2020 Ongoing MOTY List: Last Battle of Burke!!

50. Big Donnie vs. Wildman James Brody NAWA 11/26

PAS: This was a brawl in a garage with a cage and no ring and some rusty weapons sitting around. This was the Burke County Boys tag team exploding in their final match against each other. There is clearly decades of history between the two in the indies of Burke County North Carolina, and it is cool to see a micro indy feud reach its peak. Big Donnie is one of the fattest wrestlers I have ever seen, he looks like a third McGuire twin. James Brody looks like Dick Gregory and might be in his fifties. They start out brawling on the bed of a truck, with both guys taking awkward bumps and throwing weapons recklessly at bodies. Donnie had some nice looking punches, and while Brody's stuff didn't look great he had a good crazy presence, kind of like Roughouse Fargo. They move into the cage and smack each other with stuff. Donnie even puts on a nasty looking leg choke, that fat leg smothering you looks like a finish. Brody was mostly weapons shots and punches, he was more a vibe then a worker. Donnie hits a sit out powerbomb on the concrete which looked gross, and won the match by shoulder blocking Brody through the cage. Nothing in this match was particularly well executed professional wrestling, but it was a nasty grimy fight in a filthy garage between two guys with history and charisma. I would rather watch that than a 45 minute Jay White match all day long. 

ER: Phil jumped on this the moment Highspots put it up, and I can see what got him excited. I watched the hype video for this match on Facebook (in full on the Highspots vid) and despite never seeing these two before in my life, even though I've seen a dozen of people who look exactly like this over a weekend in Tennessee. There is no pro wrestler polish on either of them, instead it comes off like backyard wrestling with men in their 30s and 40s who great up idolizing southern punch out wrestling instead of guys in their teens who grew up idolizing highflyers. Brody looks like he would have played Grady Little's younger brother on Sanford & Son, and Donnie looks like every guy in every town in the south who can shut down the Hometown Buffet after Sunday Service. We get great character details and extra characters, like LITTLE DONNIE and the fact that Brody had just done time, and possibly not for the first time. This looked like a parking lot fight between a Waffle House line cook and a regular who broke a 2nd barstool with his weight. 

Both of these guys look like dudes I don't totally *want* to see taking bumps, and definitely not on concrete and wood, but also I definitely want to see it? Donnie is someone who takes some pretty wild bumps in normal wrestling matches, and has great form on his standing splash. It helps that Donnie has such a fantastically large stomach that if he turns himself horizontal on midair, gravity will do the rest. But whatever, Donnie has a standing splash better than Mark Henry's, and that means something. I like pro wrestling that doesn't seem informed by anything. A lot of the execution in this Battle wouldn't hold up to high def WWF cameras, but you can clearly see they're working to their best abilities here, while doing things they shouldn't be trying. Donnie does a couple cool surprising throws, one dropping both of them in a flatbed trailer, another like a rolling Saito suplex on concrete. Brody throws headbutts and fists, rubs a cheese grater over Donnie's forehead, rubs a barbed wire bat on his own forehead, great wild man energy. When I talk about surprises, well Jack, Big Donnie is full of them. He's my new favorite. He does a fucking ENZIGUIRI on concrete, hits a gnarly sitout powerbomb on concrete, works an insane fat man Koji clutch that looked like it was going to snap Brody in half, and flat out destroys Brody with a pair of avalanches. His first avalanche into the cage sends him recoiling with a sick out of control fat guy bump, and the second knocks the whole cage down, with Brody the victim of a dropped piano. We get an interview after with Donnie, who looks right into the camera and says, "I can't help it...I still love him!" I get it buddy. 

 

2020 MOTY MASTER LIST