Matches from Beyond Wrestling 9/20/20

To Infinity and Beyond vs. Mike Verna/Rex Lawless

PAS: Verna and Lawless are two jacked up Jersey looking guys, with fun power offense. TIAB are one of the best tag teams in the world, although this was much more of a move, move, move match then the traditional tag structure they excel at. The moves were pretty fun, although not hit perfectly. Verna gets one guy in a powerslam position and the other in a powerbomb position and Lawless Hart Attacks the guy in the powerbomb position. TIAB also chain stuff together really well and make SAT double teams look plausible. There was some timing issues which kept this from a real high level, but Cheech and Delaney are always worth watching.

ER: To Infinity are my favorite tag team going, and I have a feeling this would have been a real mess without them in there. Lawless is like a green Brody King and Verna is a guy working a Brian Cage power gimmick while being roughly the same size as Chris Candido. Almost all of his power spots come off terribly, a power guy who relies on his opponent to make him look powerful. He did a slingshot suplex spot (and it's a spot he does regularly) where he walked Cheech around each side of the ring and bounced him off the top rope, only he was just walking Cheech close enough for Cheech to lower his own legs to touch the ropes. To do a slingshot suplex you have to be able to lower your opponent on your own power, and Verna's whole thing is basically making other guys provide the illusion of power. This doesn't really have the build or nuance of the best Infinity tags, had more the feeling of "guys doing things" which isn't what makes Infinity matches great. They're good at setting up timing spots, but the timing has to at least somewhat be there from the other team, and here it was not. 

9. Matt Makowski vs. Chris Dickinson

PAS: About the most fun I have had watching pandemic era wrestling. Feels very much in the spirit of the BattlArts and FUTEN I have been binging lately, clearly pro-wrestling with rope running and pinfalls, but shot through with shoot holds and stiff violence. Dickinson is such a horse, everything he does has a thud and an oomph to it, meanwhile Makowski matches him shot for shot and throws in some really inventive shoot innovations. They start out with some tough simple grappling, hard takedowns and escapes, mixed in with thudding kicks and elbows, moving into some big submission near falls, and really great moves. Makowski does a cutthroat torture rack spin into a cross armbreaker which is indescribably cool, and Dickinson counters into a deadlift spinning German from the ground which is Tamon Hondaish in its beauty and force, one of the niftiest two move exchanges I can remember seeing. I also loved the later battle out of the cross armbreaker, where Dickinson does one of the coolest Hughes lift counters I can remember. I want to see this run back again, and want to see both of these guys against nearly anyone.

ER: I've watched plenty of pandemic wrestling that I loved, but this stood out as unique among the stuff I loved. Makowski brings Z-1 shoot gaijin feel to these kinds of matches, and Dickinson is the kind of pro who is great enough at shoot elements that he can take a guy like that and do something special. Not everything hits clean, but this isn't the kind of match where clean matters as much. The grappling is strong and comes off like both men are fighting for dominant position at all times, focusing on the actual struggle rather than pulling off a cool reversal. But there are cool reversals! Once they start bringing hard kicks and elbows, I completely wasn't expecting Makowski to catch a Dickinson kick and spin counter to a Judas elbow, and I love how Makowski couldn't capitalize right away and throws his own kick, only for Dickinson to rearrange his patella placement with a dragon screw. Makowski was going after Dickinson's arm and Dickinson managed to tie up Makowski's way in cool ways, and both sent the other scrambling for the ropes in meaningful ways. It took a little effort to prep, but Makowski lifting Dickinson into a fireman's carry and violently unrolling him into an armbar is an incredibly cool move that somebody incredibly less cool will probably steal, but Dickinson had a bunch of less flashy but no less nasty tricks. I loved Dickinson locking in a trailer hitch and then roughly rolling Makowski over with it, and the fights out of barred legs were all nasty. Makowski hasn't been at this very long, but has a cool tool bag to pull from, and Dickinson is someone who will gamely hang in and throw leather with that kind of guy. It's no wonder this came off as awesome as it did. 

2020 MOTY MASTER LIST