? Both guys don't seem fazed by piledrivers or powerslams, and even Dibiase going for figure 4s so late in the match only read like a prop to set up him losing and not like an actual match long plan. It was much more "try to powerbomb Kidman" than "I'm wearing down his legs to win". I like both guys, I liked how everything looked, but the order of that everything made me feel disconnected from the match.

MD: There is a new 1983 AJPW TV set out there from Dan over at PWO (go get it!) and while we expect it'll take a while to figure out what's new and what's not (anyone who feel like they have a great sense of what's been out there and what hasn't, reach out), this one jumped out immediately.

We lose just a scant two minutes of this, which were mainly headlocks I imagine. It's a pretty strange creature, feeling ten years before it's time, and not necessarily in the best way. Once they really get going, which is only about four minutes in, it's bombs, bombs, and more bombs. It's hard hitting (especially the headbutts and strikes) and everything looks great, but the whole affair is pretty jarring for the time as a NWA title match. It's purely back and forth with nothing really settling for long. The spectacle and the struggle makes it stand out: you're not going to forget Race hitting that brainbuster to the floor or missing the subsequent headbutt plunge off the apron anytime soon and standing tall babyface Dibiase is the best Ted Dibiase, but this was not some high watermark of storytelling. All that said, if you're going to get a Harley Race title match, you'll probably want this one, where he does a bunch of stuff and fights real mean, instead of something where he gives up 75% to his opponent.

PAS: I imagine if we saw this as a music video in 1983 (maybe set to The Warrior by Scandal) we would thing it was the coolest fucking match ever and be begging to see the whole match. As a whole match though, I thought this was actively stinko. Eric hits it on the head, they just did a bunch of cool stuff totally disconnected from any structure. Cool bumps to the floor, huge moves, but no selling, no progression, no actual wrestling match. That brainbuster on the floor, leading to the missed headbutt by Race is about as bad as it gets. For two hall of famers who are considered all time great workers, this felt like a match you might see two rookies work at an indy fed somewhere, where they want to hit every video game spot they practiced until the arbitrary finish. Man I bet Meltzer would love this if he saw it.

Cactus Jack/Bad Company/Rock and Roll RPMs vs. Jeff Jarrett/Rock n Roll Express/Top Guns AWA 9/18/88

MD: This was a nice showcase for both sides. The 10 man tag format allows for a lot of energy in the shine since everyone gets to move in and out, with the babyfaces working together even in unique pairings and all looking good except for Rice who seemed to puff his cheeks up weirdly with every punch. The heat was all on Paul (who I initially thought was a weird choice) and I thought he looked surprisingly good, bumping high on a back body drop, selling well, fighting back in the most direct way possible and leaping across the ring for the hot tag. I thought Gibson getting cut off without chicanery almost immediately after the hot tag was a weird way to have everything break down. It would have been better if Page grabbed a leg (which would have protected the AWA champs) or even if the heels all rushed in when he had the advantage. Everything else basically worked though.

PAS: Got to give John Paul credit, he takes the biggest back body drop bump in a match with Cactus Jack, Ricky Morton and fucking Pat Tanaka. He had to be a -800 in Vegas betting for biggest back drop bump. This had moments, but kind of sputtered out instead of building to a big finish. Pat Tanaka was such a ball of energy back them, and he brought a lot of the pizzaz to this match. No big bump by 1988 Cactus which was a shocker, you figure if he had a chance to be on ESPN he would land tailbone first on the concrete or something.

Jerry Lawler/Jimmy Valiant vs. Kerry Von Erich/Michael Hayes AWA 9/18/88

MD: Weirdly, this felt more iconic to me than the Superclash title match. I think that was trying too hard to be something specific and this was lower stakes and allowed Lawler and Kerry to just be themselves. That meant they traded struts after lock ups or shoulder blocks. It meant that they got to work fun little spots around the discus punch or the fist drop or dropkicks or just double punches. It was loose and fun and really highlighted how equal they were. Extremely smartly put together to accomplish what they were trying to do. Immediately, this feels like one of the most enjoyable match-driven builds to a babyface vs babyface match I've ever seen.

