AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 10/30/19

What Worked:

-The non-wrestling stuff in this show worked for me. I thought the Tony Schiavone limo ride with Cody was great old school stuff. The Dusty and Willie Nelson story was great and the whole presentation made the contract signing seem like a big deal. Jericho is pretty great as a bloated creep leading a pack of wolves, heel Rock of Love era Brett Michaels is a great fucking gimmick, I can just see him faking an OD mid ring only to roll up his opponent when he tries CPR. Dustin's broken arm is a great way to heat up the PPV main event, although that might mean we don't see in ring Dustin for a while, and this show could desperately use him.

-Similarly Santana and Ortiz beating down the Rock and Roll Express was simple pro-wrestling storytelling. Ricky Morton is an all timer at taking a beating and Santana and Ortiz are really great as out of control thugs, you can tell they are from that JAPW family tree (speaking of which, sign Homicide and Eddie Kingston already AEW, what are you waiting for). I liked them jumping the Bucks too, nice use of the Rick and Morty gimmick which actually gave that goofy thing some purpose.

- Moxley's promo was fine, and he is undoubtedly over. I miss the old Moxley promos where he was talking about his mom turning tricks where he came off like a real unhinged psycho, but he is clearly in a different place in his career. Don't love Tony Khan showing up as an on air character. AEW should stay far away from Authority Figure angles, it has been a stain on wrestling for two decades now, and no one is ever going to approach Vince as a performer. If you need a Jack Tunney for an angle, give it to Arn or Bob Armstrong or something and just have them make pronouncements and don't have them do anything else.

-The six man tag was the best of the car crash matches on this show. It isn't really my thing, but the Bucks have clearly mastered that formula, and Jack Evans is still breathtaking to watch. If they did one of these matches a show it would work great, unfortunately that isn't what is going on.

What Didn't Work:

-God, is the ringwork on this show one note. Every match is worked at the same pace, with the same headdrops, 2.9 counts, dives and near falls. They need some fat guys, some mat workers, a couple of guys with good punches, anything to break this up.

-Why is Adam Page doing flips and dives? Isn't he your tough Cowboy character? A lariat does not need a fucking front flip. I liked Sammy faking a dive and instead slapping Page, but outside of that this was just white noise

-Why does your undercard women's match go 15 minutes with the same dramatic near falls as every other match. Is Shanna even part of the roster? If you have plans for Shida, why is her debut undercard squash worked like a main event title match. Outside of a couple of nice knees by Shida (and there were a bunch that looked bad too) the work didn't particularly move me, and there needs to be an agent telling people that they can't use up all of the tricks in every match.

-Why in god's name does your comedy squash have an insane headdrop finish? If your comedy guys are doing moves that look like they should lead to a stretcher job and six month hiatus what does that mean for your main eventers? Just insane escalation which is going to lead to someone breaking their neck trying to outdo the undercard. On the plus side, I think they may have tweaked the Orange Cassidy character enough to make it work for me, having those kicks be a taunt as opposed to something their opponent has to play along with, makes a big difference. The hands in the pocket tope stands out in a show with dozens of crazy dives. Shoot the Best Friends into the sun though.

- Fenix is really special to watch, on a show where everyone is working as some variation of his style, he still outshines them. I almost feel sorry for Kazarian and Scorpio, those guys are old, and they are still trying to work a gogo highspot style. Cut off the ring or something. No wonder Kazarian almost broke his neck on that rana to the floor, Vince Carter isn't still trying to thunder dunk every time he gets the ball. You guys are almost 40, work on a midrange jumper.

Read more!

IWTV Worth Watching: Space Pirates! Work Horsemen! Quack! Colony!

Space Pirates (Space Monkey/Shane Sabre) vs. Work Horsemen (JD Drake/Anthony Henry) Freelance Wrestling 6/14/19

ER: Fun tag that didn't get the ending it deserved, but had a real nice extended peril segment from Space Monkey, with some big fireworks happening once we dropped the tag structure. Work Horsemen get rid of Sabre fairly quickly, and I got really into the story of Space Monkey going alone, EXTREMELY disappointed in the commentary crew (one of whom sounded uncannily like me, no joke) not pointing out that - due to his NASA training - he was used to going it alone for long, lonely missions. We had nearly 10 minutes of Sabre being gone, leaving his boy in their alone, and nobody is talking about all the sensory deprivation training Space Monkey had gone through. I thought they did real interesting things with SM getting to the corner and finally noticing Sabre wasn't there, continuing to eat a beating, making it back to the corner, only to find Sabre still not there. Henry mocks Monkey, gets on the apron and reaches in the for tag, and then Space Monkey starts kicking at Henry, knocking him to the floor, then hitting a mean baseball slide. I loved how they handled Space Monkey getting back into the action, not just having him eat a 7-10 minute beating and then make a comeback, but instead finding a couple logical ways to have the action swing (har har) into his favor. Space Monkey is essentially El Generico, only I liked how SM peppered in his comebacks, dug those tornado DDTs that Drake and Henry took on the side of their respective heads. What I didn't love, was Sabre's eventual hot tag. I don't like a lot of his offense, and coming in after a 10 minute layoff and hitting a silly spinning facebuster isn't going to cut it.

But we do build to a nice and hot finish run with some real cool sequences strung together. My favorite was Space Monkey hitting the Molly go Round on Drake only to eat an immediate kick from Henry, who then eats an immediate spear from Sabre. That's a sequence that isn't played, and they executed it great. The nearfalls were good, genuinely thought Space Monkey was going to pull things out, and I liked the way they swung momentum throughout. They were good at not just having someone start hitting their offense until their turn was up, instead turning in situations like Drake catching a Monkey rana and powerbombing him onto Sabre. I really dug where they were taking this and was there for the full ride, but the match ended disappointingly on an unseen count out. Both teams brawled outside and cameras weren't able to follow, so we stare at fans' midsections for a couple minutes until the ref gets in the ring to call it off. Flat. Still, Space Monkey is someone who stood out over our long ass WrestleMania day, and I took a blind stab at this match, left even more impressed and fully into his face in peril tag work. With a proper finish this would have landed on our MOTY list, and he was the chief reason why.

Mike Quackenbush/Lance Lude/Rob Killjoy vs. The Colony (Fire Ant/Green Ant/Thief Ant) Flying V Fights 7/13/19

ER: Quack has been working more in 2019 than he worked the last 6 years combined, heading several trios and atomicos matches. A lot of the earlier sections were Quack working primarily Green Ant, sending him through cool holds and nice mat exchanges. I know people who don't love Quack think his stuff looks too exhibition-y, and I think it looks that way because it looks so odd, as it certainly doesn't look that way because he's having trouble applying moves or requiring a ton of time stand still moments. He has a singularly vision for wrestling and pulls it off. I love the foot stomps he uses to set up spots, and he doesn't skip steps in mat exchanges. I love his maestro style of matwork where you can see each step of the move but can't necessarily prevent it from happening, and some of the leverage spots he pulls guys into come off physically super impressive. I loved him twisting Green Ant's arm one way while maneuvering Ant's legs with his own legs, throwing distraction to one body part while always working towards another. He locks on a weird inverted bow and arrow and lifts GA upside down over his own knee in a way that comes off effortlessly, as if he knows the proper ways to lift someone while exerting the least amount of force.

Match gets derailed for awhile when we work a very long comedy routine with Coach Mikey accidentally catching an Ant, then wanting to get involved, then not being allowed, then pouting, the kind of several minute distraction that you expect to happen in Chikara and Chikara-related matches, but I certainly never look forward to it. The comedy chops improv stretch did at least divide the match into two main segments, before comedy halted everything it had been all mat based, and after the comedy wall was when we went into full spot sprint, which was great. Ducks are both guys with some nice spots, who take big bumps. Killjoy drops a really great sitout powerbomb, Lude comes into the ring with that cool Erin O'Grady rope flip rana and gets dropped with a disgusting neckbreaker/powerbomb combo, Launchpad McQuack hits hard and gets a good nearfall, Quack continues hitting cool little legsweeps and works a slick abdominal stretch/reversal/roll back into the stretch (like the action was rewound but came off perfect), Lude and Killjoy hit a cool moonsault combo, the Ant Hill is a pretty great triple team move, a weird Eiffel tower spot ending in a splash; basically there was lots of great stuff. Fire Ant clearly has the most polish out of the Ants (pretty sure he is an original Ant, so he's been doing this for awhile) and I wish we got a lot more Fire/Quack, but Quack seemed to mostly punish Green. I dig the way Quack sets up these trios matches, and it's a format I dig watching him in. 

Arik Royal vs. Isaiah Frazier CRAB 8/3/19

ER: This was shorter than I wanted, only 5 minutes, but made sense as Frazier had worked earlier in the evening. So considering he had already worked, I like how they approached this even though I was hoping for more of a match. Royal drops him right at the bell with a Face Jam, and I'm a big fan of Royal matches where he's working with an immediate head start. He's great at working as the cocky guy with an advantage, and great at showing ass when he's getting his comeuppance. I love Royal talking smack to ringside fans before turning around and hitting his sliding shoulderblock, and I dug Frazier's two big comeback topes. Royal is super skilled at taking big offense right next to fans, without putting fans in any danger. That's kind of a specific skill, but one of many for him. Royal bookends this nicely with another Face Jam to finish. This was a smart way to work the match to set up future Royal title defenses, so I can't really be critical of the ring work, which was good.

Read more!

2019 Ongoing MOTY List: Darby vs. Kross

78. Darby Allin vs. Killer Kross Maverick Pro Wrestling 9/7

PAS: Darby is the best David vs. Goliath wrestler since prime Rey Mysterio Jr. This is against a different beast then we have seen him against before, and Darby breaks out some new tricks. Kross hurls him with a collar and elbow tie up, and spins him around off a fireman's carry. Kross has a great football captain dick charisma, and there are some great moments where he gets too cocky for his own good. He puts his hands behind his back and dares Darby to chop him, only to eat a a great looking straight right hand, and grabs a chair (and fakes a chairshot on a fan) only to get coffin dropped on the chair as he was coming into the ring. There are a bunch of nifty near falls, including Darby rolling up Kross during his choke finisher, only to get pummeled and choked out. Kross feels like a guy who should go somewhere after his Impact stuff gets cleared up, and Allin is always a treat to watch.

