New Footage Friday: COLON! INVADER! BEAU JAMES! HARRISON! ICP! FUNK! LAWLER! BROWN! KASH!

Beau James vs. Ricky Harrison SSW 4/17/98

MD: To me, this felt a little like Beau's magnum opus, the match he had in his head fifteen or twenty years before and now got to play out. It was high stakes and heavily built to, for the title, the crowd, and loser leaves for six months. This felt big, with the first half almost worked like a NWA title match and then the middle and back half more full of heat and comeback and Memphis style ga-ga. As such, it filled a lot of time, but never really wore out its welcome, even when we were on the third ref getting bumped. Because it had enough room to breathe and enough room to have a lot of fulfilling substance, and a clear resolution with the babyface getting over and the heel getting his comeuppance, it all worked. It's when that stuff comes in place of a real match and in denial of that resolution that you feel less than satisfied. I do think I wanted to see this go up an extra gear with a bit more brawling and hate, and there were a couple of logical fallacies, like Beau having a hidden object with him for the whole match and not going for it until it came time for the heel ref to get bumped. It would have made more sense to introduce that earlier. All in all, though, I think it's a pretty big achievement to pull off a match like this in a satisfying way, both in the early substance and the later style.

PAS: Big match Beau is always worth watching, he really knows how to make something a moment. As someone who idolized Lawler he often had the Loser Leave Town stip as a big show gimmick. Here he was working heel against Ricky Harrison and they brought in Brian Hildebrand to ref the match. I really enjoyed the wrestling section at the beginning, James kept Harrison grounded with some punishing mat wrestling, crossfaces, knee work and short right hands, he even hits this sick flying drop toe hold. Harrison has a nice punch and good timing and that is what you need for a match like this. The second half of the match ladles on the shtick a lot, two ref bumps and a heel ref. I could have used a little less frosting, for the match to entirely work on me, but it certainly worked on the crowd and James had clearly gotten them to ready to see him sent on his way. Got me excited to start up a Beau James LLT mini C+A. 

Jerry Lawler/Kid Kash/Monty Brown vs. Terry Funk/Insane Clown Posse  JCW 7/17/04 - FUN

ER: I really wish we got a classic heatseeking promo from Lawler to start this. He's opposite ICP AT the Gathering of the Juggalos. You're not going to be the face in that spot. He should have absolutely nuked this crowd, the heat would have gotten molten so easily. But, he probably didn't feel like being doused in high fructose corn syrup and washing Faygo out of his hair two days later. Funk gets in the ring and grabs the mic, says "I only have one thing to say" and then tells a 2 minute joke about a chicken's asshole. According to the video camera, the match started at exactly 4:20, which I refuse to believe was an accident. The match was plenty fun, with almost all of the heat aimed directly a Kid Kash's valet getting called a man in several different ways by the crowd. 

Kash looked great bumping around for ICP, and ICP themselves were shockingly exactly what the crowd wanted to see. ICP had both clearly improved since their WCW run, too, which helps. Violent J actually impressed me several times, and kind of made me want to do a Violent J mid 2000s deep dive? Is that stupid? J knows how to stumble around in between punches shockingly well, staggers convincingly, and always made it right back to his mark. His punches are decent too, and he throws a great eye rake (and back rake!). He even took great bump getting tossed to the floor, clearing the ropes and taking a huge back bump. Violent J would have made a 500 in 2004, and that's awesome. Shaggy threw a nice brainbuster on Kash, did a cool guillotine legdrop off the apron to the floor, and won the match with a big guillotine legdrop.

Funk and Lawler were going to be the highlights here. Lawler stalled a lot when he first tagged in against Funk, which could have been a good move to get heat, but it just kind of quieted the crowd down and slowed down what had been a nice pace. Once they got going it was obviously good, but Lawler was fun against everyone here. It's weird (and great) seeing him throw all of his great punches against ICP, see him hitting big roundhouses in a setting like this, but Funk/Lawler is the legendary pairing. This might also be one of Lawler's better uses of the Stunner, my least favorite Lawler spot. The context of the spot is important, as once he introduced the Stunner to his moveset he was mostly working babyface on indy shows. Here he was the heel, and it works much better as a heel heat spot than as a cheap pop; later, Funk gives him a Stunner and Lawler shows that he takes a Stunner better than almost anyone I've seen. He dropped down in a perfect plane and made it look like Funk's shoulder really did jam into his throat.  Funk's punches look good, Lawler takes a nice backdrop bump, but then starts throwing nothing but great combos on Terry. Our cameraman zoomed in at a perfect spot, right when Lawler is pressing his fist against Funk's nose to measure his shot, then drawing his fist back and bringing it smashing back in that same spot. He piledrives Funk on the floor, then hits a beauty back in the ring. The match went 20 and could have accomplished everything in 15, but obviously you'll want to watch them work in this environment no matter what.

MD: This was something. The non-wrestling stuff bits were as fascinating to watch as the wrestling bits. Lawler seemed pretty appreciative to be in front of that crowd, though he still managed to get heat once the match got going. Funk did everything under the sun to get over in this setting, and for the most part he did, because he's Terry Funk. Kash was generally there to feed for the Posse. Violent J really wanted to get his stuff in, which makes sense, I guess. Monty Brown was generally there to be a spoiler. The crowd seemed most interesting in throwing stuff at the valet. Ultimately, it was all probably what it should have been with this crowd. I don't mind dipping into a match like this but I'm glad I don't live there.

PAS: This felt like a match full of stars in front of a hot crowd. ICP aren't great, but they are perfectly competent and are Bruno in the Garden level over in whatever farm this show was at. Everyone else in this match are superstars at this kind of big match tag. Monty Brown didn't have a long career, but feels like a force of nature. Lawler vs. Funk was great, that punch Lawler lined up was an all-timer, and I loved the piledrivers Lawler hit. Funk was pretty physically diminished, but was still Terry Funk. It is crazy to think we are farther away from this match now than this match was from Funk vs. Flair or Lawler vs. Dundee. It feels like time has sped up.  

Carlos Colon vs. Invader 1 WWC 7/27/13

MD: 67 year old Invader 1 vs 65 year old Carlos Colon here. Carlos still had his instincts and timing though he had slowed down, certainly. The jumping jack for his comeback was more of a hop. His shots all looked good though, and the age only made his selling more poignant. His big bump was running into a boot in the corner which looked great. Invader, on the other hand, was pretty spry, working with a mask but without a shirt. He went over the rail, took some chairshots, and ran well. He's also maybe the greatest seller in pro wrestling history, so him eating Colon's shots and recoiling around ringside was still pretty compelling. There was some grisly choking with a chair and the low blows you'd expect out of old man Invader 1, but it maybe wasn't quite as grisly as you'd want. This was to set up an Anniversario mixed match with Stacy Colon and Tigresa and Stacy took a pretty huge post-match beating to set it up. Definitely effective for what it was and a great showing for two mid-late 60s year olds.

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What's Mickie Knuckles Been Up To?

Mickie Knuckles vs. Sara Dox TPW 3/6/21 

JR: I think this match shows how important contrast can be within wrestling. I’m not sure I like this match as much if Sara Dox is a good wrestler instead of someone who looks barely trained and barely in any sort of condition to perform. Sara Dox wants to come out to Sum 41 and do some kicks and whatever else and Mickie Knuckles is there solely to prove that Dox isn’t about that life. Knuckles' strikes from the first one on are truly outstanding, and she paces the match to big spots, both impromptu (the beer bottle being grabbed from a fan and thrown into Dox’s face) and deliberate (the fight over the TV and the senton with it). This match has no commentary and as such you can hear everything. It feels like a worse version of Terry/Wotan in some ways, which is nothing to be ashamed of. All of this leads to a tremendous finish with Mickie just absolutely brutalizing Dox and then cracking open a beer in the corner, looking like the biggest star on the planet that has for some reason decided to work a backyard in Tennessee in 30 degree weather during a global pandemic. This has to be the best Mickie has looked in at least a decade, right? Are there secretly great Mickie Knuckles sprints from the past few years we don’t about?

PAS: Sara Dox might be the most clearly untrained wrestler to make one of these lists, but it is great to see Mickie take her apart. This was very much Mickie taking the role of her spiritual father/boyfriend Ian Rotten stiffing and pounding a rookie. The atmosphere of this was pretty nuts, it felt like the backyard of a UT frat house at 2am when everyone is way too drunk. At one point Mickie just brains this girl with a beer bottle she found, and they do several teases around a big fire pit.  Mickie did a nice job of appropriately selling, she didn't overdo it on the stuff that didn't land, but put Dox over when she deserved it. Finish was really nasty with a choke bomb and some sick grounded elbows. She had the crowd screaming to stop the fight, and this was a bloodthirsty bunch of drunks who were calling for mercy. 

ER: To me this felt less like Mickie working as Ian, and more like Mickie doing a tribute to late era indy handheld Mr. Niebla. Mickie has undeniable charisma as she wanders around someone's backyard, her hair has more volume than ever, dancing after hitting Dox with a thick beer bottle, cracking jokes to people she passes, throws slap punches exactly like Niebla, knows her local legend status and utilizes it accordingly. If she had worked in a couple spit spots (and honestly during Covid I was 100% fully expecting some kind of spit spot in this match, as what is more deadly in 2021 than some stranger's spit?) it would have been undeniable that she was doing a Niebla tribute. Dox is maybe the most untrained wrestler I have watched in the past decade, and for all I know she was just some woman they saw at Shake Shack wearing cut off rainbow sherbet camo shorts. Ask her her favorite pop punk song from when she was 16, give her some kickpads, and ask her to throw whatever she thinks a kick might look like. Mickie's pump handle powerbombs looked really great, and her side knees to stop the match were something that should stop a match. I wonder what yard or parking lot Mickie Niebla will show up in next? 