If you're going to have guys working the apron or around the margins, Valiant and Hayes are pretty much the best ever. They had a little moment of playing to the ground with stomps at the beginning. Just good, charismatic stuff. This was a great little piece of color with a heated post match.

PAS: This was nifty. Totally perfect way to set up a big PPV match. We get just enough of Lawler vs. Von Erich to wet your whistle. Some face offs, some big shots, but nothing definitive. We get Hayes and Valiant being rock stars on the apron, and having a wild punch out on the floor. We have Lee Marshall and Frank Dusek making drinks and steaks bets on commentary, and we get an awesome pull apart at the end. Lawler unloading his punch combo on Kerry in the corner is all time great stuff, no one can put it together the way Jerry Lawler can.

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Richard Charland: Most Nondescript Wrestler Ever!?

I saw a post on Twitter a couple of months ago from Rob Naylor, calling Richard Charland "the most nondescript wrestler", and I was intrigued because I had never heard of Richard Charland. Or, it's possible that I had heard of him, and had seen him multiple times, because perhaps he was so nondescript that I had forgotten about him multiple times over. Well, no more. I'm going to increase the digital footprint of one Richard Charland, who has also gone by the name Garth Vader, which is such an incontestably great and stupid gimmick name that it may disprove Naylor's claim before any footage is even watched. Imagine Big Van Vader dressed up like Garth from Wayne's World! Before now, I never have, and never would have. But because of Richard Charland I can't stop thinking of Vader in a huge Aerosmith shirt, flannel, and big black glasses. Richard Charland has already brought untold joy into my life before ever seeing one second of his wrestling footage, so I am now afraid I am so biased and in the "I will die for Garth Vader" camp that I won't fairly and accurately judge these cherry picked Charland matches. But I will try. 

Richard Charland/King Tonga vs. Jacques & Raymond Rougeau Montreal 6/13/85

ER: This was more angle than match, as Tonga is eventually jumped by Butch Reed and Charland aids Reed in the attack! But he looks fine up until the attack. His tandem dropkick with Tonga looks good, he takes a great backdrop bump, I loved him committing to his missed standing splash that allows Jacques to hot tag Raymond, and I loved him desperately leaping for Jacques a split second too late to stop the tag. There were only a couple minutes to judge, but he seemed like an interesting wrestler in those couple minutes. I'm giving Charland the point in this one.

Richard Charland/Eric Embry vs. The Fantastics AJPW 8/18/90

ER: I really love All Japan matches from the 80s and 90s featuring gaijin who went on only one or two All Japan tours. You get a fun mix of WWF job guys, or guys who just knew guys, and it adds another dimension to their work. And Charland is more interesting than many of them for the fact that he was not on the winning side of ANY of his All Japan matches. It is fairly common practice to give a gaijin a win on their first night of the tour, even if they're only going to be the guy taking a fall in six mans the rest of the tour. Richard Charland took the pin in every All Japan match he worked, and got pinned in a singles match by Haruka Eigen to end the tour. Eigen was not a guy who was winning a ton of singles matches in 1990. He traded wins with Mark Scarpa and Goro Tsurumi, and beat Richard Charland. He lost 3 times to Rusher Kimura. Richard Charland may have had the losingest All Japan tour of the 90s. And this feels important. Richard Charland was Christian Laettner at every Dream Team practice. Charland's squad was going to lose just by virtue of having Richard Charland on it. Now, it should be noted that this is also Eric Embry's only All Japan tour, and while he was also on the losing side of almost all of his matches, he did pull a draw with Isamu Teranishi, and I assume he would have had the opportunity for other tours if it weren't for his accident.