ER: Darby vs. Monster has been one of our favorite match types since we found out who Darby Allin is, so any time it's him against a big bruiser he hasn't yet faced is going to be exciting. I love those moments where Darby gets caught but can't be disposed of, just grabbed-tossed-lands on his feet-repeat, leading to those great moments of him getting put down hard when he eventually doesn't land on his feet. I love the way Darby integrates success and failure into each attack, no sequence is guaranteed to work, and the only guarantee is that he will keep attempting them. Breaking up sequences keeps things fresh, so when he forward flips into the ring to put him in position to nail Kross with a tope, there's never a risk of thinking "Oh, now it the part of the match where Darby Allin hits three straight topes". He nails the first one, gets caught and almost slammed into chairs on the second attempt, escapes, and then hits chest to face on his third tope attempt. Breaking patterns makes his David routine far more exciting, makes every movement mean more. 

Kross is a good bully, and him running at a fan with a fake chairshot was a genuine favorite moment for me. What a dickhead thing to do! Fan just sitting there, presumably not even being annoying (I may be giving wrestling fans too much benefit of the doubt there), and suddenly Kross is running straight at him with a chair! Kross just chose to make someone look like an idiot for flinching, in a situation where anyone would have flinched. It's a great heel spot, and the fact that it lead to the best spot of the match made it mean even more. Darby's coffin drop - as Kross was sliding back in the ring with the chair - was perfection, as nobody's movement was out of the ordinary to set up the spot. Kross slid the chair in front of him like you would do, and Allin hit the drop right as Kross' body was aligned over it, just a great highspot. Kross is great in the moments he gets his mitts on Darby: early in the match he helicopter spins him directly into the mat, and all of the end submission stuff was really mean, like a sadistic big brother making his little brother hit himself a bunch. Little brothers need emergency outs to make things at all interesting, and Darby going after Kross' hand throughout gave us that. Even when Kross was sinking in a choke for the finish, it was always in my head that Darby could get some of Kross' fingers and just bend the hell out of them.


2019 MOTY MASTER LIST

Read more!

WXW Ambition Wildcard 10/6/19

Daniel Makabe vs. James Runyan

ER: I liked this, and liked the turns it took. I knew nothing about Runyan going into this (looks like there are Batt Academy matches of his dating back a couple years) and the way it started I thought it could be Makabe running him over. Makabe works the opening like a boa constrictor, locking on a body vice and working for a choke while on the mat and standing. It looked like Makabe was just going to smother him until he collapsed, and that's why I liked Runyan just falling on Makabe with all his weight to break the hold. Runyan does it again, this time as aggressive offense and not as a last defense, and has a nice headlock takeover. He starts working an armbar and that's when Makabe looks for strikes. I wish Runyan had done more with the strikes Makabe was throwing, as he kind of got glazed over eyes like he was too focused on his parts of the strike exchange, which meant some nice body shots went basically ignored. I'm a big fan of Makabe's german that uses a guy's existing momentum, and here he smacks Runyan and does a quick go behind and almost helps Runyan the rest of the way over, then gets up and hits a lifting german for good measure. Fun opening round scrap, might check out a couple Runyan Batt matches just to see how he looks.

PAS: First time seeing Runyan and I dug him, he doesn't have the same fluidity as Makabe (no slur, Makabe is really fluid) but he had cool ideas and executed them well. Loved his judo throw (got to be the Santino training) and his spinning cross armbreaker. I want to ban all forearm exchanges from wrestling forever and it is especially repugnant in Ambition, but I did really dig Makabe's body shots, I really like his striking, it has a Diaz brothers feel, where he throws a couple of softer shots and then loads up on the third or fourth. I thought the finish was super cool with Makabe spinning out of Runyan's tight triangle into an STF which he cranks violently for the tap. Makabe is pretty much a must watch at this point.

Dominic Garrini vs. Alexander Dean

ER: I thought this would be another first round steamrolling, and while it did feel like Garrini was mostly toying with Dean on the mat, I liked when Dean was landing hard elbows from mount. They had done a little stand and trade before that and Garrini was pasting Dean, so it's cool he adjusted to that and was bringing the strikes more down the stretch. Even though I'd prefer less stand and trade in matches like this, I liked his overhand chops. Garrini had a couple moments where you could really see his power on the mat, really see how easy he can shift and move from any position just by bulling his way through, see him really digging his heels into the mat. I don't think we get enough of Garrini messing with guys on the mat.

PAS: Garrini is a pretty diverse wrestler, and while I certainly enjoy crazy Garrini brawls, this is the stuff I love. I liked Dean using power to take Dom down and his big elbows looked nasty, but man is it fun to watch how talented Garrini is on the mat. He just spins Dean into various different traps, and his scissors kick takedown into a heel hook was awesome. It just feels like Garrini should barrel through a tournament like this and I am interested to check out how Makabe can credibly hang with him.

Rust Taylor vs. Kevin Lloyd

ER: First time seeing both guys, but this felt a little long, a little too exhibition, and a little scattered. It felt like we were seeing a series of resets and restarts, until it eventually decided to end. There was nice stuff, especially enjoyed Taylor grabbing an arm and rolling over Lloyd into a Fujiwara, and the finishing submission looked like something that should finish a match. But the application of these subs were filled moments of hesitation and brief stand stills. Even the match winning sub was applied when Taylor just literally ran across the ring at Lloyd and put it on, and there was very little struggle at any point throughout the match.

PAS: Taylor said he has been wrestling 15 years, which is pretty crazy considering I haven't heard of him at all, I mean I know some shit about wrestling. This was OK, it had a lot of movement, and that pace covered up some possible problems with the execution. Not a ton super memorable, but I enjoyed the struggle, and the final submission was pretty nasty.

A-Kid vs. Scotty Davis

ER: I had never seen Davis before but came away from this far more interested in seeing him than in seeing another A-Kid match. I don’t think Kid brought a ton of interesting stuff to this. I think the one thing he did that I liked was a cocky back somersault after a break (that Davis later taunted him with). Other than that he was a guy using a derpy superkick on an Ambition show. I liked several of Davis’s rolling attacks, his legbars and a cool neck crank, he threw a damn cool head and arm suplex, and I liked the rolling neck crank that sent Kid to the floor (and was what lead to strikes getting thrown). It was a slap fight, but some hard slaps landed in there. The finish didn’t do much for me, looked like Kid took a long time to apply a hold that eventually looked good but was only made possible by Davis holding perfectly still.

PAS: Eric is being kind to A-Kid, I thought he was really bad in this. Davis has a amateur wrestling background, and looked like a beast, tooling Kid on the mat, with great looking takedowns and controls, I loved his Gator roll into the ropes and to the floor, and he hit a great looking german (which Kid no sold) and a nasty Tazish head and arm toss. Kid stunk, he was throwing these lame slaps, did a suplex no-sell and a terrible looking super kick. That submission at the end took forever to apply, and had none of the craft or skill of a lot of the other submissions on this show, Davis laid their like a corpse. I would be excited to see more Davis, can't believe A-Kid is the guy they put over in this tourney.

55. Daniel Makabe vs. Dominic Garrini

ER: This was my favorite match on the card so far, and I was a big fan of the way these two would get tangled up. Both looked really impressive on the mat, tons of nice little moments any time they were rolling. I loved Makabe getting easily into mount, only for Dom to pop his hips and immediately buck him into an unfavorable spot. I dug the focus on each other's legs, with both guys almost racing each other to see who could properly apply a painful heel hook before the other, before they wound up so tangled that the only way out was to slap their way out. The slaps didn't look hard, but I appreciated how tough it would be to get a lot of mustard behind a slap at the close range they were at, with their legs tied up. It would be like swinging a bat while sitting cross legged Indian style and only using one arm. Makabe was smart about getting to ropes quick, not playing the dummy, knowing that once Dom was tugging away at your arm it was a smarter play to break the hold before he broke his grip. Makabe really got dumped with a German, Dom broke out one of my favorite Volk Han leg attacks (where he just leaps onto a guys leg knowing the weight will have to take the guy down), and I was certain the match was finished when Dom had Makabe in a side choke while grapevining his leg. It looked like Makabe was going to have a permanent lean to his left if he hadn't got to the ropes. I did think there was a little disconnect from Dom in a few moments, bumping too hard and early when they were tangled and slapping, and missing a beat before hitting his enziguiri after Makabe missed his Jamie Moyer wind up; it was nothing egregious, but when other stuff is so snug it stands out when someone is left hanging for a move. The finish was cool with Makabe getting Dom right in the center, made me think of all those subs that Dom locked in too close to the ropes.

PAS: This is kind of a dream match which I am surprised AIW or Scenic City didn't get to first. These are the two best end of the decade indy matworkers, and I thought this was a really good tourney semi-final version of this match up (I really want to see the main event or special attraction version). Both guys put on really vicious looking submissions with Dom taking most of the match on the mat, but Makabe squirming away for rope breaks. I loved Makabe getting mount early and Garinni just shrugging him off with his hips and retaking control, it was almost like he gave Makabe mount to show how easy he could get out of it. Garrini spinning out of cattle mutilation into a twister was some Negro Navarro shit. I wasn't in love with the strikes, felt like the timing was a bit off, and while the finish was cool, I thought it was a bit abrupt. The great stuff in this was really great though, and someone needs to run this matchup back.

A-Kid vs. Rust Taylor

ER: I was not as excited for this one, but they kept it short and sweet and I liked a lot of the transitions they did, liked their scrambling. Rust comes off like the best possible Mike Von Erich. He's not as big as Kevin or Kerry, but damn does his build remind me of a Von Erich body. I really like the way he traps an arm with his calf to roll his opponent over. He did it against Lloyd and it looked just as cool here, and he does it fast enough that it comes off totally natural. His use of strength on the mat was cool, and eventually he just hoists Kid up with a big flat landing gutwrench powerbomb. I would have liked a couple extra teases at the finish, but the finish itself looked great: Kid rushes him with a leaping guillotine, and you could see Taylor taking every step to work through a reversal: loosening the choke, getting a grip on the trunks, and as he muscles him up into a sweet vertical suplex, Kid slips out and gets him in a quick rear naked. Even though I liked this, I still liked Kid's opponent far more in both of his matches, but liked him more here than in the Davis match.

PAS: I thought this was a much better performance by Kid. What he seems to be able to bring to the table is really fast matwork and attacks, and he was constantly spinning and attacking the back and pushing the pace. There was some really nifty stuff here including a great finishing run with Kid doing the jumping guillotine, Taylor reversing it, and Kid spinning onto his back for the choke out. Gives me a little more hope for Kid vs. Makabe in the finals.