 

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GLEAT Experimental Match Series 1

Mitsuya Nagai vs. Soma Watanabe 12/3/20

ER: This is UWFI rules, and very one-sided, as the 52 (!) year old Nagai keeps forcing rope breaks to chip away at Watanabe's points. Nagai is aggressive and goes for takedowns that end in immediate submission attempts, forcing Watanabe to get to the ropes on a kneebar and again on a can opener, and other times just pressing his forearm into Watanabe's throat. Nagai lands a couple of hard right kicks that Watanabe takes on his ribs and arm, technically blocked but definitely absorbing them. When Watanabe is on his final point he goes for broke, throws open hand strikes and a solebutt that drops Nagai, then deadlifts Nagai with a nice back suplex. Nagai decided to not leave any more openings after that, getting up and literally dragging Watanabe to the mat with a guillotine. 

Yutaka Yoshie vs. Takanori Ito 12/10/20

ER: This is a series really made for Segunda Caida, where a Japanese fed brings back cool old guys who were the guys we liked back when we were still tape traders, and having them maul newer shootstyle guys. That's a great formula! I watched Japanese wrestling more than anything else from 2001-2006, and those days seem like an eternity ago. This was not UWFI rules like a lot of matches in this series, it's a pro style match, and it really showcases a 46 year old Yoshie as an incredibly tough guy with a crazy gas tank. He hasn't lost a step since I was last regularly watching him 15 years ago, it's amazing. His belly hangs lower, but the speed and agility are there, and I honestly don't know if there's a current wrestler whose offense lands harder. This match was 13 minutes, and I don't know if Ito was in control of more than 1 of those minutes. Yoshie starts attacking Ito's knee, locking in painful crabs and a legbar, landing full weight on a splash, kicking the leg in the ropes, and then he just moves into overall CRUSH mode. 

Ito occasionally gets a front kick to the face - a couple very nice ones - but Yoshi mostly brick walls them and lands some other devastating shots. Yoshie's elbowdrop has to be the best elbowdrop in wrestling right now, his Thesz press is great, his right hand is great, he's a more interesting elbow exchange striker than most modern Japanese wrestlers, and he DESTROYS Ito with the most organ crushing senton I've ever seen. Kaz Hayashi can't stop laughing on commentary after Yoshie lands the heaviest possible senton, just cry laughing at a flattened man. For the finish Yoshie absolutely flattens Ito further with a top rope splash that looked like someone pushed a recliner off a roof. Yutaka Yoshie is the asskicker pro wrestling needs. Too bad we never got Yoshie/Finlay. 

Kaz Hayashi/Daisuke Sekimoto vs. Takanori Ito/Soma Watanabe 12/17/20

ER: These veteran mauler matches are a great idea, but a much less interesting idea when the veteran is Daisuke Sekimoto. He can be a real boring control guy, and I thought his parts of this dragged on for too much of the match. Hayashi is still tremendous at 47, one of the most gifted juniors ever. He moves with really similar mechanics as Muta, only works at Burst of Energy Muta speed the whole time. The energy Muta puts into the corkscrew elbow, is the energy Kaz Hayashi puts into everything. Jamie Noble might be the closest American comparison, and that is the kind of style that will age well. Sekimoto has a couple of cool things, like a painful backbreaker, but a lot of this is him working more like Nikolai Volkoff than the brutalizing heavyweight offense that Yoshie filled way more time with the week before. 

The Wrestle-1 guys were much more interesting than Sekimoto in this. Hayashi had a couple cool fast juniors exchanges with Watanabe, with a great headscissors and some quick rope work. Kaz even breaks out some cool wrist control matwork on him, and his work with Ito is good too. Sekimoto and Ito aren't a great match, giving us some middling forearm exchanges, and Ito is 0-for-2 in this series when it comes to missing high on his KO high kick. His spinning heel kick lands with the best force of Minoru Tanaka's similar kick, but his KO kicks that are supposed to put the exclamation point on the end of a combo have been sequence killers. But there was definitely some gold here, like Hayashi running across the ring to elbow smash Ito far off the apron, Ito hitting an awesome fallaway slam on Sekimoto, and the pulverizing lariat that Sekimoto laid into Ito. Definitely not a miss of a match, but my least favorite of Series 1. 

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Rene Ben! Cesca! Teddy Boys! Leduc! Montourcy! von Kramer! Gastel!

Rene Ben Chemoul/Gilbert Cesca vs. Teddy Boys (Aldophe Sevre/Robert Le Boulch) 5/9/65

MD: I get that everything is high end at this point, but this still stood out more to me than it did to Sebastian. This has been out for a few years, but it's great to see it in context now that we know these guys better. Ben Chemoul and Cesca come off as one of the great tag teams of all time in the few appearances we have of them together, certainly one one of the most talented. Ben Chemoul had such verve and timing, such showmanship, working for the back row and the front row and everyone in between. He manages to do all three up and over variations off the top wristlock in a tag match at different points, and fills the match with little moments like throwing one of those no look spin kicks to a guy just hanging out on the apron. He fills the match with entertaining stuff while never losing the plot. Cesca's just as solid as they come, hard hitting especially when it's time to get revenge, sympathetic in selling, smooth in complex spots, quick with the dropkicks and 'ranas. They'd also share spots: Ben Chemoul would stooge le Boulch by turtling early and then Cesca would outsmart le Boulch when he himself tried to do it later. It all came together. The Teddy Boys were such an ideal heel unit too, with le Boulch an opportunist coward and Sevre having the hugest chip on his shoulder imaginable, though they could also switch those roles on a dime. Sevre hit hard and jawed well with the crowd while le Boulch spent a lot of his time shadowboxing. They were able to work around the ref to endlessly stomp: when the ref shoved Sevre, he'd come back and pat the ref on the shoulder. At one point, Sevre got knocked out on one of the bevy of catapult-into-partner spots in the match so he sat down in the front row while le Boulch recovered. He tried that again later and got into a fist fight with the crowd. The ending might have felt a little abrupt, but that was the general pacing of these things as much as them maybe wanting to move things to a finish before the crowd rioted, but over all, this was high end stuff to me.

SR: 2/3 falls match going a bit over 30 minutes. This was another French lightweight tag with all that exchanges. Plenty of quick exchanges. The Teddy Boys didn‘t move me as much as other heel tandems. I mean, they were really good at making the C‘s uppercuts look great and had some nice punches and stomps, but it‘s France everyone is a GOAT, you gotta bring a bit more than that. Chemoul and Cesca as usual just had endless stuff to do. I liked Chemouls punch combo, and Cesca busting out a spinning argentine backbreaker and a back elbow combo that was like something Misawa would do. Highlight of the match was the crowd getting unruly and the police stepping in. I am probably making this match sound worse than it was, it wasn‘t top tier French stuff but there was enough entertaining stuff happening and some sickeningly stiff blows that will easily make this the best match you watch this week.

Gilbert Leduc/Claude Montourcy vs. Karl von Kramer/Robert Gastel  5/26/65

MD: Unique presentation here. I know nothing of 1965 French demographics and geography (Puteaux is in the western suburbs of Paris but I'm not about to watch 1961's The Long Absence to get a sense of it), but this felt more provincial than what we're used to. The crowd was awesome though, as much of the star of the match as the four wrestlers, as good as they were. The sound was a little off here, and it's amazing we don't see this problem more often, so it anticipated the action a bit. This was (wisely, I imagine) mostly a crowd pleaser for some sort of cup. There were moments of heat throughout, but nothing prolonged until the second fall. Even those moments felt a little perilous. The crowd absolutely hated Kramer, who looked brilliant here. He had so many interesting ways of taking someone down or keeping a hold, and just threw cartwheels around like they were nothing. I was expecting endless nerve holds (which could be fine if the heat's there, and it would have been) but he went another way with things. He stooged, but only occasionally, so when he got caught in the ropes towards the end of the long first fall, the fans went absolutely nuts. He got taken out by a catapult over the top to end the first fall, never to return. 

A stretcher job mid-match was probably the safest way to get him out of there. LeDuc more or less gave us the usual greatest hits (the headstands, the leg nelson after seeing how badly the fans wanted Montourcy to whack Kramer in a cross arm breaker, etc) but they're all great. Montourcy had a few more interesting takedowns. Gastel let Kramer do most of the heavy lifting in the first fall, but turned on the heat after he got taken out, absolutely demolishing Montourcy with headbutts, bloodying him up before crushing him with a tombstone and basically taking him out of the match. The fans were furious here. The third fall, then was just Leduc getting revenge on Gastel before they moved into a slick finishing stretch including Gastel catching a Leduc cross body block (the block itself not being something we've seen much in the footage) and planting him with a tombstone, before Leduc came back with a flip up power bomb for the win and the huge pop. I don't know if I'd feel the same about this one in a different setting, but in front of this crowd, I thought it was great. I do sort of wish they had leaned harder into Kramer getting advantages though, but they may not have lived to the next day if they did.