This is joined way in progress, and we only get the final 4 minute stretch, but it is a great final 4 minute stretch. The Fantastics came off like a tiny Kroffat/Furnas, with both impressing the hell out of me with their stiffness and aggression. It's a tight 4 minutes, starting with a cool rope running section where Charland ducks out of the way of a flying Fulton, and Fulton immediately returns the favor ducking away from Charland, leaving him uncomfortably on the top rope. Fulton and Rogers came off almost mean here, and were seriously working like a tiny muscled up Can Ams, which is great! Rogers hits a heavy Samoan drop and a really great powerslam that made him look like a mini Dr. Death. Embry is awesome here, giving us a glimpse of exactly what it would have looked like had Dutch Mantel did some early 90s AJ tours, bringing that brawling element and just planting Fulton with a sick piledriver. Fulton was mad in this one though. I'm not always a Fantastics guy, but now I want to see all of the Fantastics in AJ. Fulton is throwing great punches and even flies off the apron with a knee. The Fans' short legs work to their advantage, as they get no hang time so every time they leave their feet for a move it feels like it's landing faster and heavier, like Fulton cannonballing Rogers with on arc, just flipping him straight down. Fulton's kneedrop/Roger's splash is a cool combo hit well. The Fantastics kind of owned this 4 minute stretch, and Embry outclassed Charland, but Charland looked like a guy who belonged and could have managed just fine in All Japan. I wish we had the full match. 

Richard Charland/Eric Embry vs. Dan Kroffat/Doug Furnas AJPW 8/21/90

ER: This was JIP just like the Fantastics match, but had some great moments, including an absolute holy shit spot. The Fantastics match was hotly sequenced and made the Fans look like mini Steiners; this doesn't seem as tight, and the layout was a little more "guys doing things until the end happens" without the same build. That's not an uncommon early 90s All Japan tag structure. And I liked watching these guys do stuff, so I liked this match. Furnas hit two really big "couldn't stop them if you tried" suplexes including an Albrightesque belly to belly, and the Can Ams don't seem to be treating these two as very credible threats, even though Embry has a singlet that perfectly matches the red/blue AJ ring, and Embry brings the south to Japan by lowering BOTH STRAPS. But this JIP tag was all about one spot, and my god what a spot it was. I have no idea why Kroffat even agreed to take it. Charland plants Kroffat on the top rope and tags in Embry, and Embry climbs up to the middle buckle, his back to the ring. He's fiddling around with positioning, Charland is holding him steady...and Embry jumps backwards into the ring with a classic piledriver, off the middle rope. We've seen more flipping piledrivers than we ever needed to, but I honestly don't know if I've seen a classic piledriver delivered this way. It looked insane. Picture how great Lawler's standing piledriver looks, the way he kicks his legs forward to land in a perfect seated position...and now picture him doing the same thing off the middle rope. But it does not win the match. Obviously. It was performed by a man teaming with Richard Charland. But at least Furnas broke up the pin instead of Kroffat kicking out of THAT piledriver. Charland eventually takes the L by eating a big Doug Furnas powerslam off the middle rope, but I would have taken that powerslam 10 times out of 10 over that piledriver. 

Richard Charland vs. Demolition Ax NEWF 9/27/91

ER: Now this will be a true test of Charland. Teaming with a cool wrestler against other cool wrestlers in the coolest fed of the 90s is going to produce some fun matches. But this is Charland working a newly mostly retired star on a Vermont indy show. And there are a few things that you could say certainly prove the thesis we set out to determine, and one is that the commentator for this match doesn't know who Richard Charland is, and he even says "I don't know who this guy is". That's bad. The screen graphic then states it is Demolition Ax vs. Richard "The Magnificent" Sharlan. The commentator misses the (misspelled) name and from that point on refers to him as "Richard the Magnificent One". And look, I've enjoyed my little dip into Richard Charland, but he's not a guy who is magnificent, at least not how the term is commonly used in wrestling to describe pretty and/or egotistical heels. But he is now Richard the Magnificent One. And to add to Richard Charland's problems, he's literally chased into the ring by a giant lumberjack holding a giant axe. It's Paul Bunyan, who was a legitimate giant that worked one New Japan tour (teaming mostly with Ax) as "Canadian Giant". 