19. Timothy Thatcher vs. Oney Lorcan

PAS: Thatcher is a mainstay on these shoot style shows, although he doesn't really work that style. This was more of a super stiff 70s match, more Johnny Valentine than Volk Han, but I will take that for sure. Lorcan spent a lot of the match cranking a nasty side headlock, and it really felt like a violent attack rather then a time killer. Both guys unloaded with their shots, Thatcher came in with a bandage already, and by the end of the match Lorcan's slaps made his cheek fire engine red and his mouth bleed. Thatcher was giving it right back with some sick up kicks and some teeth chattering slaps of his own. Finish felt like the end of a heavyweight fight. I loved the Thatcher/Gulak/Busick throuple five years ago and I am glad we got Lorcan vs. Gulak and Lorcan vs. Thatcher this year again.

ER: This is the first singles match we've seen between these two in over 4 years, and obviously it was good. It's not crazy to think a tournament like this wouldn't be happening without what these two brought to indies several years ago, and this is the kind of dream match booking that actually interests me. I love how everything played out here, with my interest really getting jumped up about 5 minutes in: Lorcan rushes in with a short slap to lead into him grabbing a headlock, and we got an awesome struggle over a headlock takeover. Someone stopping a headlock takeover will pretty much get me invested in any match between any two people, in the same way a fistdrop will, or somebody pointing at their head. But this was a nasty side headlock and all I can think about is how damn sore my neck would be if I stopped the momentum of a headlock takeover, and here's Lorcan just yanking on Thatcher's head while Thatcher refuses to be budged, until Lorcan finally forces him down by the neck. Things were worked tough before that, but that slap and headlock really felt like it opened the floodgates and sent us into the real meat of the match. Thatcher fighting for an armbar was memorable, with Lorcan doing everything he could to keep Thatcher's leg trapped to keep him from extending, and both guys start landing hard slaps and shots, Lorcan gets a great half nelson, things seem more aggressive. By the end of the match the left side of Thatcher's face is comically bruised, making it look more like he had a port wine stain than a crazy occupation. We had seen plenty of slaps on this show but I don't think any were better than Lorcan grabbing Thatcher by the jaw and wailing away. The ref sadly got in Lorcan's way on the running uppercut, really felt like Lorcan was going to hit an all timer, and obviously Lorcan should have stuck with it. A Pedro Cardenas situation would have made for a pretty exciting special attraction match. I think Thatcher needed to put some extra juice on the finish if it was going to be a KO (Thatcher seems to hav a weird habit of lacing into a guy all match and then holding up his shots for the finish, which is bizarre), but I love these two together and I hope we get to run it back every couple years.

A-Kid vs. Daniel Makabe

PAS: I thought this was pretty great Makabe performance. A-Kid was going to do all of his goofy shit and Makabe made a super kick, northern lights suplex, and a Spanish Fly semi plausible in a shootstyle wrestling match. This was really stiff which redeemed a lot of it, there was an especially nasty looking A-Kid knee counter which really should have ended the match. I liked the story of Kid using his speed to get Makabe in a compromising position and Makabe using his technique to get his way out of it. Great tourney for Makabe, he really should have gone over.

ER: Despite Phil earlier saying I was too kind to A-Kid - in a review where the only thing I complimented him on was a taunt - he has been my least favorite guy on this card. Makabe was obviously the guy I had hoped would last to the finals, but would have much rather seen him against any of the other 6 guys. Still, my mind is always open, and I went into this excited. After the Garrini match this really did feel like Makabe's tournament to win. But he wasn't originally supposed to win SCI, so the wrestling gods gift one tournament win and take another. This was a fantastic Makabe performance though, maybe my favorite individual performance of his on a show where I dug all three of his matches. I liked how they worked the mat, thought Makabe had a couple of plausible finishes there, and really loved how he finally nailed the Mike Leake wind-up slap, timing it perfectly, and I loved how A-Kid sold it. 

A-Kid gets his absolute best moment of the night when Makabe lands a few leg kicks and then shoots in and gets obliterated with a Kid knee to the chin. I thought that was the finish for sure as Makabe wobbled from his knees right into a rear naked (which Kid had just polished off Rust with). I loved the struggle over the rear naked from both guys, really had no idea if Makabe was going to hold off the arm or Kid was gonna sink it in for the tap. I would have liked that more than the actual finish, even though I think Makabe played into the finish as damn well as he possibly could have. He even gets an amusing close up mug into the camera after eating a superkick, but I don't want to see a Spanish Fly on an Ambition card, no matter how nice they look. This one was worked in just about as well as you can work one into this style match, but Kid struck gold with that knee and I think they should have called an audible. Match was still fun as hell, and gave Makabe three cool performances in 90 minutes. That's efficiency!


2019 MOTY MASTER LIST

Read more!

Lucha Worth Watching: Wotan vs. Fly Star! Hijo de Canis Lupus! Dragon Bane!

Wotan vs. Fly Star FILLM 3/16/19

ER: Hey, it's 13 minutes of grimy indy lucha asskicking, bleeding, and nasty spills onto concrete. I love those things in my wrestling! This is a super libre which should always be code for "covered in blood" and wouldn't you know, that code is still active! Wotan starts by throwing Fly Star violently into, onto, and through some chairs (those hard ass old wooden arena seats), ripping a chair back loose for later, and hitting quick and mean headbutts whenever Fly Star puts up a fight. By minute 3 of what we have here, Fly Star's face is already covered in blood. Wotan is obviously going to keep headbutting him and punching him in the face, and the great thing about Wotan is even though he might beat the blood out of you, he will happily donate his own plasma to the bottom of your boots. Fly Star hits him with a dropkick on the floor that sends him tumbling, punches him in the head, and eventually tries to do a corner dropkick that had to be Fly Star seeing just how hard he could run and kick Wotan in the jaw. I love when Wotan's mask is ripped and loosely covering only his mouth, blood running everywhere, and both guys still decide who hits harder. I dug Wotan just wasting fly Star with a double chop, with Fly Star taking it as if he'd been hit by a truck, and I imagine Star's chest and neck were already tender, because Wotan had thrown 5 of the hardest possible lariats up to that point in the match. Both guys take HUGE violent bumps to the floor on missed offense, with Fly Star crashing hard on a slingshot senton, and then Wotan crashing hard on a somersault senton off the apron. These guys are dying out there, but neither man really got finished, the batteries just kind of ran out or just plain broke. It looks like we'll have to run this back again with another violent stip.

Dragon Bane/Hijo de Canis Lupus vs. Aramis/Imposible IWRG 4/28/19

ER: Super high octane sprint, that made smart use of partner saves to keep the crazy spots turned up without making for any eye rolling kickouts. They also figured out that the best way to make a stupid dance-y sequence look good is to just work stiff. Spinning around someone and hitting a superkick is fine by me, as long as you're Aramis here and look like you realign a jaw. The dives were expectedly spectacular: Bane and Lupus took both tecnicos with them on bullet topes into the front row, Aramis hits a gorgeous dive past the ringpost in the segunda, Imposible wears impossibly small trunks, etc. They throw in some fun visuals, like Bane running around the ring away from Imposible, only to get caught with a quebradora from Aramis, both Bane and Lupus taking vertical suplex bumps on the entrance ramp, and the saves all got great reactions from me as they went to big moves early and didn't turn the match into a bunch of kickouts and lying around. Hijo de Canis Lupus looked really good, had that same vibe Los Traumas had when they started to get noticed more. Lupus hit some of the hardest damn corner clotheslines I've seen this year, and the forcefulness of many of the strikes and running shots really added to the match. We also got a couple nice powerbombs, including Lupus tossing Aramis onto his partner with one, followed by immediately rolling him through to hit his own sitout powerbomb. The breakdown at the end was fun, and the way they staggered the pins was nice. Aramis surprised me with an awesome ankle lock to finish things, suddenly making me want to see Aramis work a Bloodsport show.

Read more!

WWE Big 3: Lorcan, Gallagher, Gulak 10/20-10/26

NXT 10/23/19

Jack Gallagher vs. Angel Garza

ER: This was a fun style clash, even though Gallagher is seemingly the only cruiserweight they don't allow to work long singles and tag matches. Tony Nese is out here getting 15 minutes and Gallagher fights to go past 5. This does not go past 5, but it has a ton of stuff you won't see in anyone else's match and that's why we value the Gentleman! He has a nice set of offense but doesn't use it all in every match. You'd think most guys would be trying to fit as much of their offense as possible into their monthly 4 minutes, but I've never seen Gallagher do the same combination of his signature stuff in any match. He always approaches things fresh, and that's a big reason I look forward to seeing him every time. They do a real cool timing spot where Garza starts removing his tearaways, Gallagher interrupts him but Garza pulls away and leaves his pants in Gallagher's hands the way a lizard would escape from a cat, and by the time Gallagher looks back up he's getting dropkicked in the face. They do a series of rolling crucifixes which is a variation I haven't really seen, and they made it looks so trippy and giddy that it felt right out of a fun Rollerball Rocco match. We get a cool sequence where Gallagher bumps big to the floor and rolls back in shaken, but recovers in time to hit his big headbutt. His headbutt is one of those moves that doesn't show up in all of his matches, and I like the ways he brings it back. I would have liked this to be twice as long, but this was fun as hell.


205 Live 10/25/19

Oney Lorcan vs. Lio Rush

ER: This was not as exhilarating as Rush's comeback match against Lorcan, but it's clear that these two are a great match for each other. They make ideal dance partners, and when you combine that with both guys having fun offense that they always execute well. Rush has a bunch of bouncy complicated moves that could potentially leave opponents looking dumb while waiting around it, but he has a cool Rey Mysterio way of getting guys logically into position for illogical offense. His bottom rope bouncing cutter should be silly, but it always looks cool. He and Lorcan each take turns pinballing across the ring: Rush takes a running knee to the gut, Lorcan gets hit with a torpedo of a suicide dive, Rush gets snapped in half by Lorcan's awesome blockbuster, and I just love the way these two take the other's offense. They're giving Rush some pretty decisive wins, and I would have liked to see a little more of Lorcan here - I would have liked to see more match period - but that Rush frog splash lands so hard that it definitely should have gotten the 3.


Smackdown 10/25/19

Drew Gulak vs. Kalisto

ER: Well this move to Smackdown has not been great for Gulak. This is a fun match while it lasts, but just when it looked like Gulak was about to break out some mean offense, Braun interrupts and allows Kalisto to finish him. Then Braun powerslams Gulak pretty unceremoniously. I would take Gulak teaming with Tony Nese for 15 minute matches over this. Having to see some associated Nese is better than this.

Read more!