SR: 2/3 falls match going a bit under 30 minutes. Hey look, it‘s Karl von Kramer. Haven‘t seen him in a while. Karl looked really good here with his freak bumping and unorthodox throws. For a hard nosed evil German, he also wasn‘t afraid to make a fool out of himself and get his chest hair torn out. The first fall of this was the usual mix of fun wrestling and rough heels tactics, with von Kramer stealing the show and Leduc and Montourcy being formidable technicians. Von Kramer takes a big bump to the outside and doesn‘t make it back after that, leading to Gastel being in a 2 on 1 situation so Gastel just goes crazy with headbutts on Montourcy, bloodying him and KO‘ing with a tombstone piledriver. This leads to the 3rd  fall in which both von Kramer and Montourcey are out and Gastel and Leduc slug it out in an epic Mantel/Lawler style battle. Really cool glimpse at Gastle living up to his name and being a violent bludgeoner who ends up with his opponents blood all over him, and when Leduc hits those double elbows he‘s like Lawler doing a punch combo. Really really good match with a pretty unique layout for French wrestling.

PAS: I love how this match moved from comedy, skill and stooging to really heavy violence. It is one of the hardest transitions in wrestling to nail, and this match nailed it. The heels were masterful here, Kramer is a heat seeking pinball, getting twisted up the ropes, getting his chest hair ripped out, flying for all of the headscissors and takedowns, and hitting these deep cool looking flip throws. He gets tossed out of the ring to the floor taking a big bump and getting sent to the back. We get a Stone Cold Gastel section where he obliterates Montourcy including a fair amount of blood which is pretty rare for this era. We then got a big showdown between Gastel and LeDuc, which was pretty epic. I didn't like LeDuc basically no-selling the tombstone, it was a move which won Gastel the second fall, and LeDuc jumps right back onto offense right after taking it. Still everything else about this match was at a super high level, and while that one spot kept it from MOTY status it was still a classic. 

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Paradigm Pro: UWFI Contenders Series 2 Episode 5

Hardway Heeter vs. Kerry Awful

PAS: This was Awful working the match as Ian Rotten punishing a young guy, which is a type of match I like. They set this up last week with Awful berating Heeter, his student, for losing. This was Awful potatoing him with kicks to the face, a really tight front face lock and stiff forearms, while Mr. Stuff talks shit from the outside (Mr. Stuff has a great Gary Hart vibe to him). Heeter is able to fire back and hit three big suplexes causing Mr. Stuff to throw in the towel, and earning his respect. I am into this version of Awful and while this wasn't strictly shootstyle, I enjoyed the vibe.

ER: I'm with Phil, the Ian-punishing-student match type is always worth seeing, and this was a really cool version of that. I thought the set up last week was kind of corny, but the follow through match more than made up for that. Awful was a good Ian, and even had Ian's exact same love handles from when Ian was in his best shape. Awful adds a small wrinkle to the match type as he was really great at facially selling Heeter's strikes. Awful slaps Hardway to start and then does a really great wince and stagger in response to Hardway's return volley, and I liked it more than the Ian method of pretending the slap never happened. I dug how Awful immediately went to a single leg as a response, then threw a couple of Kurisu level kicks at Hardway's head. Awful's missed elbow into a Heeter back suplex was set up really well, and Heeter's Saito suplexes to draw the towel looked great. I really loved the towel stoppage, such a great shithead move to preach a Never Say Die match mantra and then have your boy throw in the towel. Love it. 

Appollo Starr vs. Sidney von Engeland

PAS: This was fun. Starr had an old veteran mat wrestling style, and he would get countered by von Engeland's flashier stuff. Engeland worked an armbar in some interesting ways, and while I didn't like Starr's leg slap enziguiri, that was my only complaint. The straitjacket exploder he used to win the match was sick stuff, and von Engeland took it right on his head, appropriate KO for sure.

ER: I liked these two on the mat, and liked how this was a little more drawn out than a lot of the quicker fights we've been getting. This one took a little more time without falling into any bad strike exchange traps, just kept to some mat exchanges and a couple of submission attempts. Starr felt like a guy scrapping by, trying a can opener and looking open to finish any way. I really liked Engeland slowly wearing Starr down, and my favorite moment of the match was Starr selling a backdrop like it really meant something, taking a backdrop as an actual knockdown. The enziguiri was out of place, but that match finishing exploder was something else, just a big boy toss right there. 

Isaiah Broner vs. Dustin Leonard

PAS: This was my most anticipated match on the show, and unfortunately it fell a bit short. I liked almost all of this a lot. It was worked really smartly with Leonard going for limb attacks, and Broner using his core strength and base to counter them or go to the ropes if he couldn't. I love the way Leonard attacks a hold, he is always adjusting, tightening and shifting his grip, he puts it on and then coils his body around to amp it up. Broner's only bit of offense was the KO blow where he hits a palm strike on a Leonard shoot, and it just wasn't a good looking shot. Broner is normally so good at making his KO shots look like KO shots, but he didn't have his feet set and was leaning over and it didn't land the way it needed to. Since the match was short and so much of the match is based around that moment, it really hurts that it wasn't pulled off.

ER: I match up 100% with Phil on this one. Same level of excitement, same absolute love of Leonard's sticky glue submissions, same disappointment with the finish. Leonard is so much fun, love him hanging off Broner's legs and trying to drag him down to the mat with all his weight. His leg submissions were nasty as hell, with Broner using this great strength and balance to stay standing even while Leonard is anaconda wrapped around his leg, hyperextending it. Leonard also has these fun downward palm strikes that look like peak big brother torturing little brother smacks to the side of the head. But the finishing shot doesn't look great, looks like Broner lightly paintbrushes Leonard behind the ear, and it didn't feel like any kind of finish. A good KO shot in a worked fight is not an easy thing, because a lot of the time a "Good Worked KO" is just "An Actual Near KO", and that's a tough thing to brace yourself for. These guys are likely taping several of these matches in a weekend, can't really get your button pressed several times, so it's not easy. But it is an undeniable drag when a match ends like this. 

Ron Bass Jr. vs. Big Beef Gnarls Garvin

PAS: This was two minutes, and what you wanted from a two minute match between two big ass dudes. Beef hits a nasty slap to the ear, Bass lands thudding short clotheslines amidst a bunch of smaller harder shots. It all comes to a head with a Garvin club to the head and a side suplex for the KO. Maybe could have used one more Bass big shot but I certainly enjoyed what we got.

ER: This was my true dream match, but whenever any fed pairs up the biggest guy with the 2nd or 3rd biggest guy available, that will basically always be my true dream match. Knowing how big Beef is really puts over just how huge Bass is. Their stand and trade was among my favorites in this series, as Beef was really swinging with full arm shots, just swarming Bass and not caring about whether every shot was landing. Beef connected on some of the hardest open hand slaps, and Bass throws these cool slow strikes with a ton of power. Bass doesn't have long arms, and his throwing speed is very slow, but every connection sounds like a real connection. He nails a couple of great body shots on Beef in the corner, and lays him right out with a short arm clothesline. Obviously I wanted several more minutes of this match, but Beef powering Bass over with a back suplex was really impressive, and I loved how Bass sold the suplex all through the 10 count. RUN IT BACK BABY!

Cole Radrick vs. Robert Martyr

PAS: This had a lot of energy, and although I thought they might have done a little too much at points (they did six suplexes in a four minute match), I appreciated the pace. The idea was Martyr earning Radrick's respect (which was kind of funny because grizzled veteran Radrick looks like Jimmy Olsen boy reporter). Radrick landed some really heavy stuff here, including the KO short elbow which clipped Martyr right on the jaw. Martyr stood right in too, and landed some big slaps. 

ER: This was really really fun, both guys lighting each other up and neither waiting around for any kind of planned shots. The worst part of strike exchanges is when you can see too many of the seams. Seeing guys throw and then pause waiting for someone almost always takes me out of things, and these two had none of it. They went in throwing hard, and any pauses would have lead to either of them getting rocked, so the only defense was more offense. Radrick landed some real hard shots, and his grounded punches were really nasty. I'm not entirely certain that closed fists are technically allowed here, but striking rules in this series are basically treated like traveling calls, and I am fine with that since it leads to things like Radrick punching the hell out of Martyr. Martyr's suplexes dumped Radrick really unceremoniously, with one looking like it bounced Radrick's head across the ring. They had a tough spot to fill, coming right after a super heavy brawl, and they stuck the landing nicely. 

Matt Makowski vs. Bobby Beverly

PAS: I am not sure the point in having Beverly win this title again. There are lots of interesting match ups with Makowski, I see less with Beverly. For a shock title change, at least it was worked well. Beverly hits a couple of side suplexes, but Makowski hits a couple of bigger ones, and dominates Beverly on the feet with several knock downs. Just as it looked like Beverly was going down he hits a Hail Mary big shot on the ear, dropping Makowski. It felt like a big MMA or boxing upset and certainly doesn't hurt Makowski. 

ER: I really don't understand the point in moving the title around like this, even though I enjoyed the scrap that lead to the surprise title change. The idea of the invading MMA stable accruing belts is more fun to me personally, and I was happy to see it off Beverly (even though I obviously enjoy Beverly). The suplexes here were gnarly as hell, a bunch of nasty foldings and hard landings. The surprise finish worked really well, as Makowski was believably dominating the stand up, and Beverly's KO shot and the way Makowski sold it really made this feel like a genuine surprise KO. It was almost the same kind of shot we saw in Leonard/Broner, only this shot behind the ear really looked like what they were going for. 