But I dug Charland here. He was a stalling stooge, a guy who got clubbed in the neck every time he got close to Ax, so he would bail to the floor, beg off, toss a microphone, and then get in close and get clubbed all over again. When he took over he did it by cheating, a lot of choking Ax with a ring mic cord, and Ax was always a guy who put over a choking really well because everything about him read like a guy who wasn't getting proper blood flow to his heart. Charland even blasts him with a great kick from the apron, and the pan back reveals this to be a very well attended Vermont indy show. When Ax fires back Charland gets thrown nicely several times into a ringside table, and eats a great clothesline. I love how quickly Charland went down, and I love how low swinging and blunt Ax's clothesline was. Ax even goes to the middle rope for a crossbody. After losing, Charland refuses to leave the ring, claiming it was only a two count. He starts appealing to individual fans and it's hilarious. He points out people, holds up two fingers, points to another guy, nods and points at him like "yeah this guy is with me!", gets down on the mat and does a slow 2 count followed by a slow "safe" sign like it was a play at the plate, and call me crazy but all this reads even better because of his full motorcycle cop mustache.


ER: So what did any of this prove? Is Richard Charland the Most Nondescript Wrestler EVER? He's got a mustache that makes him look like Liam O'Brien opted to get into wrestling instead of forming a bowling team with Jesus Quintana, and he was a non-zero part of these four very fun and different matches. He worked a fun 10 minute match around punches kicks and chokes with an aging star, and it ruled.

So...if Richard Charland ISN'T the most nondescript wrestler ever...who is?


It's Ted Dibiase Jr.


Obviously.

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NXT on USA Workrate Report 9/18/19

Since we have an old fashioned wrestling war again, I figured I would dust off the old DVDVR Workrate Report format. Eric and I are planning on alternating shows each week, we will probably have them up normally on Thursday, but I was home for this show and checked it out. I only did the USA portion this week, as that is what is relevant to this discussion.

What Worked

-I think overall the Woman's four way was a well worked wrestling match. I haven't been watching a ton of NXT before this, and did not realize Mia Yim was working a distaff Homicide gimmick. Her offense is way too elaborate to pull off gangster street brawler, she has neither the dead eyes or lacquered nails of real Korean gangbanger girlfriends I have known. Belair has a bunch of fun offense, and a really well developed look. This felt very WWE formula four way, right down to the near fall run. I guess Canadce hasn't been beaten by Shayna yet so she makes sense as a challenger, but I am going to have a hard time buying her as a threat.


What Didn't Work

-If you are going to do the 5 second squash match you are going to need to have a nastier looking finish then that double stomp. He didn't hit it clean and it didn't look like a KO blow. I am used to watching Trevor Lee matches which go really long, it is funny to give the guy best known for 70 minute matches a 8 seconds and out gimmick. Also what exactly is Cameron Grimes's gimmick, evil Jam Band Bassist?  Guy who sold you bad Mushrooms? Hippie panhandler?

-The main event had some moments, I really liked all of the early scrambling on the mat, and some of the back work by Roddy, but man it really devolved into a bloated 2.9 fest at the end. Dream has a lot of sauce, but he still doesn't hit his simple stuff cleanly. I can't believe that the final impression of the first show, is four 5'8 white dudes celebrating like they are the four horseman. I liked some Roddy and Kyle O'Reilly tag matches, but there is nothing cool or dangerous about those guys.

-Mauro's hipster Chris Berman act is one of the worst things on television, period. He is just so insufferable with his name dropping and bellowing voice. "Io Shirai is burning up the ring like Lizzo is burning up the music charts" get the fuck out of here.

-I assumed they would try to make their first show on USA special in someway, but this was a pretty basic episode of NXT TV. All of the angles were sort of joined in progress, and there was never a moment which will be remembered in a couple of weeks. Lio Rush coming back and Imperium invading all happened on the network hour, I am not super interested in either thing, but at least they were moments. Maybe they are saving whatever ammo the have for the first head to head show, but I can't imagine this show excites anyone.

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Tuesday Shoot Indies - GCW Josh Barnett's Bloodsport 2 9/14/19

PAS: I am starting to build a backlog of Shoot Indies which I am always into so I decided for a bit to alternate AIW Monday with Shoot Indy Monday, also this lets me jump right on Bloodsport after loving their Mania Weekend show so much.

ER: Being there second row with Phil and Tom for Barnett's first Bloodsport is going to be one of my great live wrestling experiences when my time is up, and there's still something I think Phil isn't telling me about how he got tickets. Day before the show it was sold out, next morning I wake up to Phil joyously saying "I got three tickets to Bloodsport! You know, three tickets, together, that ticket quantity that is super common for somebody to be selling. Oh, and they're great seats. Oh, and they were below list price." He refused to answer other questions. I don't know what Phil had to do to get us Bloodsport tickets, but he did something that we will never speak about, and I'm fine with that.