New Footage Friday: Great American Bash 7/16/88

Larry Zbyszko/Rip Morgan vs. Tim Horner/Bugsy McGraw

ER: Really dug Zbyszko in this one. With these raw footage shows it's always great to here more ring noises, and here we got Zbyszko shit talking Horner and yelling at Morgan to pull McGraw's hair. My favorite part of the match was when Larry tagged in and kicks Bugsy in the stomach, and then punches him three times right in the side of the head. I am becoming so much of a Larry guy. Rip Morgan works this like Ogre from Revenge of the Nerds, and it's pretty great. His heel crazy was a nice counterpoint to babyface Bugsy. And Morgan is good at being that stumbling type of bully who Horner can do all his graceful armdrags to. Horner is always a treat to watch, a real underrated babyface who should have been bigger. He just seems like a nice guy. I liked the fun simplicity of this.

MD: This never really had the depth for anything to set in. It felt like the cliff notes version of a match. I wonder if that was frustrating for them since there was so much repetition on this tour. I imagine they were just glad to get paid. Horner and Larry looked solid. McGraw was a poor man's Valiant by this point, but the shtick of him reacting to the Haka was obviously well worked out by this point. None of the hope spots or transitions or finished felt earned. Larry worked hard, bumping around the ring.

Ronnie Garvin vs. Itallion Stallion

ER: This was great. It goes about a minute, and heel Ronnie Garvin is now my favorite wrestler. I need to see all of the post NWA champ Garvin, because he was the smuggest asshole here and it was the best. Garvin does a fake towel toss to the crowd, and the crowd HATES him and it makes Italian Stallion a big babyface. Garvin sure doesn't let him do much with that though. This whole thing is Garvin faking an ankle injury off a leapfrog, really well, and the entire crowd getting louder and louder the longer he fakes it. It's classic, simple stuff, but Garvin is a much better actor than he's ever gotten credit for. The crowd knows exactly what's happening and they are desperately trying to warn this goof Italian Stallion that they've been forced into cheering by default. And of course, Garvin, after begging off and holding his ankle in agony, hops off and finishes off Stallion with one shot, sitting on his chest for the pinfall with the greatest grin. 1988 Ronnie Garvin is the best.

MD: One of my favorite sub 1-minute matches in forever. I'm not sure I've ever seen much of this short heel run and we were robbed of something long and meaningful. He was such a glorious dick, demanding to wrestle in one ring instead of the other, having Hart force Tony to announce him as the former world champion, almost immediately faking a knee injury, popping up for the fist of stone and then sitting on Stallion for the win. What a glorious jerk. Can you imagine him riding into 89 with this gimmick as a foil for guys like Sting and Steamboat?

PAS: Matt and Eric pretty much cover it, but man I want to third the greatness of Ronnie Garvin. His career is basically over four years after this match, but this version of Ronnie Garvin should have had another decade of just being a heel dipshit.

Dick Murdoch vs. Gary Royal

ER: The raw footage is a blessing for Dick Murdoch matches, as the way this match is shot is almost cinematic. This is Dick Murdoch in a John Cassavetes movie. He even looks like David Rowlands. The camera is in so tight on everything, and this honestly feels like the greatest footage ever filmed of Murdoch. And Murdoch is perfection. He holds headlocks, ignores Teddy Long, throws hard elbows across Royal's throat, throws punishing stomps from the apron, and the camera zooms in extra close every time Murdoch locks in a headlock and throws his greatest ever headlock punch. This cameraman knew what people wanted to see. Murdoch struts around the ring and ringside area so cockily, really taking his time to lay down a beating on Royal. I especially like him throwing Royal into the scaffolding that was set up at ringside; Royal took a couple great hard chest bumps right into it. Murdoch hits a gorgeous brainbuster, really holding that vertical suplex for a long time before dropping him, and that toothless grin he flashes during the pinfall is right up there with the greatest things I've ever seen in wresting. I would watch a match like this every time over a "great match".

MD: A great lost Murdoch squash. His interactions with Teddy Long here were just off the chart. We're blessed here by the lack of commentary, since you can hear all the jawing perfectly. He was a bit like a poked bear as Royal kept trying to take advantage early, and then when he came unleashed after Long admonishes him, he just used the entirety of the ring, including the scaffold and the apron to demolish the poor jerk. The delay before the brainbuster was the icing on the cake.

Rick Steiner vs. Jimmy Garvin

ER: What a fun 90 seconds of pro wrestling. The fans are louder for Jimmy Garvin than they are for maybe anyone so far on this card. Rick Steiner looks super formidable, really crashing into Garvin with a hard lariat and big punches to the head. When Garvin starts firing back the crowd really loses it. Kevin Sullivan gets involved, Steiner grabs Garvin for a powerslam, and Garvin gets the great small package surprise win. This was 90 seconds, but was a great use of 90 seconds.

MD: Good aggression from Steiner. Great punches from Garvin. This was ultimately nothing, but the way the crowd rallied behind Garvin and Precious was one of those things you wouldn't believe on paper. Garvin felt like the biggest babyface in the world here when he went to save Precious from Sullivan. You have to love this crowd.

The Rock n Roll Express vs. The Sheepherders

MD: This never quite settled down, but in a good way. Once they got past the initial goofiness with the flag things were pretty loose and chaotic. Morgan was a near constant presence and they weaved him in and out of the match believably enough. The Sheepherders had some memorable driving kneedrops and their usual ability to create an atmosphere of violence. The finish matched things well, coming out nowhere but feeling believable and triumphant.

ER: This ruled. I love how the Sheepherders match up against a team like the Rock n Rolls; Butch Miller especially always bumps around big for babyface offense (he had a fantastic bump from the ring to the apron to the floor here) and the Sheepherders work viciously enough that they come off like a threat. I love when the Rock n Rolls match the savagery of their opponents, and Ricky always comes off so tough against roughneck types. This felt like a real chaotic brawl, Rock n Rolls hitting crossbodies on both Sheepherders, Ricky taking a super fast bump to through the ropes to the hard floor, Butch hitting a great leaping fistdrop, everyone throwing punches. This is the kind of constant motion wrestling that I want.

Brad Armstrong vs. Al Perez

MD: I liked this but didn't love it. A lot of it was by the numbers, with the heel getting more and more frustrated at getting outwrestled until he took over by roughhousing, etc. Hope spots, comeback, the good type of heel manager finish with a leg grab. Like I said, a lot to like. For a cold match, the crowd was into it. Perez could be pretty emotive when he was getting clowned. He had some fun offense. Hart was very effective on the outside. The hope spots were really spirited, with Brad just flying across the ring at one point, and the comeback had a great revenge spot with a slam to the floor. There was just a disconnect when Perez was on offense. His stuff looked good but it didn't flow. There was a story they could have told following up on Brad's back and building to the hope spots and cut offs better and it just didn't happen. This would have been a great opening match on a more balanced card but without an underlying reason for the fans to care and even with the effort put in, it was more of a testament to the crowd than the match that this was still fairly over.

ER: This is the first match of the card that I wasn't super into. It just felt a little long, Al Perez threw on a chinlock for awhile, felt pretty time filler. There were some inspired moments, like Armstrong interacting with Hart on the floor and getting slammed into the scaffolding, or Armstrong's brief but fiery comeback down the stretch. But this match was a little too dry in the middle of a card that's been checking off all my boxes.

Midnight Express/Jim Cornette vs. The Fantastics

ER: The Midnights' gear is the stuff of wrestling miracles. Eaton is an Alabama crop top, kneepads over beat up jeans, a flat out gorgeous outfit for a bunkhouse match. Stan is dressed like a front row Malibu aerobics boy toy, tank top and pink/turquoise bike shorts and shag. Fantastics are both wearing tank tops, jeans, kneepads over jeans. It's the fucking code and everybody looks like the encyclopedia image for "What to Wear to a Fucking Bunkhouse Match". It's incredible. And this whole entire match is as great as it looks on paper. Bobby Eaton was god level here, it was the best in ring performance I've ever seen from Cornette, Stan Lane had meathead frustration bumping down to a science, and The Fantastics were throwing punches like the best fired up babyfaces. I think Bobby Fulton is underrated as hell, and his exchanges with Bobby were flat out pro wrestling punch master classes. You wanna punch? You watch the Bobby's. Throw Bobby Heenan and Bobby Blaze into that mix. Eaton vs. Fulton was awesome the whole match through, Eaton going from vicious puncher to man taking highest backdrop. When the match broke down they had a fantastic chairshot sequence, with Fulton bashing Bobby with a metal folding chair. As someone who great up with the weird wooden folding chairs of WWF, it's always shocking for me when I see metal chairshots to the head in the 80s. Fulton's shots to Eaton's head looked great, and Eaton would get his hand up while looking like he was getting totally obliterated by these shots. He take ones in the aisleway that the super hot crowd flips out for.

Now, James E. Cornette may have been the superstar of the match. As great as Nick Patrick looked in my absolute dream of a match against Jericho, Cornette looked here. This was the best in ring Cornette I have ever seen. He dropped an elbow on the floor, two picture perfect fistdrops, a great leaping elbowdrop, and some genuine top 20 all time punches. His punches were hot fire, and when it came time for him to bump for the Fantastics you know he flew into offense like he was Heenan. This was the kind of 15 minutes of wrestling that makes me love all of this so much.

The Road Warriors vs. Ivan Koloff/Russian Assassin #1

PAS: I am a scaffold match fan. I can just imagine how insane it must be to watch live, knowing you might see a murder. Ivan was especially great at teasing death, and Animal even tried a dropkick. Hawk and Russian Assassin spent most of the match brawling near the ends of the scaffold which had guardrails, which is kind of pussy. I don't need you to die, but at least tease me a bit.

MD: Not a ton to say here. As scaffold matches go, this was ok. The falls were bs, but are we really going to complain about that in 2019, especially knowing they had to work this match around the loop? In general, I was impressed with how well they moved around up there. A little can go a long way in a setting like this. The fans, again, were generous, happy with all of this, especially the half-baked falls. Great crowd.