PAS: This seems mainly to set up a Garrini/Lawlor vs. Justice/Beverly tag match next week, and I didn't dig the Justice promo setting this up, where he shits on UWFI rules and makes a lame Attitude era joke (calling Garrini and Lawlor "Severn and Blackman") and tries to put over him and Beverly teaming up as a Super Team. I have really been into this season but am a little wary of where it's all going, not sure about tag team matches, and there are two of them next week. The Middleweight tourney will be a whole season and while it has some names I am excited about (Nasty Russ!) it has a lot of new guys and seems to be missing some of the more established names they have set up (Austin Connelly, Alex Kane, Garrini, Lord Crewe). The card of Terminal Combat looks great, but the Terminal Combat concept seems really dumb. It's 5 minutes of UWFI rules and then it switches to No DQ. I mean, how many of these UWFI matches have even *gone* 5 minutes, and then having them all switch to garbage matches in the middle of a UWFI rules is going to be really discordant, totally unnecessary.  We will see...but I am a bit nervous.

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Otto Wanz Upload Challenge 5: Black Bart and Great Kokina

Otto Wanz vs. Black Bart (Johnson) CWA 7/9/88

MD: This was legitimately good. Very good maybe. Black Bart is a guy that would make every roster in the 80s better. That doesn't mean you'd put him at the top, but he added depth and played a role in the undercard and if need be mid card. He had size and presence and while you might not expect him to win, he could believably do damage. He was a much better opponent for late 80s Wanz than Ottman. He also got to put his hand over his heart for the bugler playing the national anthem which felt like a big moment for him. There was nothing pretty about this. They did the unclean breaks and revenge bit to start, but on a Wanz clean break later, Bart got a hammering cheapshot in and stayed on top for most of the rest of the match, broken up by rousing Wanz comebacks (including the slam and senton after Bart failed at a slam of his own). Bart didn't try anything too. He punched, kicked, hammered, clubbered, but it was all appropriate. He took up time and ate up space and sucked the air out of the proceedings. All Otto had to do was sell and fire back when he had the chance. Wanz even bladed on the outside, which felt like a big deal, and led to some satisfying woundwork. Eventually, Bart missed a charge and went flying over the ropes, and then bladed big himself as Otto got revenge on the outside, setting up the slam and the splash for the win. Otto gave a ton here and the crowd hated Bart for it, but that just meant they went up all the higher for the win. No restholds here (and I never use that word lightly), nothing fancy, just straightforward beatdown, selling, and comeback, and it 100% worked. Otto was secure enough in himself to give what he needed to Bart to make it happen. 

Otto Wanz vs. Great Kokina, Prince of Hawaii CWA 12/17/88

MD: Not great. A story of two matches. When they were really laying it into each other, it was enjoyable. The rest was a litany of nerve holds, forehead claws, and chinlocks. I don't think Otto was bad from working underneath, but he wasn't great either. He just wasn't. He had the crowd naturally but he didn't lead them. There wasn't a build to a big moment in fighting out of holds. There wasn't an ebb and a flow. He was better at timing comebacks fighting out of the corner, for instance. This too, by the way, like apparently every Wanz match, started with just that. Kokina could bump big at this point, but he only did once, early. The match had no sense of escalation or build, just a constant drone of back and forth blows and revisiting holds. I did like the last minute or so, with a larger than life overhead shot and Wanz hitting a big slam. It's just that a guy like Hogan, for instance, would have teased that earlier in the match to make the payoff more meaningful. Wanz doesn't often get to that level of storytelling. Then again, if you listen to the fans, he doesn't necessarily have to.

ER: See I thought this was pretty great, kept me exciting the entire time listening to the loud Bremen crowds "OttO! OttO!" chants to rally every second of Kokina control. I love that we can go back to 1988 Germany to find a match where Kokina is the smaller guy in the match, and it's the kind of minimalist heavyweight wrestling that really appeals to me. I am becoming a big fan of the Otto Wanz slow motion between-round recaps, love watching Kokina take a snapmare and thinking it looks like Kobashi taking a backdrop driver. Otto is great at selling in nerve holds, with his expressive color changing face and excessive sweating, beating his chest and pawing at Kokina's hands. Both man had nice bumps, though Kokina didn't bump nearly as much as he would in just a year or two. He still landed heavy whenever he went down, made it look like Otto was really throwing around a boulder in there. Both he and Otto had a quick bump through the ropes to the floor, and it felt epic whenever we got a knockdown. The strikes all looked good, loved whenever Otto would back up Kokina with his forearms to the chest, and Kokina had big chops of his own and clonked him with a headbutt. I wish we got a better shot of Otto's rolling senton and bodyslam to finish the match (we cut away to a top down view for some reason, only time in the match), but this was what I wanted to see. 

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This is Hot Stuff Halme, It Sure Tastes Good

Tony Halme vs. The Soultaker NJPW 10/25/90 - EPIC

ER: This is the best Halme match we've had this early, and it's due in large part to the best ever Charles Wright performance we have. It's Halme's first Different Style fight in New Japan, and Wright needs to show why Halme is the new threat to Hashimoto and others, and how he can be beaten. Soultaker could have been a star. Wright's Papa Shango will always be one of my all time favorite looks, but it's undeniable how cool Wright as a guy in gloves and a singlet top looked with no makeup or fuss. Both men are huge and really land heavy shots. Halme throws no set up punches, only big swinging hooks, battering up Soultaker's ribs. Soultaker is good at luring Halme into missed shots and landing great leg kicks to the meat of Halme's left thigh. Halme is either an all time prodigy in evolving pro wrestling selling, or those kicks were leaving a helluva knot in his quad. I never remember Wright with such an effective leg kick, but Halme looked another couple rounds away from being hobbled. Halme starts landing more shots as Soultaker comes back in to attack the leg, and you know those fists are gonna hit hard when they eventually hit. There is an uppercut spot that doesn't quite connect (lucky for Wright honestly) but Halme improvises well and throws a hard overhand right to knock Soultaker to the floor. And then Halme makes damn sure he doesn't miss the next set of punches, lands two enormous body shots and the then a right hook to the back of Soultaker's ear that looked gnarlier than any Bart Gunn shot. No way Godzilla vs. Kong is going to be anywhere near as good as this. 

Tony Halme vs. Scott Norton NJPW 2/8/92 - GREAT

ER: Sadly this had a couple clips, but those clips also give us a super tight slugfest (it will just leave me demanding to know how Borga got Norton to his back to hit an elbowdrop). This is the kind of fight where every strike looks painful and every slam looks earned. Norton is one of the all time great wrestling brick walls, and you never get the sense in this match that either man is going to back down. Every landing is going to hurt, and it's going to be a real demolition derby. Halme focuses on body blows, and I love these targeted Halme body blows. Norton has the torso of a man who looks like he could believably no sell a baseball bat beating, so I dug how well he put over Halme's hard body shots, and then fired back with his own huge clubbing arms. This was a lot of these two not holding back. If there's a clothesline, you best bet that it will be either man throwing that clothesline to connect. Halme throws his full weight into his avalanche, which leads to a great moment of Norton catching him when Halme comes in too high...and then the slamming starts. Norton hits two fantastic full rotation powerslams and a nasty Samoan drop that landed like they were on concrete. This never felt unprofessional at any point, it just had that perfect pro wrestling danger that happens when you have two guys who don't care how hard they get hit. Unicorn stuff. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE TONY HALME

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New Footage Friday: SCHMIDT! YUKON ERIC! FUERZA! CRUZ! PANTHER! CARAS!

Hans Schmidt vs. Yukon Eric Chicago 9/25/53

MD: Great to see new Chicago footage and to see it in full color from 1953 is particularly nuts. I wouldn't say the color added a ton to the action itself (as that has to be a word used carefully here) but I do think it let you see the crowd reactions more vividly, and at times your eyes were going to wander in this match. Schmidt's excellent. Everything looks credible and precise. His holds are perfectly cinched. His shots are mean. His hairpulling is just matter-of-fact and inevitable. He doesn't miss a beat. Eric had size and charisma but not a whole lot else. The long first fall was primarily him controlling with basic holds as Schmidt sold and worked his way out. The finishing bearhug was excellent though, as Schmidt desperately pulled at the hair and threw in shots to escape but ultimately couldn't. The end of the second fall was really strong as well, with a series of backbreakers, each one a bit harder for Eric to kick out of (he tossed Schmidt onto the ref with the first). Then the third was abrupt and full of all the action with Schmidt flying around the ring with crazy dropkicks. It's obvious how good Schmidt was here, but this was probably not the opponent you want to see him against. And hey, if anyone has $50K lying around, we can probably get all of the remaining Chicago footage converted.

Fuerza Guerrera/Talisman/Al Rojo Vivo vs. Hombre Bala/Javier Cruz/Aguila Solitaria Pista Arena Revolution 1986

MD: Pretty complete and enjoyable trios. Fuerza looked like an all-timer here with struggle-filled matwork with Cruz in the primera including some neckbreaker style spots where both guys went over. He had a moment in the faster segunda where he threw an early missed kick just for the hell of it on a rope running exchange before getting armdragged and sliding across the ring and out. It's the sum of little things like that which just brings such an atmosphere to a match like this. He also hit a crazy back suplex in the segunda. I don't know how much footage we have of Rojo Vivo (don't think much, if any) but he had a good Mocho Cota But Red sort of look and stooged pretty well; not quite as much as you'd like, but pretty well. He strung a bunch of arm takeovers together and then did the Ingobernables invisible punt, which I don't think I've seen in the 80s before. I like 80s Talisman (more so than 90s Hijo del Gladiator at least) and his shots looked good and he based well, especially for Cruz's tricked out armdrags in the segunda. In the tercera, they took out Cruz and put on a pretty solid beating on the other two leading to Cruz finally recovering and a big comeback. My favorite bit there was Fuerza preventing his partner Talisman from rolling out of the ring because he didn't want to get back in there, and then Talisman returning the favor on him when he tried to roll out. I'm not sure I'd ever seen that before either. Just another sign that this was probably the week to week baseline for this stuff and it's a crime we don't have more of it.