20. Matt Makowski vs. Rory Gulak

PAS: I thought this was great. Makowski is an ex-Bellator guy who is apparently working in Chikara now, I assume he is an old timey Gold Prospector or a sentient bag of pork rinds there, but working shootstyle he owns. Gulak comes in repping Catch Point, I assume he inherited the left over merch when his brother went big time. Gulak is really aggressive with his takedowns including a nasty Judo throw, and is always looking to advance his position on the mat. Makowski had a bunch of really cool stuff, climaxing with the O'Connor Roll into the cross armbreak which was incredible looking, the low kick/head kick combo which finished the match was nifty too. Totally delivered.

ER: Fucking Drew WHO? This was awesome, among my favorite 6 minutes of wrestling this year. This is the Rory I knew was there and I have seen hints of, and now I only want this uncut pitbull energy from him. No backsies. Makowski is fun as hell in a 2003 Z-1 kind of way, and his striking and arm twisting made for an awesome counter to Rory's wrestling. Gulak was really vicious on the attack, and the rolling was all awesome, peppered with bigger moments like Gulak's short belly to belly and big ass German, but with a bunch of tiny movements that all felt like they meant something. A match like this is just as fun for something like Gulak shifting his calf positioning to gain leverage than it is for the big throws. I dug Makowski landing a big hook kick to Gulak's jaw, dug how it felt like he was throwing it out as a lark and didn't realize it would land, and it served as a cool wake up for Rory rather than an instant KO. Makowski even had some stuff Sakuraba would have tried to steal, like a moonsault to pass guard (that could have looked stupid but I loved it). The armbar battles were all legit, Rory looked like he was clasping his hands for dear life while deftly maneuvering his hips, and that chaos theory armbar transition was just bananas. Rory shot straight up into the air like the skinniest kid getting bounced off the blob by the fattest kid at Camp Hope, I mean just a fantastic spot. Rory flew spectacularly into the air with Makowski grabbing that arm on the way down, absolutely one of the spots of the year. Kick feint finish was a good one, and this is the kind of killer match that makes a concept show like this such a bottomless well.

Sumie Sakai vs. Lindsay Snow

PAS: This was a bunch of fun too. Snow was listed as having a Gracie Ju-Jitsu background and lots of this match was Ju-Jitsu sparring on the ground. Sakai was really great with both her Ju-Jitsu and her Judo, landing a bunch of cool throws, and constantly looking to adjust and look for attacks on the mat. Snow was a bit more rudimentary on the mat, but used her size well. I loved the finish with Sakai countering each counter attempt and locking in the arm bar for the tap. Sakai has been around forever, but man did she look skilled here.

ER: I've seen Sakai work pro style a bunch (she's been working in the states for 15 years at this point) but not nearly enough of her like this. She was giving up about 30 lb. to Snow but was the clear aggressor here, to the benefit of the match. She didn't necessarily play it like she was more skilled than Snow, but would shoot in quick and bail early if things weren't going her way. This wasn't as explosive as our first match, but the finish run was cool as hell, loved all the counters and the quick tap when Snow knew she was caught.

70. Zachary Wentz vs. Anthony Henry

PAS: This was worked as a crazy sprint, like a worked version of those WEC Bantamweight fights early in the decade. It was a nice contrast to the pace most of these matches were worked at. I really liked how both guys kept frantically attacking limbs during all of the submission attempts. Henry would put on a kneebar and Wentz would bang away with hammerfists and try to escape. Wentz had two really cool choke attempts, one where he pressed Henry his body and flipped him into a choke, and one where he leaped into a guillotine. Finish was very cool with Wentz getting a knockdown and going for a diving punch, but landing right into a tight guillotine for the tap.