ER: Yeah Scaffold matches are a gimmick match I absolutely adore. I couldn't imagine how much I'd be flipping out if I saw a scaffold match live. I would be standing the whole time with my mouth wide open. The Dundee/Koko 2/3 falls scaffold match was my #1 match of the 80s Memphis project. They come off so scary to me! Look at how narrow this damn thing is! Look at how HIGH this thing is! It is one of my all time favorite gimmicks and too many people undersell what a damn attraction a scaffold match can be. THIS crowd knew exactly how big a treat they were getting, and I was right there with them. It turns out Ivan Koloff is a master of scaffold matches. I need to know what other Koloff scaffold matches exist on tape, because I want to write about them. Koloff is the guy running around up there, he's the guy taking big bumps for Animal, he's the guy who takes a ridiculously high fall while swinging from the bottom of the scaffold, he's the one falling dangerously close to the edge; Koloff was 45 years old here. He's the oldest non-JJ Dillon guy on the card and he's in the running for craziest guy on the card. Animal tries throwing a dropkick and it doesn't totally hurt, but Koloff makes it special by getting bounced dangerously close to the edge butt first, and later Animal and Koloff both hang off the edges and the bottom in fun ways. Hawk and Assassin (who was Angel of Death) play it safer on the edge with a guardrail, but even that railing was rickety as hell so I was still feeling the danger. Scaffold matches are the ultimate gimmick attraction for me, and this didn't let me down at all.

Read more!

WWF Raw 2/9/98: A Good Episode of Wrestling TV

I threw on this episode of Raw because I wanted to see the cruiser tag, but I found myself captivated by what looked like a top to bottom rock solid pro wrestling card. Every match looked fun on paper, figured I would dive back into my teens.

Jeff Jarrett/Barry Windham vs. Legion of Doom WWF Raw 2/9/98

ER: How did I not remember the killer fast working cutthroat big bumping tag team of Jeff Jarrett and Barry Windham? I very much remember the bad NWA reboot, but forgot we got actual cool tag teams with them, where Jarrett looked flat out the best he ever looked (work wise, look wise, everything). This is a flat out 1985 NWA tag match taking place on 1998 WWF TV, and it's great. Windham and Jarrett were an awesome team that didn't get enough of a chance, and this whole tag played like a stiff old guy brawl. LOD and Windham are all 38 and up, which was old for this era WWF. But Hawk worked stiff the whole match, dropping Windham with a heavy Thesz press and punching him right in the ear, and later throwing chops to Jarrett that looked like backhands right across Jarrett's face. Windham bumped around for LOD but also gave right back, hitting a couple great lariats and his best punch of the match right on the floor while close to some fans. The crowd was lit up for LOD the whole match. Neither Hawk or Animal were working any complicated power spots here, but they were working quick and throwing themselves into punches and shoulderblocks. Hawk took a really nasty bump for the finish, charging into the ringpost and falling to the floor. The crowd was already into LOD, just two big dudes in face paint running into people would have been enough, but Hawk is out here taking bumps like this. Cornette comes out and we get a hard racket shot, and Bradshaw runs out and looks as pissed and dangerous as peak Stan Hansen. this was great TV tag wrestling.

Pierre vs. Henry Godwinn

ER: A slow burning hoss battle and a rare singles match appearance from 1998 Pierre, who takes several crazy bumps. Both guys hit hard, really swinging limbs into each other, and Pierre kicks things up a notch with a bonkers no hands tope that falls a little short, so the big man just does a gigantic belly flop to the floor. Godwinn takes a nice spill to the floor, too, but here's Pierre taking a big lariat over the top to the floor, missing a huge in ring cannonball, and getting super height on a backdrop. They kept a real pace here, really filling the minutes with a lot more movement than I expected from two tag guys. This was a big man's match where the misses were just important as the hits, and both landed heavy.

Pantera/Brian Christopher vs. Taka Michinoku/Aguila

ER: This show is an easy 3 for 3 so far. This match got 6 big minutes and everyone here made the most of those minutes. Pantera gets catapulted over the top and gets big air before crashing hard, and then Christopher gets backdropped to the floor, with Pantera taking a somersault bump into him after getting dropkicked off the apron. Aguila hits a killer corkscrew plancha, Taka hits one of his breathtaking no hands springboard planchas; this was a hot freaking match and the crowd was reacting well. Christopher had a long heel control segment on Aguila that was real good, and I forgot how strong the reactions were for Aguila. There's a great moment where Christopher narrowly ducks a high arcing, 2/3 across the ring Aguila moonsault press, and Aguila grazes vertically over the top of him and lands belly first on the mat. The finish was a great Memphis finish, with Christopher digging in under his balls to pull out a fake weapon, and Pantera shoving the crotch weapon into the nose of his mask. Pantera leaps off the middle buckle right into Taka, and Taka bumps as if he just got hit in the face with a sock of nickels. High end WWF cruiser match for the time. Pantera had this incredible 6 match run in 1998, bounced, then came back for more a year later. I'd love to know who was asking about Pantera every year.  

Ken Shamrock/Chainz vs. The Rock/Faarooq

ER: I really liked Chainz here, he of arguably the dumbest WWF wrestling name of 1998. But he hit with big clubbing hands to the side of Rock's ear, took a nice Nation beatdown, and took a big bump over the top and into the guardrail. Faarooq had a nice powerslam and took Shamrock's sillier MMA strikes (he still hadn't figured out punches, but his kicks were thrown nicely), and Shamrock hits a really cool standing rana. Rock stooged around nicely and took advantage of cheating with such confidence, he was really operating at peak heel power already. House show Rock was probably amazing during this period. The match ends with a DQ when Rock absolutely obliterates Shamrock's brain cells with a chairshot. Good lord. Rock swings a chair right into the flat of the forehead and this was a 19 fucking 98 chairshot indeed.

Steve Blackman vs. Recon

ER: This ruled. Blackman does a bunch of karate blocks and chops and a big armdrag, and suddenly the Truth Commission's (genuinely great, almost John Carpenter influenced) music starts up and Jackal gets lowered from the ceiling speaking over the house mic from a podium. He cuts this wild Jim Jones promo about how the WWF fears him, and Blackman and Recon bizarrely have a match like they have no idea it's going on. They don't stop once to look over at Jackal's sermon, just continue having a very normal (and very fun) match. It's so weird!! Blackman comes off as a more interesting worker than Shamrock at this point (though he has no crowd connection whatsoever. He steadfastly refuses to acknowledge anybody other than his opponent), and here he's awesomely and robotically going through every single move he knows, landing weird elbow drops, high spinkicks, a fast sunset flip, and finishing with a cool rings of Saturn variation. The whole presentation of this was strange in a great way.

Goldust vs. Thrasher

ER: This is the late 90s, and so Goldust is dressed as Marilyn Manson (and really is wearing almost the exact same gear Charly Manson would later use), and we have to hear JR obnoxiously call him "Marilyn Manson Dust" the entire match. I hated how he said it every time. Mare-uhh-lenn MAN-sun Dust. We don't get too many Thrasher singles matches, and this is a unique match up, and a Goldust singles match is almost always going to work even if it's Goldust working with a stupid wig. They do oddly get mixed up on who is supposed to be the heel, with Mosh choking Goldust from the floor and Goldust getting a babyface comeback right after. But this match had Goldust throwing several great punches, Thrasher hitting a cool springboard back elbow, a nice Goldust hotshot on the barricade, the kind of stuff I wanted to see.

Read more!

AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 10/23/19

What Worked

ER: Marq Quen looked fantastic in the opening tag. This guy gets unreal height on everything and connects. His shooting star was gorgeous, and he took some big spills (really flew into a Fenix german suplex, among other things). PP have some really fun double teams but it can result in a lot of waiting around. Still, Quen is a fun guy to watch. Fenix's double stomp to Quen's shoulderblades was disgusting, he also hit a great tope and I dug his ropewalk punt.

ER: Dark Order looked good and deserved a lot better than Jericho taking regular focus away from their offense. Uno is a big chubby boy and was really great at taking the innovative 2005 offense of SCU, threw some stiff shots, actually made me want to seek out some Uno matches. Grayson hit a bananas tope con giro over the ringpost, looked like he was going to fly 30 feet, also bumped around huge for Kazarian's hot tag.

ER: I am into the 8 man tag they set up, and thought the promo setting it up was great. Jericho dunking on MJF's scarf, Jericho saying "don't take one more step" several times, Cody breaking the glass door to get to Jericho, an actual great security break up, totally want to see this match.

ER: Bucks tag was really fun, built nicely, cool moments came off well. I dug Orange Cassidy's hands in pockets dive, both Bucks had some slick chain offense, Trent threw several nice suplexes (you know, maybe not "Gary Albright-esque" like Excalibur said, because that's dumb), even Taylor had a cool northern lights suplex. Bucks had a nice save on what I thought was the for sure finish, and I thought the match length was perfect for the pace.

ER: Britt Baker has been on these episodes way too damn much, but that coal/steel/iron Steelers logo ring jacket using colored molars instead of stars is damn choice. That jacket has been far and away my favorite thing about Baker.

ER: Moxley had a really nice cover in the final minute, really grapevined the legs and sunk it in.

What Didn't Work

ER: Lucha Bros. tag was far too long. Even though it was "only" 15 minutes, it was so go go go that they hit multiple points where it felt like they were doing way too much. You build a match around two teams hitting tandem chain offense, and the longer it goes the more likely it is that some of it doesn't look good. Pentagon is such a slug in these matches, completely terrible at getting into position for big offense. He almost always gets into position, he's not missing dives or anything, but he literally just walks into the spot he needs to stand, or shifts ridiculously across the mat on his back. He's not good! AEW is still somehow missing a few big spots, barely catching a nuts looking Fenix tope at the end. And I think Private Party really should have won here. Lucha Bros. do not need any kind of big wins at this point. Pentagon shitting up the ring for the past 3 years and getting louder reactions than ever kind of proves that.

ER: This fed is really cornering the market on "Guys trying elaborate ranas, slipping, and falling short of their mark". It has happened every week so far, multiple times this week.

ER: All of the teams I don't want to see are the ones advancing. SCU feel like the most 2005 tag team possible, and I wish their stable was called Bald Dudez.

ER: Omega has a lot of offense that looks like it really hurts, but it must not because Janela was always able to get back up immediately and do something that also looked like it hurt, and sometimes Omega would make funny spittle faces after being hurt, but it turns out he also isn't hurt by Janela's offense. The V Trigger that set up the finish looked extra painful, but I'm not sure why that one knocked Janela out cold but the other V Triggers just made him get up and hit suplexes.

ER: I am sure that I am the first one to say that "TV Time Remaining" is a weird way to end a match when there is still TV time remaining...

ER: We sure did see a lot of 450 splashes and shooting stars tonight. How long is that going to feel exciting? This show needed way more breathing room. It was 2 hours of constant matches, almost all of them worked at the exact same pace, almost all of them using the exact same offense. It's too fucking much.

Read more!