Blue Panther vs. Dos Caras 9/25/04 AWS

MD: Pretty ballsy match as they work holds for ten minutes straight in front of a crowd shouting for curb stomps and what have you. It's good though, with them working in and out smoothly and smartly, for the most part chaining from one thing to the next, and it worked more as a maestros match than with any tecnico/rudo leanings. Early on, I don't think the crowd knew what to think of it, but by the eight minute mark, or so, as they've escalated into more complex holds and escapes, they get a big, earnest ovation and it's the sort of thing that can't help but put a smile on your face. There's real appreciation there from the crowd and not just some jaded sense of wanting to seem smart. They move on with even more advanced stuff at that point, before picking up the pace in the last minute. Unfortunately, the first two bits of the latter don't really hit and it's the sort of thing that could lose a crowd and, given their preconceptions of lucha, probably made it all seem a little anti-climactic after ten minutes of great matwork. I'm just glad we got to see those ten minutes though.

PAS: I remember getting this match on tape when it happened, but it is cool to see it show up online. This was well before we had tons of Maestro stuff on Youtube, so this was a real shock to the system. Both guys are so skilled and still retained a lot of athleticism at this point and I loved all of the different ways that they attacked holds. The Tapitia sections were especially cool, as was all of Panther's arm work. Caras is a master, but Panther hits a slightly higher level, not sure if more then 10 wrestlers ever had the kind of smoothness and precision on their holds that he had, especially Panther in his 40s rather then his 60s.

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Eddie Kingston at the Hot Stove, Jelly Jar, Baking Soda, Hot Water, Mask, Gloves Can't Stand the Odor

Eddie Kingston vs. Hotstuff Hernandez IWA-MS 5/12/07 - GREAT

PAS: This was peak swoll Hotstuff, he looks like a Mexican Mafia enforcer who has been in Pelican Bay for 18 months lifting weights. He manhandles Eddie for most of the early part of the match, and Eddie is great as a guy being manhandled. He sells every shot like it is breaking him down,  and really conveys the frustration of chopping away a granite block. Eddie is able to find some cracks in the second half of the match, landing some big backfists and getting some near falls. I really liked the spot where Hotstuff skinned the cat to the top rope only to get jump kicked in the temple. Eddie's rally fell short when Hotstuff hit him with a heavy border toss for the win. Hotstuff was a bit unyielding for this to be a true epic, but it was a hell of fight and Eddie fighting against the odds only to succumb is a great story line for him.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE EDDIE KINGSTON

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2021 Ongoing MOTY List: Smackdown Fatal 4-Way

15. Dolph Ziggler/Robert Roode vs. Rey & Dominik Mysterio vs. Otis/Chad Gable vs. Street Profits WWE Smackdown 4/9

ER: I love when they pull off one of these fast paced quick tag escalating move matches, reminding me of the best kind of 2000s indy spot tags. Every time someone new entered the tag it felt like the wrestling version of the Soul Train dance line, each person making the most of their screen time, and yet this never felt like anyone was trying to upstage anyone else. This gave us a great sampler of dance combos the whole runtime, never lingering on one specific pair. Every combo was great, every team got cool moments. I kind of hate when Ziggler has a good match like this, where he has a cool attention to detail, and Roode has that same attention to detail in a match like this (and is less hateable than Ziggler). Both keep working from the apron when they're not in, and both do a good job cutting off the ring. Rey has looked a bit washed this year, one of those things I haven't wanted to admit, and I've been waiting for months for a REY performance. 

This really felt like a classic Rey performance, so the reports of the middle aged legend's demise have been exaggerated. His misdirection was great, and his timing was as excellent as ever. He looked like he was directing traffic in there again, and back to being the guy you had to have your eyes on at all times. Dominik is coming along well, and is improving nicely for being maybe the most prominent guy thrust straight onto TV since Maven. The spot where his dive was caught by Otis, and his big frog splash that lead to him getting squashed on a save where great moments. Dawkins had a great hot tag, Ford bumped around huge for suplexes and a Roode tornado DDT, Otis was a great base with a couple of big power moments like his 360 lariat and that pinfall save I mentioned. I also loved Ziggler going for the Famouser and the faces he and Roode made as he was caught, like when heel Ricky Morton would get caught trying a headscissors. The build throughout was great, and this whole thing felt like an overproduced HD AIW tag. 

PAS: This was pretty fun stuff, sadly a bit chopped on TV. I liked the opening with Gable working Dominik's arm, would have liked to see 90 more seconds of that matwork. I haven't been watching much WWE TV in the pandemic, but man is it great to see Rey again. He looks just as fast as always, and I really want to see more of this Otis feud they are talking about. The bang bang at the end was fun too. Montez Ford gets crazy height on all of his dives, and that frog splash was killer (although it kind of showed up Dominik's a bit). I agree that this had the feel of an AIW four way and I really miss those. 

2021 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Bernaert! Zarpa! Bayle! Montreal! Bibi! Husberg!

Joachim La Barba vs Dan Aubriot 4/11/65

MD: Our last little look at La Barba. About five minutes. It's great for what we get. They're able to go at a high speed, full of hard hitting shots and tons of character. They'll go from a quick roll up/armbar exchange, to a double stomp, to uppercuts and forearms, to big tosses out of (and back into) the ring, right into the antics. At one point, La Barba fast counted himself on a pin, left the ring, and put his robe back on, only for Aubriot to pull him back in and trounce him. Great stuff. The finish was 1965 nuts with a really close up missile dropkick (more of just a missile kick) and then top rope splash from La Barba. What a shame we didn't have more La Barba in the footage. Ah well.

Pierre Bernaert vs Armand Zarpa 4/11/65

MD: Other than the cross body finish and slight elaboration in some of the in-and-out hold sequences, this could have been six or seven years earlier. There's nothing wrong with that but it felt like a bit of a throwback to the classic stylist vs mechant stuff we've seen a ton of so far. Bernaert is, of course a pro at this. Zarpa was either Armenia or Greek (here billed as Armenian) and he could hang. Some of the sequences looked a little off but they were all worked so competitively that things being off ended up additive anyway. Sometimes Zarpa, despite being the stylist, went to a kick or a shot to get out and the fans seemed unsure about that early. Halfway through the match, though, Bernaert got mean and they were behind Zarpa when he fired back. There probably wasn't quite enough of that and maybe a bit too much of taking the crowd back down with holds. There was a relatively late headscissors which probably wasn't the crowd needed in that moment, for instance. In general, though, it was good, baseline stuff.

Remy Bayle/Mr Montreal vs Cheri Bibi/Eric Husberg 4/25/65

MD: We've seen our share of Bibi and Bernaert but this was our first look at Bibi and Husberg and it was great. Maybe with Bernaert there was more heel chicanery, but while Pierre's hard hitting, Husberg seems to be more of a relentless, dogged, and varied striker with a craven stooging streak and interesting combos. Add in Bibi's brutal shots and tendency to be able to cut off an opponent believably at a moment's notice and they were a high bar to defeat. The more I see Montreal, the more I like him. He had a body gimmick for a babyface, but he hit hard and threw great slams and sold well, just really having a deep connection to the crowd. He was lead babyface material and a fiery hot tag or mauling worker from underneath. It helped that Bibi leaned into his every shot. You got the sense he really liked to work with Montreal, which is quite the claim for me to be making from watching a few matches, but I call it like I see it. Bayle was able to work in these cool little karate chops giving his combos some welcome variety. This was fairly back and forth, with some standout sequences like a progressive (for the time) and well worked arm control bit on Bibi that ended with Bibi rolling to Husberg and Husberg mocking his opponents for losing control only to get almost immediately blasted for his trouble. There was also a great moment where Montreal held the ropes open as Bibi went to bound off them for an illegal double team so that he just went sailing. At times they got big heat (with trash being thrown in and Husberg kicking it out) and the fans were up for all the comebacks. The finish, while not satisfying, was at least amusing and both teams could realistically claim some form of victory. It made me want to see them go at it again.

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Paradigm Pro: UWFI Contenders Series 2 Episode 4

Hardway Heeter vs. Austin Connelly

PAS: Wild 90 second match, as we have come to expect from Connelly. He rushes Heeter and they exchange hard winging shots, until Connelly hits a nasty elbow and a gutwrench suplex leaving Heeter laying. They did a post match angle with Kerry Awful berating Heeter and calling him a pussy and a loser, which took a bit of the shine off of Connelly's first win, but I am happy to see him get the duke and hopefully move on to bigger and better things.

ER: This really kicked ass, and felt like it had some solid turns for only 90 seconds. People are already timing Connelly's match starting charge, and I like how Heeter caught him with a knee, but they both kind of responded like they were both surprised by it. It's like Connelly has at least 5 seconds of Tasmanian Devil where he is just going to be invincible, and I love it. Even when he wrestles Heeter to the ground, Heeter is landing hard shots to Connelly's back that Connelly doesn't seem to even notice as he's elbowing Heeter in the face. Connelly throws three slaps in the corner that lead to a plausible standing break, and we get an actual well done elbow exchange. Heeter throw nice, sharp, lunging lefty elbows with a good amount of force behind them, and then gets leveled by one of Connelly's. Connelly bounced Hardway off his head with a gutwrench suplex, looked like the kind of whiplash that should end things. Great scrap. 