ER: This exceeded my expectations as I didn't know if either of them had any kind of fight sports background, so I was just going into this familiar with their indy wrestling. Wentz is a guy who has stood out to me as a big bumper, and Henry has been in matches I've liked, but I wouldn't have tagged them for something like this and came away pleasantly surprised. Phil hit the nail with his WEC Bantamweight descriptor, and it's hard to do that kind of style without it coming off like flash exhibition. A couple of the missed strikes might have, but those were small pieces of a fun sprint. I loved all the action getting into chokes, dug the Wentz missed punch into a side triangle, and thought the finish was fantastic: when Henry went down from a kick I clearly thought that was going to be it, but Wentz leaping in with a Superman punch (a callback to the Bloodsport show we attended where Kratos absolutely wrecked Grimm with that diving punch as the deserved finish) and I didn't anticipate Henry's triangle. Henry made it even more badass by rolling it over and twisting the trapped arm. This show has slayed so far.

JR Kratos vs. Erik Hammer

PAS: This was a pretty mixed bag, it had some stuff I really dug, and some stuff I really hated. Hammer is a shoot wrestler who worked some IGF and really has Zero-One energy, like a lost jacked up McCully. All of the mat stuff was pretty cool, with a pair of big dudes really struggling over holds. I thought the stand up, New Japan style chop, forearm and grimace stuff sucked, it was a bad version of a tired spot that was really inappropriate for this style. There was some good stuff later in the match, but they really lost me and never got me back.

ER: I saw people calling this the fight of the night, and I am not seeing that. There was a lot to like, and I would have loved it had they stuck to the intense grappling that much of the match was based around. I'm not opposed to strikes in these things, obviously, but the stand and trade forearms and chops building to a phone booth fight was so damn out of place. That kind of stuff is in several matches on every single wrestling card in 2019, Bloodsport is supposed to be presenting something different. And I don't think it was particularly good stand and trade, either, which is an additional problem. I really liked Kratos kicking a downed Hammer in the chest, feinting another one, and then punching him in the jaw. BUT, then it lead directly to some old bullshit. But everything on the ground was intense and that struggle was real. I honestly thought we were going to get a fairly early tap when Hammer was hyperextending Kratos' leg on a hell hook, and I loved late in the match how hard Hammer was going for that armbar, and how hard Kratos was trying to keep those hands together to block it, and I got fully wrapped up in the crazy struggle that was happening. Something like that is way more meaningful than some bad overhand chops and screaming.

Nicole Savoy vs. Allysin Kay

PAS: I like how the women on this show have hued strictly to shootstyle, this was almost all grappling and palm strikes, really no pro flash at all. Kay constantly was going for cool mat attacks, Imanari Rolls, Twisters,  which Savoy would either escape or counter. I loved how Kay went for the Imanari Roll one too many times and got blasted with hammer fists. Finish was really cool with Savoy going for an Omaplata and Kay rolling through into a crucifix and raining down elbows for the tap. Neither lady had the polish of an elite grappler, but they were trying cool shit and pulling it off and I am going to appreciate that, even if it was a bit slower and more awkward then Volk Han.

ER: I liked this even though, yeah, the skill level for this thing was quite there. This lead to a couple exhibition-y moments, but this style leads itself open to things like that. I'll always appreciate two wrestlers going for things that are maybe beyond them, rather then settling into the same old comfort zones. I dug both of them rolling through armbars and heel hooks, and really liked Savoy punishing Kay with mounted punches and hammerfists throughout, and I thought they made good frustrated use out of accidentally falling to the floor. The twister set-up was cool and looked like it could've popped one of Savoy's ribs had it been held longer. I really like what these two went for.

Anthony Carelli vs. Simon Grimm

PAS: Holy hell did Carelli look great here, talk about a guy who could have had a totally different career. He looked like a guy who deserved to run a BattlArts school. Super stiff strikes, just bounces Grimm's head off the mat with forearms, great looking judo takedowns, and some cool submissions. Grimm had his moments, and he really got some heel heat on a show without it normally, but this was a Carelli show and a great one.