Eddie Kingston's Crew is From the East, He Leavin' At Least 20 Police Deceased

Eddie Kingston/Joker vs. Super Dragon/Necro Butcher CZW 2/11/06 - GREAT

PAS: It would be nearly impossible for any match to live up to that lineup of insane asskickers. It's like Kurisu and Kurisu vs. Kurisu and Kurisu. Match opens up with Dragon and Kingston exchanging slaps,  which is great, and then into some mat wrestling, which you know, fine and all, but not what I am here for. It picks up quite a bit when they brawl to the floor, the camera focuses on Kingston vs. Necro which rules, but you get little pieces out of the corner of you eye of Super Dragon braining Joker with a chair or curb stomping him on the floor. There is a beatdown section on Kingston which is good, but I kind of wan't a Super Dragon and Necro beatdown on Eddie Kingston to be the best tag beat down ever, and it wasn't that. The Joker hot tag is fun and there is this amazing moment of Necro grabbing Joker by his shirt and punching him fifteen times directly in the jaw. The finish had some moments, but I didn't love the backdrop no-sells, and the Joker roll up is more cutesy then this match deserved. This is well worth watching, the great stuff in it is really great, but this was closer to the 100th best match of 2006, and I wanted it to be closer to the best.

Read more!

A Viking, a Deadman, & A Low Ranked Noncommissioned Officer Walk Into Japan...

Nord the Barbarian/Punisher Dice Morgan/Mike Kirschner vs. Masa Saito/Kengo Kimura/Osamu Kido NJPW 3/5/90

ER: Look at that gaijin lineup! It was recently brought to my attention that we have footage of Berzerker teaming with Undertaker, years before their near-fatal feud that began with an attempted sword impaling. This was before that, the prequel that we now know would lead to attempted murder just a couple years later. Also, the next night NJ ran Nord/Dice/Bigelow vs. Hashimoto/Saito/Choshu, and that match doesn't exist on tape because life is cruel. But we get this, and it hits all the right spots.  For a JIP 7 minute match we get a lot of gold.

Nord is fired up throughout, and at this point it's a real mystery why he wasn't thought of higher at the time. He had great energy, unique presence, and cool offense. We start with Saito jumping all over Nord's leg, and the home fed heroes trying to bully Nord into the corner, Lilliputians trying to wrangle a wild outsider, and it was a cool visual to see the three of them swinging into Nord while he swings his way out. I'm not sure why Mean Mark was working as Punisher Dice Morgan on this New Japan tour, but this is one of the few Punisher Dice Morgan matches we have, and while he's not in it a ton he shows a lot. He comes into the match with a great headbutt, and his brawling style and the way he moves looks a lot more like Steve Austin, if Austin had gained 50 lb. and half a foot in height. Morgan works a genuinely funny spot where he tries to get Saito in a test of strength but Saito is too short. I've seen that spot a zillion times, but I don't think I've ever seen it done to a certified badass like Saito. Their body language is great - Saito was this awesome fired up babyface throughout, a change from his more stoic tone - and Morgan keeps yelling at the crowd that he's on the level. I love Morgan working the Okinawa fans as if he was working a Memphis high school, and everybody plays along. The bulk of the match is our Americans beating down Kengo Kimura, and it's good. Kirschner comes in and throws nasty punches to Kimura's kidneys, and Kirschner is not a wrestler I think about a ton (though I really need to go through FMW at some point, I bet there's a lot of cool stuff I haven't seen) but he looked damn good here; his strikes to Kimura were all good, and he ran great distraction when Nord and Morgan dragged Kimura to the floor, he hits a nice kneedrop, and his apron work was great (mocking Saito's height is something I certainly wouldn't have the courage to do).

Nord is an absolute monster to Kimura, throwing him forcibly into and over the guardrail, and it looked like Kimura was not necessarily wanting to be thrown into the crowd. Sadly, when Nord is the man doing it you won't have much say in the matter. He really bullies Kimura around ringside, and then starts battering him with Necro Butcher level chairshots, and when Morgan gets involved you realize what a fun team Berzerker and Undertaker would have been. Nord drops his huge legdrop back in the ring, but they get too cocky and try to send Kirschner off the top with an ill advised Rocket Launcher, and it does not work. Saito is incredibly fun as a hot tag babyface, and I honestly don't know if I've ever seen Saito run into the ring on a hot tag and do a little dance before taking out every one of the heels with punches and chops. He was the worlds most dangerous Robert Gibson, and while I wish we got twice as much, the Saito suplex is a fitting finish.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE BERZERKER

Read more!

On Brand Segunda Caida: El Mosco in WWF

"El Mosco"/Abismo Negro/Histeria vs. Los Cadetes del Espacio (Discovery/Super Nova/Venum) WWF Raw 3/24/97

ER: This was plenty fun, with Abismo Negro looking like the guy of this group who could cross over. He got arguably the biggest reaction of the match when he powerbombed the hell out of Super Nova. Abismo also bumped upside down off the ropes and took a great bump around the ringpost. He did incredible little things that nobody else was doing in these matches, like actually acting like he was trying to stop the tecnicos from flying. He's the guy on the apron leaping futilely after Venum as Venum launches himself with a top rope quebrada to the floor. Venum also could have broken out with American fans. He was really fearless at this point, crazy with his body (like doing a springboard flip to the floor and landing on his feet), his a couple inventive headscissors, got some noise. Histeria was the bumper of the group, really flying hard backwards off moves, looking like a small Buzz Sawyer. He took this huge flying bump through the ropes to the floor, tumbling hard to the entrance ramp, and then ate a big tope con giro from Discovery.

There was only one problem with this match: It didn't actually have El Mosco. The onscreen graphic says El Mosco when the Galaxy Rudos make their way out, but it is Maniaco. Vince even calls him Maniaco, so this was merely a screen graphic error that has then been circulated incorrectly around match lists for 20 years. A fun match, but our search for WWF El Mosco is starting weird.

El Mosco/Abismo Negro/Histeria/Maniaco vs. Discovery/Super Nova/Venum/Ludxor WWF Shotgun   4/5/97

ER: Ah, there he is! And this has to be the frontrunner for best match of the AAA/WWF failed/aborted/misguided showcase of talent. Perhaps most notably, in an 8 man battle between The Space Cadets and the Rudos of the Galaxy, JR calls 6 of the 8 by the correct name (he mixes up Abismo Negro and El Mosco, which is a higher percentage of success than I was expecting). Brian Pillman also wonders if these men were perhaps smuggling strawberries in their butt across the border, but JR at least attempted to learn names and call the action seriously. This felt like the kind of spotfest that could have actually caught on and gotten great reactions in front of WWF audiences, if WWF cared about what kind of reaction it got. This was a breathless spotfest with good pairings, short (6 minutes or so) and to the point, that the crowd was already reacting to by the time it was done. Most of this crowd likely viewed this as Max Moon x4 vs. Max Moon x4, but the wrestlers went for it and I thought succeeded. The best pairing was El Mosco and Venum, with Mosco bumping all over for slick ranas and headscissors, then catching a huge Venum dive to the floor. Venum's flying looked really great and the two of them went insanely fast through all of it, and the fans didn't know what to expect from the moment Venum hit a dragon rana. I assume most in attendance had never seen anything like that before. Mosco even took the big belly flop slide on the floor, and slid so far that he flew PAST the padded mats and onto the entrance way. Venum also does nice extra hard bumping, running chest first into the buckles as if he was really trying to show WWF he had done his homework on their top stars. Abismo and Discovery were fun as hell, with Discovery hitting a big tope con giro and Abismo later getting clowned by Nova into missing a tope con giro, crashing but first onto the floor (Abismo can later be seen working out his cheeks while walking ringside). Maniaco almost lawndarts himself taking a Jerry bump (that he thankfully does last minute fully rotate on), and wraps himself around the ringpost in an awesome way, splatting on the ring steps on his way down, then eating a huge flying headbutt from Nova after propelling him up the buckles. The Rudos were basing like crazy during this whole thing, pushing the Cadets to a super fast pace, and the Cadets met that pace. Fans were quiet when Maniaco and Nova started, but 5 minutes in they were into it. This was nothing but slick ranas, cool armdrags, big dives, great bumps, big powerbombs, all of it cool. These guys easily could have been a special attraction on house shows, Raw openers, whenever; and it's a shame we never got to see WHO would have been the breakouts from the AAA group, just because none of them were ever given any time to breakout.

El Mosco vs. Super Nova WWF Raw 3/31/97

ER: This was a pretty good representative for the whole AAA in WWF experiment as a whole: Two guys - who honestly may as well not have been given names - thrown into the ring with no kind of hype, killing themselves to little reaction, while Vince talks to Sunny, and Sunny grinds on Hugo Savinovich during the most dangerous highspot of the match, assuring that nobody calls it. There is also a running thread of powerbombs getting a bigger crowd reaction than any other highspot the AAA luchadors do. It's as if planchas and tornillos confuse them, but a guy getting splatted with a big powerbomb is a universally accepted thud. Vince calls two spots that were supposed to miss (including a big sky twister press from Super Nova) as if they were blown spots, and seemingly nobody in the arena notices when Super Nova hits a crazy tope con giro into El Mosco, while Mosco is *seated* on the entrance ramp. Nova covered a lot of distance, the visual looked incredible...but admittedly, Sunny's black dress *was* impossibly tight.

El Mosco/El Pantera vs. Taka Michinoku/Scott Taylor WWF Shotgun 11/8/97

ER: So the AAA showcase experience was long over, but they brought Mosco back for a one-off, a way to pad their burgeoning LightHeavyweight division before they also lost interest in that a few months later. I don't think I've ever seen this match, and it rules. It starts with Mosco leading Scott Taylor through some cruiser offense that felt very atypical for Taylor. Taylor broke out a headscissors and a big cannonball off the apron, then hit a missile dropkick and landed on his feet like he was Bruce Lee out here with early 90s Brian Pillman hair. Mosco would get to shine a bit later, but early on it was all about leading Taylor through fun and passable lucha sequences. The real money was in the Taka/Pantera exchanges, and they cruelly cut who knows how much out of our time with them for commercial purposes. The second Pantera tagged in he hit a gorgeous rolling armdrag on Taka, rolling smoothly right over his back and sending Taka to the floor. Pantera does his dope rolling headscissors to the apron, that sends Taka crashing hard to the floor (a move they'd get to do on PPV a couple months later, which is a crazy PPV singles match we got, in retrospect), and then Pantera just obliterates Taka with a tope, running from the apron and diving past the ringpost. The lunatic even did it through the ring corner where the steps were, the worst of the four corners to try that lunacy. Mosco and Pantera control segment was nice, from the simple things like a picture perfect tandem drop toehold on Taylor, to a cool as hell springboard flipping legdrop from Mosco. The ending is pretty simple, as obviously we know Taka is winning all of these matches, and at a certain point they kinda rush into go home mode and Take just starts dropping Mosco with kicks, a nice brainbuster, and the Michinoku driver. So a simple way to wrap things up, but the whole match was filled with gold, the types of things nobody else was doing on WWF TV at the time. Mosco looked great in all of his WWF appearances, but there was clearly nothing he could have actually done in the ring to get hired. The fact we got a dozen or two Pantera matches in WWF was an actual lucha miracle.