Yoya vs. Flash Thompson

PAS: This was my favorite Thompson match so far. He was really fun as a smirking prick bully, using his size to manhandle Yoya until he got too cocky.  I really liked him shit talking as he stuffed Yoya's shoot, and he broke an armbar attempt with some really sick stomps to Yoya's temple. Finishing minute was very cool with Yoya hitting a nasty jumping knee, stunning Thompson. Flash fired back with a palm strike (which looked like a KO shot), but Yoya survived and jumped onto Flash's back, and with the help of some strikes to the temple locked in a choke. Very cool stuff.

ER: I came into this anticipating the upset, just because I don't think I've ever seen them give such huge odds for/against any of the fighters until now, with Thompson coming in as something like a -450 favorite. Yoya is the smallest competitor in this, they set deep odds, I think we know how this pro wrestling thing works. This was a great showing for dickhead heel Flash, a really disrespectful performance with amusing cheapshots and eventually comeuppance. He is A Guy Asking For It throughout, throws an elbow to the back of Yoya's head while they were on the mat, tosses Yoya like a bag of laundry, kicks at his head while breaking a hold. I dug how he started unnecessarily throwing bigger shots, which gave Yoya the chance to actually dodge. When Flash was just throwing leg kicks and working smart, he was on pace to finish in two minutes. But when you commit to a haymaker you leave yourself open if it misses, and Yoya hits a boss leaping knee under the chin for a nice knockdown. He misses another wide swing and Yoya pounces on his back for the tap, and in true dickhead fashion, Flash denies tapping afterward. I'm not sure I totally bought Yoya pulling off this upset, and would have liked it even more if Flash *almost* got caught, but didn't, and didn't learn his lesson. That would have set up a more interesting match down the line. Still, I liked the actual work in this a lot. 

Damyan Tangra vs. Isaiah Broner

PAS: Love Broner, he is one of my favorite guys in this promotion. He comes off like such a dangerous badass, like French Montana's bodyguard who has a bunch of felonies. Tangra is WW4A guy who has a mat wrestler gimmick. Fun structure here, with Tangra trying lots of takedown attempts and Broner using his core strength and base to shrug them off. Broner also drops Tangra with a nasty body shot. Tangra is able to stun Broner with some head kicks, but makes the mistake of going for a German. He gets shrugged off and wasted with a spinning back elbow. Would be into seeing more Tangra, and Broner vs. Dustin Leonard next week should be fucking killer. 

ER: I really liked how annoying Tangra was here, just gluing himself to Broner and tangling him up in annoying ways. I'm not sure I've seen something quite like this, as Broner was on his feet the whole time but because of Tangra's annoyingness he kept having to buckle and reach like someone was trying to trip him up during a game of Twister. Broner has hands, so Tangra just hugs his way in close and takes away that reach. It might not be super effective as a long term strategy, but it's annoying, and when you annoy someone it can force them to make mistakes. And once there is a bit of distance, that's when Broner lands a hard right to Tangra's spleen to put him down. I liked Broner's selling when Tangra lands some kicks, how he doesn't go down for a grazing high kick but leans forward as if he's trying to maintain his center of gravity. Broner sold the kicks like someone who has been having drinks with friends, and realized just how much he had when he tried standing up from the table. The back elbow finish was sick, love a great back elbow. 

Dominic Garrini vs. Ron Mathis

PAS: This was the chickens of Mathis's Shooter Ronnie gimmick coming home to roost.  Garrini tooled him on the mat in a fun way, intentional giving him openings and then countering him. Mathis was able to muck it up a bit, but this was mostly Garrini showing off. Loved the finish with Garrini taking the back and - as Mathis countered - suckering him right into a triangle choke which put Mathis to sleep. Garrini does a lot of different things as a wrestler, a lot of which I like, some I don't. I think he has really found himself in this context. Indy wrestling has plenty of W*ING Kanemuras, they need more Katsumi Usudas. 

ER: I appreciate Mathis committing to the bit and still trying to goof off against someone like Garrini (also, I like how in Mathis's tale of the tape bio it says he "really likes PPW UWFI Rules matches"), even pointing out that Garrini didn't get him with a strike and only grazed his mohawk. Garrini toying with people is a great look for him. I think there is pressure on guys with non "pro wrestling" skills to learn those and better blend in with pro wrestling, but I think there is more value in incorporating your unique skillsets into a pro wrestling frame work. Dom is at his best when he shoehorns his legit skills into a match, and it will always be better than him doing pro wrestling sequences. 

Derek Neal vs. Ron Bass Jr.

PAS: First time I have seen Bass, and I was into him. He is a big fat guy with short arms, and seems really into hitting hard. He had some nasty clubbing clotheslines and used his fat well, which is welcome. I need to track down some non UWFI stuff for sure, feels like he would make an awesome Blackjacks tag team with Manders. I didn't like Neal in his Gary Jay match, and wasn't into him here. I thought the finish looked especially weak. You don't want the guy clearly throwing softer stuff to get the knockdown, and he broke out his windmill arms for the ground and pound. Want to see more Bass, have seen enough of Neal.

ER: Certain things in wrestling excite me more on paper than they should, and "oh hey so Outlaw Ron Bass's actual son is wrestling now and he's a big fat guy" is all the information I would need to know to make me seek out some Ron Bassito. And, I loved him. He's shaped more like a small Akebono or a large Jake Milliman than Ron Bass, with his big broad back and egg torso, and he absolutely lays it in. He threw a couple of lariats with almost no runway, and they were great enough that they would look like a finish if he dropped an elbow right after. I think his bumping reminded me of Milliman too, the way he took a thrust kick to the stomach by almost rolling off his feet. I am with Phil on the finish, didn't think any of Neal's stuff looked like it should fell Bass, and the match stopping slaps were just hitting forearms. Bass looked like he was just dealing with them, not being damaged by them, and that's precisely how they should have been sold. 

Jordan Blade vs. Max the Impaler

PAS: Battle of the non-binary beasts! I thought this was pretty awesome. Max really projects menace well, coming off like a total monster, and they made Blade (who is really strong) look small. Blade would constantly work for submissions and Max would just power their way out of. The question was whether Blade could sink in something before they got got. Max's Hughes slam out of the triangle attempt was nastier than Matt Hughes' original, and the final KO knee did the job for sure. Blade was pretty slick with their submissions and I really bought that they were going to pull off the win, until I didn't buy it. Post match they set up Max vs. Alex Kane which was a match I had no idea I wanted to see, until I really wanted to see it.

ER: This is how you do a satisfying ground and pound stoppage! Blade was really good at staying in things and tying up Max, throwing constant open hand slaps at Max's head while working for any submission she could get. Max seemed to working this like a horror movie villain, where she welcomes any attack Blade can muster, knowing she can finish at any time. It's a risky strategy, but it gave us a cool chance to see a bunch of Blade's cool tricks. I liked how active Blade was during submissions, quick to throw in strikes, and it was fun seeing how Max would break them. I don't know if I can say the Hughes Slam was nastier than the original - I mean, Matt Hughes ran that man across the entire damn octagon - but I love seeing a cool powerbomb out of a triangle attempt. Blade's hanging armbar looked great, and Max's knee strike to flatten Blade was excellent. Sign me up for Max vs. Kane. 

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2021 Ongoing MOTY List: White Moriyama vs. Izuchi

White Moriyama vs. Tetsuya Izuchi HEAT-UP 2/28

SR: Man, White Moriyama's return to pro wrestling completely flew under my radar. He was never the 5th best guy in FUTEN or U-Style, but by 2021 standards he's basically Tamura. This was a really fun, unpredictable 10 minute match with a surprising amount of hate. Izuchi is a kick padded kid who acts all cocky towards veteran Moriyama. Moriyama puts him in his place with some slick, fast grappling, so Izuchi retaliates with an awesome stomp to Moriyama's face. Izuchi kicks hard and his spinning choke is a fun false finish, so I am completely fine. Finishing run was really cool with Moriyama giving Izuchi the business with his kicks, including throwing these cool Tamura style leaping kicks, and some slick U-Style grappling. You can tell Moriyama's grappling is a class above what most guys can do these days the way he would move in and out of submissions, dug all of his slick leg locks.

PAS: This was pretty good stuff, it would definitely be the 3rd or 4th best match on a FUTEN show but that gets you pretty far in 2021. Izuchi is too pretty for me to really like him much. I like my shootstyle guys grizzled, not all handsome like Takada. But he did throw a pretty nasty stomp, and his gator roll head and arm choke was nasty shit. Moriyama is clearly a class grappler, and I loved how he would kick and stomp the arm and knee as a set up for the armbar and leglock, and how he kept switching positions on the ground to lock it in tighter. 