ER: Calling Carelli a revelation here would not be an overstatement, because we have hundreds of his matches on tape and outside of occasional judo takedowns we saw none of this guy. I know he had early career Batt matches (that I've never seen) and has been running a Canadian Batt Academy (where I don't think he's wrestled), and here he comes out raining down some of the nastiest grounded strikes of the year while trying to leave with any one of Grimm's limbs. He was a genuinely gifted comedy wrestler who could still be making a killing working indy shows, taking no bumps, kids screaming for the cobra, powerwalking the ropes, easy; instead he goes down to Vegas and reigns supreme! I thought Grimm brought more to this than Phil did, even though this clearly felt laid out to show Carelli's (unseen?) abilities. I loved Carelli's downward elbow strikes to Grimm's chest, loved the hard shots to Grimm's body, and loved the fight over kneebars and armbars, and I dug how things ramped up. Grimm started besting Carelli and that's when Carelli hauls off and starts throwing open hand strikes to escape. And my favorite part of the match was probably Carelli locking in a great dragon sleeper, real mean, and Grimm having to get out of it by throwing a knee up over his head. the knee looked vicious and Carelli sold it appropriately. I wouldn't have guessed Grimm would be such a solid addition to these shows, but I like what he brings and hope we get to see more of Carelli.

Timothy Thatcher vs. Ikuhisa Minowa

PAS: I thought this was good but never broke into the great level. Thatcher doesn't really do worked shoot style on these shows, he really works more of a MUGA style heavy on hard forearms and more traditional wrestling submission holds. That worked well as a style break against Hideki Suzuki on the last show, a guy who is the best in the world at that style. Minowa is an MMA fighter who has done a handful of works, he is technically skilled, but he wasn't bringing a ton of flash to the match. I liked Thatcher grinding out submissions, including the finish where he pounded on Minowa's back until he gave up his neck. I also liked how Thatcher would spin out of one submission to another. This ended up being cool but dry, I think Minowa would have probably been better served against more of a shoot guy.

ER: I was left a little cold by this one, even though I liked a lot of what they did, but it did feel like a styles clash that was sound, but not as interesting as it should have been. On paper it seemed like it would be dynamite but it wound up more perfunctory than I was expecting, and I think a lot of that was Minowa. Necro Butcher vs. Minowman is a styles clash classic, but here he showed no charisma and felt much more like a generic karate fighter a fed would add as a special attraction to a 70s card. Except on this card that wasn't any kind of special attraction, it was expected. I thought Thatcher looked awesome working in and around him, and was laying in some pretty mean shots on the mat that felt like they could have been sold better. Minowa would have an occasional nice moment, I liked him spinning out to grab a heel hook, but I think he would have been better off against another MMA guy or even better, someone like Nick Gage. I agree with Phil about how awesome Thatcher looked down the finish stretch, felt like he was grinding Minowa down and by the time he pummeled his way into that nasty neck and crossface choke it felt like a fine finish.

59. Davey Boy Smith Jr. vs. Tom Lawlor

PAS: I really enjoyed this. Smith is great in this format because of the heaviness he gets across. When he is on the mat he is a this dense ball of tendon strength you have to try to move off. When he lands shots, they feel and look like he is laying cinderblocks upside the head of his opponent. Lawlor was really good at fighting off the back foot, I loved how he threw peppery jabs only to land big leg kicks, and he had some slick counters off of his back. Smith kept rolling though and by the end he felt inevitable.

ER: Damn I just want Davey Boy Smith to work exclusively this style, it's far and away the most I've ever enjoyed him and it's a style he really excels at. He has big strength and hits hard, and really knows how to project his weight. Every one of his elbow shots looks like it should send Lawlor to spaghetti legs, and Lawlor pretty much behaves like that's where he's at. DBS would hit a couple big elbows and Lawlor would throw shorter rabbit punches to set up his only real shot, taking out DBS' leg. But I just loved the power DBS showed, in "smaller" things like a couple back elbows he lands to Lawlor's mouth while in guard (I put smaller in quotes because any one of those shots would have leveled me), to bigger things like when he took Lawlor down with basically a keylock suplex, to fitting more traditional wrestling offense into the match without it seeming out of place. Lawlor attempts a backpack choke and DBS grabs him into a powerslam, DBS hits a powerbomb that fit perfectly fine into a shootstyle atmosphere because it looked like there was nothing Lawlor could do to stop it, DBS dumps Lawlor with a flat out rude backdrop driver, and Lawlor himself even hits an awesome sliding lariat that throws both to the floor. Other Bloodsport stuff that tried to incorporate pro wrestling came off looking phony, but these guys had a great sense of what would work (other than maybe that Sharpshooter attempt, but I appreciate the cockiness to even attempt it).