Read more!

WWE Big 3: Lorcan, Gallagher, Gulak 10/13-10/19

NXT 10/16/19

Oney Lorcan/Danny Burch vs. Fabian Aichner/Marcel Barthel

ER: This was cool, even if we got Imperium's heat on Burch cut out by commercial break. But we got a ton of stuff crammed into the short runtime, and they made it feel like a much bigger match due to the layout. These teams have good chemistry, and all know how to set each other up. Burch had some cool early moments, especially dug him knocking Barthel out of the air with a headbutt. And I really liked Aichner; he would do little things I love like hold on to headlocks, hit a nice brainbuster, but his big stuff like his double jump moonsault looked great. Of course Lorcan's hot tag was going to be a highlight, and he doesn't disappoint: big flying uppercuts, nice pescado, and a fun sequence where he knocks Barthel off the apron into Aichner, then hits a tope con giro into both. The double teams in this were smoking, like Barthel hanging Burch in the ropes before he and Aichner hit a perfectly timed dropkick on him, or the tandem powerbomb from Lorcan/Burch, right up to the excellent finish run from Imperium. They really strung the finish together nice, with a nice spinebuster into a PK, and that Hart Attack uppercut off the top is a real killer. This tag felt much closer to a hot AIW tag, and considering AIW consistently has the best tag matches in wrestling, that's obviously a great thing.

PAS: This was a great sprint, with everyone looking great. Lorcan is one of the great hot tags in wrestling and he just unloads with some great wild offense. Loved the giro into both guys. I am pretty over highspots by biggish guys, but Aichner's double jump moonsault is a true holy shit spot, and made a great near fall. Didn't have the bloat that some of the tags we have reviewed have, they just went out and burned through a killer TV tag.


205 Live 10/18/19

Jack Gallagher vs. Brian Kendrick

ER: This felt like the first several minutes of a really good match, but had a pretty uninteresting finish (unless it leads to more of a feud, I suppose) that from two guys who are good at coming up with interesting finishes. Gallagher is one of the more underutilized guys on the roster. This is the first time he's shown up in a month, he doesn't work house shows, rarely works indies, and could feasibly make it through 2019 with only 20 matches worked. That's weird. He doesn't appear to be injured, just unused. I love how great both of them are at building matches around merely getting thrown into walls and corners. A huge chunk of this match is them getting run into walls, and they're great at it. They know how to make slamming into a flat wall look really painful, and both find interesting ways to make hitting a turnbuckle look like actual offense. The best was at the finish, when Kendrick threw Gallagher by the front of the trunks chin first into the top buckle, and Gallagher just smashes into it. The match had a ton of cool things: Heavy deadlift back suplex on the floor by Gallagher, Kendrick throws an actual damaging superkick out of the corner, Gallagher pays him back with a nasty corner dropkick, and I loved Kendrick rolling through to make the Captain's Hook last even longer. But kendo sticks in 2019 are pretty lame, and Gallagher taking forever to go grab a kendo stick and truly contemplate the seriousness of the line he was about to cross by using a stick was some dumb stuff. Gallagher throws harder strikes with his head and all four limbs, who needs to go get a stick?

Oney Lorcan vs. Ariya Daivari vs. Tony Nese

ER: This was like "The Problems with 205 Live: The Match" in a lot of ways, but had a ton of endearing qualities that it kind of won me over. This had all the bizarre bad 205 Live tropes: It was absurdly long for (I still cannot get over WWE having weekly 18 minute cruiserweight matches), the worked it as a slow burn with the crowd actively turning on the match because of how long and slow it was, before Lorcan and some crazy bumps actually rallied the crowd into a satisfied submission. This was flawed, but I actually liked the different tone and pace they worked. It seemed ridiculous at first (and was actually ridiculous in several ways; we did NOT need a 90 second Tony Nese chinlock in the middle of this while Daivari disappeared on the floor), but they won me over with their dedication to the specific match they were doing. It was slow, it defied the crowd reaction, and it peaked strongly after the deliberately slow first half. I liked Daivari a lot. After this match I think he's officially a guy I'm going to remember I like. Tozawa was that guy last year, a guy I kept forgetting I enjoyed. Then finally it stuck. Daivari doesn't get talked about much, but he's been kept relatively strong on 205 for a guy who loses a lot on 205 Live. When he is given the time to look tough, he always looks great. He had a squash a week or two ago with Chris Bey bumping huge for him, but he looked real mean in it. He plays a real good Yoshinari Ogawa heel in multi mans. He went almost exclusively for sneaky schoolboy roll ups for the first 8 minutes of this, and it was pretty great. His bumps have snuck up and become one of my favorite bumping styles in WWE: He goes does hard with his legs shooting out first, like he's actually sprinting straight into a clothesline he didn't see. He ping pongs around for Lorcan uppercuts and also gets good lift on slams and suplexes. He's a strong addition to a match like this.

Now the match does have a lot of Nese just Nese-ing it up. I hate his kick combo that looks like an elaborate Bash Brothers celebratory handshake. But his athleticism can lead to fun spots, and he showed a really smart understanding of peaking a sequence, with a real deft closing sequence. I loved him climbing to the top to hit Lorcan with a 450, seeing Daivari getting up on the floor so opting to hop down and take him out with the Fosbury Flop, then going back to hit the 450 only to find he gave Lorcan too much recovery time, realizing it when he smacks his face into the mat on a missed 450. It's smart scene construction that you don't always get in these matches, and Nese - while throwing out shitty looking offense sometimes - also feels like he now has equal amounts of offense that look good, is getting better at building a match, and will still take a violent bump. He gets knocked off the top rope to the floor and flips head and neck first onto the apron.

Lorcan keeps getting a restless crowd back on his side, really fighting to hold their interest, and I think succeeding. He flew into horizontal full force uppercuts in a way that demanded attention, and his two reckless flip dives to the floor back to back got rewarded for giving that attention. I liked all his work around the half nelson suplex, when he caught both Daivari and Nese in them and when he would get them reversed; Nese landing on his feet off the half nelson and hitting a perfectly timed double stomp to Lorcan's chest was a strong moment. The whole finishing stretch was the best thing on this 205 Live episode, and even if I wasn't along for all of the too long match, I appreciated a ton of it.


Smackdown 10/18/19

Drew Gulak vs. Braun Strowman

ER: A fun squash featuring someone I'd obviously rather see not squashed. These two could easily match up and have a great 8 minute match, both are smart enough to work that, but we knew that's not what this was going to be. Gulak at least gets to work the mic and begin showing his PowerPoint, but after that it's a mauling. Gulak added little things where he could, my favorite being him eating a headbutt and falling to the floor, but desperately grasping for the bottom rope as he fell off the apron. Braun hits a big avalanche, crazy good shoulderblock on the floor, big powerslam, all cool things. But shit have him do all those things against Tony Nese, not Gulak.

Read more!

New Footage Friday: Kerry, Race, Murdoch, Gino

Harley Race vs. Dick Murdoch Tri-State 4/2/77

MD: I'm glad we got this, especially for the post-match turn and the start of the years' long Akbar vs Murdoch feud, as well as for Murdoch's awesome leg selling and the Harley headbutts and what have you, but it's a shame we didn't get a whole match here. Murdoch was so present, just completely in the moment at all times, making everything he did seem so believable despite being heightened and unreal in a way other wrestlers of the era may have avoided in an NWA title match. I have to admit I was a little confused by things, because Murdoch was working like a local hero against the visiting champ despite Akbar being out there for him. It all made sense in retrospect with the turn. Anytime we pick up a classic territory angle like this (especially one I barely knew existed), it's a gem. Here at SC, we're always hoping for the full match though.

PAS: This was more of an angle then a match (at least what we got), but the last couple of minutes of the match were great stuff with Race and Murdoch really teeing off on each other with some especially nasty stomps by Murdoch, and great Harley headbutts. Akbar and Dr. X beating down Murdoch post match was pretty great, I especially loved the carniness of them cutting away to basically a green screen while the action got described because of the brutality (and Murdoch did seemed to have opened one up)

Kerry Von Erich vs. Gino Hernandez Houston Wrestling 2/22/85

Previously we just had the last few minutes. All the cool stuff is at the beginning so I'm glad we got this. It's pure Houston, just six or seven years later, with Gino returning and Kerry challenging. Gino as the reviled hometown villain was great. Dibiase as his inexplicable second was great. Gino's the greatest rat pack member that never was. Taylor was just sort of there seconding Kerry. This ended up as a good TV title match where everyone knew the BS was coming. I don't think this set up a Dibiase/Gino vs Kerry/Taylor match but if it did, I would have wanted to watch it.


Mid-South 11/11/85

Bruise Brothers vs. Steve Williams/El Corsario

MD: Not every upload is a winner. This was one of the matches I was most looking forward to. Williams was young and game and eager to bump. Who doesn't like seeing the Bruise Brothers? Especially over babyface Bruise Brothers? This lasted seconds though, and a match can be fun when it lasts seconds but there's not much to write about it.

Jake the Snake Roberts vs. Humongous

MD: In a way, Jake did it to himself. He's so outspoken about his method that you examine him more harshly than you would other people. Sometimes he lives up to the (his own) hype, sometimes he doesn't. I think he's done pretty well with the new footage we've gotten though. Here, he's just tremendous in the opening minutes. I love thought experiment wrestling, namely "how will wrestling X deal with situation Y" and here Situation Y is Humongous being a monster who will clubber Jake whenever he gets a hold on. Him trying to chop the tree down from the top down and facing that struggle is really good wrestling. Likewise, the transition (namely Humongous hitting one big legdrop after setting it up by missing earlier on) worked for me, as did the start of the head (those falling headbutts with the hockey mask are really good). It all ended up being too long with the bearhugs and what not, and then had the most late 80s WWF style finish ever with Jake leaving the pin for absolutely no reason. They went pretty heavy on the heel dominance between this and the tag match that followed (which we already had).