ER: I think the pretty boy cheapshotting punk is a great character in wrestling, especially in shootstyle. Of course grizzled shootstyle guys are cooler, but a pretty boy pissing off a grizzled vet to his own detriment is one of the most fun things in shootstyle. Izuchi has boy band hair and glittery kickpads, fast hands, and you know it's just a matter of time before Moriyama schools him. Moriyama approaches him with veteran resignation, allows him to rifle off a couple of slaps that he ignores, before schooling him on the mat. Izuchi figures might not be able to beat Moriyama, so instead moves to annoy him, and this is the best decision for all of us. Izuchi stomps Moriyama right in the face and Moriyama sells it like someone who is angry that his face got stomped on. But the best moment comes a little later, when Izuchi stomps on Moriyama's face again, in the exact same way, and this time instead of holding his face, Moriyama shoots to his feet seeing red. All poise is now out the window, and he laces into Izuchi with leaping kicks, targeting his arm and body, not really seeking to take a limb rather than seeking to punish. The 10 minute time limit draw is pretty stupid, just let Moriyama punish an ankle for like 35 seconds. Matches that just end in a draw without building any kind of momentum toward that draw is a real dry hump. All heat-up, no release. 

2021 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Eddie Kingston Couldn't Sleep at Night, In Bed He Kept a Knife

 Eddie Kingston vs. Matt Riddle Hybrid Wrestling 10/27/17 - SKIPPABLE

PAS: This was shockingly bad for one all timer and a guy who normally was pretty good to great on the indies. I haven't been this surprised at a match being bad since Fujiwara vs. Kawada. They open with some comedy spots around a rubber chicken, and then each no sell about a half dozen suplexes, and it kind of goes from there. It really felt like they were just going through an indy match at 3/4rs speed, it wasn't even particularly stiff, at one point Eddie totally airballs a clothesline. Finish was really cool at least with Riddle leaping onto Kingston's back and felling him with Goodrich elbows, which Eddie sold great. Finish was cool enough to get it at least a FUN rating if everything else wasn't so bad. 

Eddie Kingston/Jon Moxley vs. Luke Gallows/Karl Anderson AEW Dynamite 3/17/21 - FUN

ER: Can't think of too many big league teams with less watchability in 2021 than The Good Brothers, but I also can't think of a wrestler I wouldn't want to see Eddie Kingston face. And this was mostly a total one man Kingston show. Gallows misses half of his offense (including an ugly pump kick on Moxley that comes up a couple feet short) and Moxley throws some terrible strikes and hits an ugly slow as hell tope on Gallows that kind of connects his hands with Gallows' hands, but we do have Eddie Kingston, and thank god for that. Kingston is active match long, always doing something, and for such a meh match his selling was really stunning. He was great at setting up offense for the Brothers, and while everyone else was waiting to take every piece of offense they took, Kingston was always falling, crawling, dropping to his knees, swinging wild, really giving this match a whole lot of gravitas that it didn't earn. Anderson took a great Kingston exploder, Gallows had a couple nice spots where he got knocked off the apron by Moxley, and the match ending small package was tightly executed. Kingston had maybe the best moment of the match towards the end, lying on the entrance ramp, trying to pull himself by the referee's pant leg to save Mox from a pinfall. Nobody else was putting in that kind of selling effort here, but that's just how Kingston can class up any match at any time. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE EDDIE KINGSTON

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New Footage Friday: GUERREROS! PANTERA! APACHE! CASAS! FIERA! PIERROTH!

Los Guerreros Del Futuro (Damian El Guerrero/Guerrero del Futuro/Guerrero Maya) vs El Pantera/Filoso/Triton 9/7/93 - FUN

PAS:Solid workman like trios match and a chance to see Black Terry under a mask work this style. Pantera add the flash to the match with a bunch of flips and ranas. Terry(Maya) threw some big overhand chops and clotheslines. Felt more like a time filler then a standout match, but a pleasant way to fill some time.

MD: Perfectly fine trios here, from the Back to the Future music at the start to a motion-heavy finish. As Pantera pops up in this footage, I consistently like what I see. He had the best primera exchange with Futuro, though it also had the most time too. They started with a fun little head-to-head shoving match and moved onto solid matwork with good bridges from Pantera. He also had a nice moonsault press and unique step up wheel kick during the comeback. We didn't get much Maya (Black Terry) there, which was a shame. Really, past a few hard shots, his biggest contribution to the match was being in the right place for the stooging spots later on. The beatdown was fairly subdued, as they kept one rudo in the ring for most of it and kept things in their corner. The match never really exploded but it always kept moving.



El Mestizo/Gran Apache vs Escudero Rojo/Reyes Veloz 9/7/93

MD: It feels good to watch something with stakes and emotions and a hot crowd. This had a lot going for it, three heel control segments (which means three comebacks), Apache putting it all out there, his punches, an exciting, high-stakes finishing stretch, blood and guts. I really liked the end of the primera. The rudos had ambushed at the start and it looked like they were going to get the nod on a double stretch, but Apache came in with a dropkick on both guys. He then laid out one with an awesome punch and teased a dive outside only to turn it into a moonsault back into the ring as Mestizo hit a flip dive off the apron. The second beatdown came after an errant Apache punch which fed into the end of the segunda where once they got the rudos held for the shots, they just didn't stop and get DQed. One nitpick here is that I would have liked some color on the rudos here to help justify the weight of the DQ. Apache and Mesitzo bled (and got their wounds worked over) but the rudos never did. The tercera ended up as a one-on-one fairly quickly and had some pretty exciting post-dive countout teases and near falls, before the finish, where after a couple of missed leaps off the top, Apache had to chase his opponent down before hanging on and dropping him with a German. This is pretty much what you can reasonably hope for when a lost mid-card apuestas match shows up.


PAS: I think the work in this match was pretty basic, although the drama of the hair stipulation and the blood really brought the entire presentation up a big notch. I agree the technicos getting DQ'ed in the segunda was a little weird, this is an apuestas match, the ref has to give them a bit of rope. The third fall was an extended Apache vs. Rojo singles match, which had some real drama to it, interesting to see Apache here, as he really would go on to great things, he wasn't exactly a youngster but this is definitely some of the earliest footage we have of him.

Chamaco Valaguez/Faraón Jr/Oro vs Arkángel de la Muerte/Cachorro Salvaje/Drako 9/10/93

MD: Drako was some mysterious and short-lived North American in the gimmick. We're not sure who. I don't have an answer after watching this but I thought he had solid presence and size with a fairly potent knee shot. They built up a mystique of him going at it with Faraon, Jr. too with some pretty engaging pre-match theatrics. Guys eat falls in CMLL due to the 2/3 structure and he did fall to a German in the segunda but got his heat back (I guess) by getting DQed by wrenching Faraon's head on the top rope in the tercera. It was pretty unfulfilling. Oro was pretty over and had good energy. I liked how big a jerk Cachorro was. Arkangel hit an amazing sit out Rock Bottom to help end the segunda. Drako seemed competent enough that they could have run further with the gimmick. Maybe someday we'll know the story there.

Atlantis/La Fiera/Pierroth Jr vs Black Magic/Mano Negra/Negro Casas 9/10/93


MD: Fantastic stuff. This was building to the Anniversary show, where both Fiera and Casas and Mano Negra and Atlantis would have apuestas matches. They billed Casas, Magic, and Mano Negra as La Ola Negra, which I hadn't heard before. They do tag a handful of times between 92 and 94. This constantly entertaining with the fans very much into it. Fiera is such a perfect Casas opponent, gritty and tough, but with so many different kicks, all of which look good and Casas is so good at dodging one only to eat the next, that sort of thing. Atlantis and Mano Negra brought plenty of hate too, all the way to the mask ripping at the end. The beatdowns were glorious, the comebacks were earned and heated. There was an awesome bit where they picked up Fiera and drove him head first into the first row chairs before tossing Atlantis into the crowd and post match Fiera got revenge on Casas by doing the same. Pierroth and Magic were ok as bit players but this was really about the other four and made me want to go back and watch the 93 Anniversary show again.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE BLACK TERRY

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Now I Ask Big Meech What He Know About Low-Ki

Low Ki vs. Ahtu  EVOLVE 1/14/12 - FUN

ER: A fairly infamous match, that doesn't actually feel as sadistic as it's been made out to be. This is Low Ki's Evolve debut, and he literally knocks Ahtu out with a rolling kappo kick to start the match. A lot of people on the internet hate Low Ki because a lot of people in wrestling weirdly side with management at any opportunity, but within the realm of pro wrestling shoot incidents this feels like one of the least malicious incidents. If you didn't know better before watching this, you might just think it's excellent selling from Ahtu to jumpstart a cool angle. The kappo kick looks no more savage than any other Ki kick I've seen. He has a great looking kappo kick, and this one hits Ahtu right in the temple and sends him timbering down to the mat. Call me naïve, but the KO blow didn't look intentional to me. There are way more blatant and efficient ways of knocking out an unsuspecting opponent, and this wasn't exactly Kurisu punting Jado in the head. Ahtu has that thousand yard stare, and Ki drags him to his feet (now that is probably the most inadvisable thing Ki did here), nails a handspring kick in the corner, then hits the Warriors Way on a potentially dead body to finish it (totally protecting Ahtu on it, although Ahtu also sells it like a man with a concussion who doesn't know he's just been double stomped). To add to the complete bizarro greatness of this spectacle, Ki gets on the mic and cuts a REAL wrestling is BACK promo and literally ends his promo quoting TAZ! I mean literally shouting out a man from Red Hook and saying "Beat me if you can! Survive, if I let you!" That's weird! And the crowd shouted along to every word! I wanted him to pick up Ahtu's corpse, give him a Stone Cold Stunner, and shout "And that's the bottom line, because LOW KI SAID SO!"