Killer Kross vs. Nick Gage

PAS: Fun little sprint which delivered what you want out of this match up. Gage is a fun Tank Abbott style brawler on these shows. I loved Kross dominating him with technical striking only to fall victim to a bar fight headbutt, and a soccer kick to the mouth. Kross getting him down and choking him out felt inevitable, but Gage throwing up his set as he passed out was a great bit of theatre. I assume Kross is only making the Batista shoutout because they have that match signed, if they do it is a great bit of business.

ER: This match ruled, the perfect quick and dirty fight to have on a card like this. This is the shortest match on the card but was memorable as hell. Gage has a connection to the crowd that few indy guys today could ever dream of having, and that always adds to his matches. In a setting like this it adds even more, and Kross is a cool opponent for him. Kross goes after Gage's ankle, kicking at it and making it seem like legwork was going to be the story of the match, until Gage completely rewrites the story by hitting a tremendous headbutt to KK's face. He sandbags a Kross backdrop driver and I dug the messiness of the ground grappling, dug how they reacted to hitting each other, and thought Gage going down to a nasty choke while throwing double middles was about as fitting as a finish could be.

10. Josh Barnett vs. Chris Dickinson

PAS: Really excellent stuff. All of the cool shit in the Barnett vs. Suzuki without any of the New Japanish shit. I loved the pace of this match with Barnett using his strength and technique to dominate, only to have Dickinson catch him with semi cheap shots to the back of the head or to the ear. Barnett wasn't fully prepared for shots that were legal in Bloodsport but would be illegal in MMA and Dickinson was able to make hay from that. I also loved Dickinson sneaking in a cross armbreaker after fighting for the leg. Finish was totally awesome, they both stand up after some grappling and Barnett tosses off his wrist tape in a very cool drop the strap way, they stand and throw and Dickinson lands first clipping Barnett in the ear and stunning him, Dickinson lands a nasty deadlift German, and some soccer kicks, Barnett is stunned swinging wildly and catches Dickinson in the temple, drops him with a powerbomb and a KO kick to the jaw. The match was slow paced before that and built to this great wild crescendo. Contender for a career match for both guys, and these are guys with great careers.

ER: What a showing from these two, and I'm especially blown away by Dickinson. He's become one of my very favorites over the past couple years, but this match was going to take something special. To look credible in a shootstyle atmosphere against a guy not only larger than him, but a former UFC heavyweight champ who has beaten a who's who list of heavyweight fighters. And he totally did. Barnett looked like Barnett, and Dickinson fought like a guy with nothing to lose, attacking Barnett with downright cruel closed fists to the body and face. Barnett was working him over with early MMA holds, lots of heel hooks, a can opener, and I loved how he would work an armbar and then catch a push off kick from Dickinson and then just twist his arm AND his leg. But Dickinson was aggressive as hell and the violent pace they kept up for 17 minutes was insane. Barnett was being a good guy and throwing open hands, working holds, and Dickinson was throwing big damn fists and trying to bull his way through, and it was working! Dickinson came off like such a major badass, really hanging with an MMA legend, actually flustering Barnett at points by sneaking in kicks. And the match long struggle built to an absolute explosion with the kind of stand and trade this show really needed. There was a killer moment earlier where Dickinson landed a shot to the back of the head and Barnett did this great lights out recovery, and now he was going to pay him back, peeling off and throwing down his wrist tape in an awesome visual. But Dickinson hits this wild German and just starts kicking the hell out of Barnett, sending Barnett into muscle memory winged shots, and we get a completely plausible epic gutwrench powerbomb with some mean follow up knees to Dickinson's face. The bell to bell action was the best, a major accomplishment and some of the best shootstyle fighting we've seen. A real gem, and a real reason to keep excitement levels high for these shows.

ER: Four matches land on our 2019 Ongoing MOTY List, and others weren't far off. This feels like a format that has a lot of legs as long as the shows are spaced, but then again I'm someone who would get excited at school every Monday of 1998, hoping there would be a Brawl For All segment that night.

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