Dick Slater vs. Butch Reed

MD: This felt like a trial balloon for the eventual Slater title win that would come a month or two later. It was a bounty match but also a title match and while the post-match was wild and fun, the match itself was worked far more towards that title end than the bounty end. That made sense given the main event, just like the first tag made sense being so short given the long tag title match later in the show, but it wasn't really what I wanted from this. We also lost the first many minutes, which is not something you want to lose in any title match really.

Read more!

2019 Ongoing MOTY List: Makabe vs. Thatcher 3

27. Daniel Makabe vs. Timothy Thatcher 3-2-1 Battle! 7/12

PAS: One of the best series in this decade has been happening at punk club in Seattle. This is their third match, and is as good as the previous two. The first match had Makabe working underdog babyface pulling off an upset, the second match had Makabe as a heel, arrogant about the win, but still at a level below, here Makabe has worked Mania weekend and traveled the country and works it more as an equal. The matwork in these matches is always slick, but I really loved the striking, Makabe was always going back to the body in between all of his head shots, and I especially dug the straight punch to the kidney. Thatcher also threw some huge uppercuts, forearms from the top and sick slaps.  They played nicely off the finish of the first two matches, with Thatcher getting a rope break on Makabe's cattle mutilation variation, and Makabe reversing the Fujiwara. Loved how Makabe just demolished Thatcher's neck and back of the head to loosen him up for the final Mutilation. Great match, Makabe is a treat to watch, and I love that Thatcher is still doing his thing.

ER: This was unsurprisingly really good, and I can't decide if I like the matwork more or the strike game more, it's too tough to choose! I loved the dueling leg attacks, every single thing done to a leg felt uncalled for. Thatcher had some of the best ankle locks I'm seen, a move killed for years by Angle's boring/reversed every time application, here looked like something that will have Makabe's achilles aching as the weather gets colder. Makabe off his back was always trying to hook Thatcher's standing leg, always kicking at his patella, and in the closing moments he flat out stomped down on top of Thatcher's extended leg. Thatcher's natural reaction to it made it look immediately hyperextended, just a super nasty spot with a stomp going against the natural bend of the leg. The striking was great too, Makabe throwing in various body shots over the duration. He never looked to finish with anything body related, but he was so damn good at using body shots to set up other attacks. Early on he was mashing the heel of his hand right into Thatcher's ribs, hooking Thatcher's arm while pushing hard downward with that heel, and late in the match he landed a strike to almost the exact same spot. Thatcher rocked him a couple times with uppercuts, and they both had great intuition about selling strikes, selling each one how it actually landed, not treating them all equal. So many individual moments to like, heavy suplexes thrown by both, hard knees, a nasty half crab from Thatcher, Makabe's enziguiri counter to set up a German, and the finish is just fantastic. I really liked Thatcher getting to the ropes immediately for the first Cattle Mutilation, and the body wrecking cruelty that Makabe unleashes onto Thatcher (including that stomp right to the top of the leg) to tie up his legs and THEN lock in the Mutilation dead center? Hell yeah. Keep giving me more of this.


2019 MOTY MASTER LIST

Read more!

AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 10/16/19

What Worked

ER: Scorpio Sky's shoe getting thrown back to him was pretty funny

ER: The inclusion of squash matches is a good thing. Not everything needs to be a workrate classic, and LAX deserve to look strong as hell.

ER: A lot of stuff looked bad in the Omega/Moxley tag match, but I thought the structure was good and served its purpose very well, and they hit all of the moments that needed to hit. Nearly every single transition strike in the match looked horrible; none of these guys can throw a halfway decent kick to the stomach or reasonably get their opponent into position for anything. Hangman Page routinely looks terrible doing everything. He has this weird way of throwing his whole body into everything he does, while also looking like he is putting absolutely nothing behind anything he does. However, his bullet tope looked fantastic, and came late in the match so it actually left an impression. I think it was good to have Moxley attack and walk out on Pac after Pac threw the weapons out (and seemingly grabbed a barbed write bat...BY the barbed wire?), and again, the big moments hit well.

ER: Hell yeah, Darby Allin taking his geek show stunts into the big time and he should be a mega star. Jericho matches are much more interesting ever since he realized he shouldn't try to keep up with younger, faster opponents. Here he lets Darby do all of his amazing flash, and is there to hit him when he lands. Darby takes one of the crazier bumps past the ringpost that I've seen, but saying "Darby did a crazy bump I haven't seen" is pretty form letter Darby match review at this point. Hands behind back Darby is still just as crazy now as the first time I saw it. It feels insanely dangerous, and here he is just a fearless lunatic. That tope con hilo with taped hands is just shut it down levels of absurdly dangerous (and even more dangerous when Jericho catches dives as if his hands were also tied behind his back), and every bump Darby takes feels like broken bones and a neck injury waiting to happen. The match ends when a Honda Sales Consultant runs in and KOs Darby, but Darby's performance here felt BIG. As long as he doesn't die, he will be HUGE.


What Didn't Work

ER: SCU got jumped with a pretty weak beat down, somebody missed their cue and left Fenix standing there pretending to be setting up a piledriver for too long, and it lead to a Chuck Taylor match. That's a cursed series of events. I did think a lot of the match was laid out well enough, but there was some lousy execution throughout. At one point Taylor makes no contact on a double stomp, right into making no contact on an elbow. When the match ends on a blown spot, that's just the sweetest icing.

ER: I like the video where Cody is playing a depressed dad sitting at the kitchen table doing his taxes. And then DDP casually appears and slips in and out of a Dusty impression but in a weird way where he does a Dusty voice for a couple words and then a normal voice, like he's typing a sentence with random capitalization.

ER: That women's singles match was rough. Both of them looked completely lost at several points, terrible at setting up offense for each other, one of the worst collar and elbows I've seen. These two seemed almost constantly confused at what the other was going to be doing next. I liked Baker blocking a small package and hitting a fisherman's neckbreaker, but Riho even ruined that by no knowing when to get into position for the next move, so just sat there seated and making a dazed face, frozen in time. The went to the your move/my move well really early, so much dazed selling into immediately being the one getting a nearfall. Fans were crazy into it, but at this point I have to assume they will literally be into anything that involves people running back and forth and hitting moves they recognize.

ER: The disconnected floating body match graphics are still bad. Why do they float? Why do they all float down her in AEW?

ER: Lucha Bros. tag felt like it went way too long, had several spots missed by the cameras (Fenix did what looked like a spectacular dive, and half of it was completely missed), and a typical sluggish Pentagon performance. Pentagon is a shtick wrestler who doesn't actually know any shtick. He's so brutal. Jungle Boy is still really sloppy, always seems like there is way to much foot shuffling before hitting a so so flip spot. Marko Stunt is now in prime time, and he clearly has breakout star potential. I don't care if his wrestling doesn't move the needle for me, he connects with people, and will take a beating. The follow through on his dive was really nice, and he moves with more charisma than anyone else in the match.

ER: Jesus, Jericho, catch a dive.

Read more!

Lucha Worth Watching: El Hijo Del Santo & Juvy in London! Arena Neza Highflyers!

El Hijo Del Santo/Hijo del Fantasma vs. Juventud Guerrera/Laredo Kid LLL 5/11/19

ER: We've been getting a little more current Santo footage poking its head out, an occasional handheld, and now he's actually doing more of a US tour. Phil got to take his son to see Santo live, and I saw him work a singles match against Ultimo Dragon a week ago. This tag was from London and I dig how Santo is a guy who finds a dance partner he likes, takes them around the horn, lays low for a couple years, then does it all over again. He did it earlier this decade with Mystico de la Juarez, did the same with Angel Blanco Jr., and Laredo Kid appears to be the new Santo dance partner, and that's cool. And the match is really fun, though I was left wishing they mixed it up more. Outside of one brief attempted unmasking, Santo and Juvy steered clear of each other, and after awhile I assumed the big match ending blowout was going to be the two of them finally going at it. They never did, and that's a shame because Juvy looked game as hell throughout, and outside of a post WCW rush of luchadors back into Mexico there aren't a ton of times we've seen Santo across from Juvy. Juvy still has an argument for best strikes in lucha (and easily in the discussion against anyone), as he's a guy with good enough chops, punches, and elbows that he could survive as a wrestler even when he body eventually begins to fail. I absolutely love how Juvy throws a chop, it's one of my favorite wrestling motions. He works well with Fantasma, hits a nice rana off the apron and really stays fired up throughout (though I was amused by him bumping to the floor and then getting of dodge to not take a potential Fantasma tope). Santo looked like Santo, rolled a bit with Laredo on the mat, hit a few wild pendulum armdrags, hit a great baseball slide dropkick to the floor, and hit his rolling senton/dive past the turnbuckles. His knees buckled after the senton and I believe that's the only time I've seen that happen, it's crazy to me that he's still doing that spot around the horn. This whole thing was clean and professional, but needed a hotter tercera to get bumped up to list. Santo squaring off and brawling with Juvy would have gotten it there. Somebody book that.

Neza Kid/Dragon Bane vs. Aramis/Auzter AAA 6/1/19

ER: I love seeing flyers go nuts on a lucha undercard, and here are four guys pulling off some bonkers spots while hot Neza crowd goes nuts. I will seek out any Freelance/Neza Kid stuff, and thanks to him I also got to discover the joy that is Dragon Bane. I'm confident I've never watched him before, but he impressed me here and I'll be watching more. He and Neza are technically the rudos, though this isn't muddled up by cheating or fast counts or anything like that; this is much more about the four of them hitting weirdo headscissors and flying into the crowd on dives. Auzter was pretty raw and had a little uncertainty, didn't quite know how to get from a to b, but the b usually looked good when he got there. Neza and Dragon were much more the glue, and Bane especially did a pretty awesome job of reining in Auzter, going over for some of his less thought out ideas, taking big hard bumps and spilling to the floor far too quickly. I dig this guy. Neza brings his unmistakable aim and grace, and he and Bane work overtime as we get a zillion superkicks from Aramis and Auzter, but a bunch of them look good! But people want dives and they deliver dives! Boy do they. Neza hits a couple of doozies, a huge Asai moonsault off the top to the floor that bends Aramis over the barricade, and later hits his gorgeous springboard hilo, bending both Aramis and Auzter over that barricade. Auzter hits a wild springboard tornillo, Aramis hits a crushing bullet tope that threatens to literally collapse the barricade while at the same time Dragon Bane hits a crazy multi jump moonsault, and later Dragon hits a huge twisting press off the top, crashing into everyone before the video just fades to black (disappointingly leaving us with no visible finish). So yeah, the dives were spectacular, and if we got an actual ending this would have likely landed on list.

Read more!