PAS: Eric wrote this defense of Low-Ki before he came out as a COVID denier, so there are actual reasons for the internet to hate Low-Ki now. Still it doesn't make sense to have wrestling be a place to go for morality and common sense, so fuck it, we are still Low-Ki guys. Ki obliterating a roids dude entertains me, and I agree that this looked unlucky rather then reckless, but either way it was bad ass. I wouldn't take health advice from Low-Ki or want to be in the ring with him, but I still love watching him.

Low-Ki vs. Ricky Martinez MLW Fusion #62 6/1 (Aired 6/15/19) - FUN

ER: Low Ki debuted in MLW a year before this, against Ricky Martinez. That match was a complete one-sided Ki squash, not a solitary moment of Martinez offense. But that was before he was The Sicario, and he fares a little better here. The match is a little underwhelming, as normally you can give Ki 4 minutes and expect something a little more cohesive than this. At a certain point they seemed to be killing time waiting for a run-in, but the interference never came so maybe they just got off page for another reason. Their interactions are good and I know they have a better match in them, and at minimum they're good at taking each others' offense. There are even a couple of callbacks to their first match (not brought up in any way on commentary), like Ki rushing Martinez at the bell. A year ago Ki did the same and landed a knee that was the beginning of the end for Martinez. This time Martinez just bails out of the ring the second Ki takes off running. Ki eventually gets into it with Salina de la Renta at ringside, leaving himself open to a great baseball slide dropkick from Ricky. In ring Martinez runs hard into Ki's boots in the corner, and Ki works a cool body scissors. The finish is odd, as Ki hits essentially an axe bomber lariat, and they stop the match with a TKO. Low Ki is a guy who can work a convincing KO finish if the match calls for it, and this lariat (elbow?) looked like the least KO move in the match, so it came off confusing to the crowd. MLW built Ki as a guy who can finish matches in unpredictable and violent ways - which is an awesome way to push someone like Low Ki - but this finish was not that. 

Low-Ki/Tom Lawlor/Marshall Von Erich/Ross Von Erich vs. Jacob Fatu/Josef Samael/Simon Gotch/Ikuro Kwon MLW 9/7/19 - GREAT

PAS: This was a match with some real peaks and valleys. It's main flaw is it's length,  it is hard to sustain the pre Match Beyond parts of the War Games, and this had some real dead zones. Gotch and Marshall had 2 minutes of cool stuff in the opening section, but they had to go five, and by the end of their one on one they were doing chinlocks. Samael was the best time killer in this, he bleeds a bunch, trash talks Kevin Von Erich on the floor, sets up a section with Low-Ki where they tried to gauge each other on the barbed wire, bites Lawlor in the ear, breaks the claw by jabbing Marshall with a spike. I thought Fatu looked good too, although his entrance into the match was the kind of super hot run of offense you want from a face, not really from a heel. Ki was a minor part of this match, but I did like his karate stand off with Ikuro Kwan to start. The other big problem of the layout of the match was the length of the Match Beyond, the last guy in the ring needs to be the start of the end of the match, but they had about five to seven minutes of wandering and brawling before the hot finish. The finish was what put this into great territory for me, you had the cool spot of Kevin Von Erich in Dallas putting the claw on a random masked Contra agent, a big near fall with Fatu hitting a huge Samoan drop, and the Claw doomsday device by the Von Erich's for the win. The match was really losing me, but that ending brought it back big. 

Low-Ki vs. King Mo MLW 2/17/21 - FUN

PAS: This was a no ropes match on Filthy Island which was MLW riffing on UFC. I don't really get what this whole Low-Ki vs. King Mo feud was trying to accomplish. Mo squashes him in the first match, and then Ki wins by tap in a minute and a half, when he locks in a choke by crawling on Mo's back. The curse of MLW since it first started was cool looking on paper things which don't deliver, and this feud didn't. I did like the vibe of the show OK, and the post match Team Filty vs. Ki and the Von Erich's brawl was fun stuff which does keep this out of skippable. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE LOW-KI

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2021 Ongoing MOTY List: Gonzalez vs. Shirai

5. Raquel Gonzalez vs. Io Shirai NXT TakeOver 4/7

ER: This was the complete opposite of what I thought it was going to be, worked totally different from what I was expecting, and I loved it. I thought this would be Gonzalez dominating, with Shirai coming back in not believable ways and pinning Raquel with a bad moonsault. Instead, it was somehow Shirai taking 90% of the match, which on paper sounds preposterous to me. But Raquel Gonzalez is getting really good, and it kind of snuck up on me. She is a really strong base, and not just in the kind of way that someone so much larger and taller than their opponents should be. She was so good at taking Shirai's offense and so great at setting all of it up, all of it building nicely to each stage of the match, that it felt like Shirai was organically keeping not just one step ahead of Gonzalez, but believably dominating her. They were really smart about how much offense Gonzalez took, having her block several ranas, avoid Shirai's rope feint kicks, and it was the only way this was going to work. Shirai just doing nothing but offense for 90% of the match would have come off brainless, but with Gonzalez fending off much of it, it just made Shirai come off as relentless. 

Dakota Kai's interference and immediate dismissal came at a good time, and I like how all it did was stop a Shirai moonsault, not turn the tide for Gonzalez. It was super impressive how they kept Shirai in control and Gonzalez staggering, but I really got into it. Gonzalez kicking out of the moonsault felt like a big deal, and the crossbody off the entrance ramp looked like a deranged Shirai throwing her body harder and harder into the monster that won't stay down. I thought it was great how suddenly Gonzalez took over, nailing Shirai with a great low cut clothesline that resulted in Shirai hitting one of her best moonsaults (this clothesline could not have flipped her over harder on her stomach). I'm really happy for Raquel's title win. There really wasn't anything left for Shirai to do as champ, and Gonzalez is someone intriguing to have on top against a bunch of interesting babyface contenders. I had this match in my head as something very different than what we got, and I'm glad, because I loved what we got here. 

PAS: You don't normally see David vs. Goliath matches where the David dominates the match (I guess the real Davi pretty much dominated the match against the real Goliath so it makes some sense). Shirai had held the belt so long, and Gonzalez is still a little green, so it makes sense. It almost felt like a super skilled point guard getting a big alone after a switch, Shirai had Gonzalez on a string the whole match, countering, spinning her around, even hitting her with a big moonsault to the ramp and dive off of the skull. I liked how sudden the finish came, Shirai got a bit over confident and paid dearly. The giant is still a giant, and the clothesline/powerbomb combo was devastating stuff. I like Gonzalez (as a wrestler, don't look at her Twitter) and I am interested to see what she does with the belt, a Mercedes match is pretty exciting.

2021 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Apollon! Williams! Amor! Gueret!Bibi! Montreal!Delaporte! de Zarzecki!

Ray Apollon/Eddy Williams vs. Yves Amor/George Gueret, 3/28/65

SR: 2/3 falls match going a bit under 30 minutes. Hey look, it‘s Amor and Gueret. This had one of the stiffest openings in all the project as Amor (looking shaved and quite flabby compared to his 50s appearance) and Gueret just barraged poor Williams with stiff kicks, gut shots and uppercuts while cutting off the ring. It was one of the coldest beatings we‘ve seen so far and it succeeded it creating some hype for the match as Ray Apollon didn‘t even get to tag in during the 1st fall. It settled down a bit, but all 4 of these gentlemen kept forearming and headbutting each other with serious intensity. Ray Apollon was apparently a pretty big star, a big weightlifter who looked like he was made of stone, and whenever he came in he acted nigh invincible. Williams acted as his junior partner, taking beatings and busting out the flip sentons. There was one really intense bit where Yves and Gueret drove Apollon to the corner and he was making a go at one guy while the other literally tried strangling him with the tag rope. I didn‘t mind Apollon acting so tough, and I dug his bearhug and arm work. This went a little long (some parts where guys seemed to be just latching on to leg locks to buy some time) but for heavyweight slugfest it was wholly satisfying.

PAS: This was pretty sparse stuff, but it was really hard hitting and violent. Williams is the older brother of Stampede Legend Champaign Jerry Morrow and really takes a beating in the opening fall. It was a very lucha structure, with the rudos taking every bit of the offense and Apollon never even getting to tag in. When he finally does, he throws some big shots and it is pretty much a stand and trade fest. Amor is such a unique looking guy, like a fatter shorter Giant Baba, and he slings it. It doesn't really dip and surge, just kind of worked at a single pace, but it was a fun pace.

MD: It's always good to see Amor and Gueret again. Gueret had shaved his beard which is a shame. Their act had evolved a bit with the team and they leaned even more into the ref distractions, illegal double teams, and cutting off the ring. Amor's striking seemed better than I remembered. I liked Williams a lot here. He was able to do some slick stuff while working well from underneath. It's good too because he was in there for 80% of the match. Apollon, who was past 40 at this point, came off as more of an attraction: an immobile tank with big hammering shots and headbutts. He never stayed in for long. The first fall ended with Williams getting some hope but ultimately cut off due to a cheap shot. The second had a fairly big comeback that culminated in a revenge double team with Apollon holding Amor from the apron as Williams charged in. Then some cutting off and Williams firing back and getting a slam. And then the third was primarily them trying to work over Apollon only for him to come back with a slam. There was a really hot tag to Apollon that they could have built to here and never did. This would have been a lot more effective if they had switched the second and third falls around. Apollon was obviously limited but could probably be channeled within a match to high effect given the right structure and opponent. We'll see him in another tag in 66 vs Lasartesse and I have no idea what that'll look like.

Cheri Bibi vs. Mr. Montreal 4/9/65

MD: We get the last ten minutes or so of this and it's very straightforward and pretty great. Montreal's a strength gimmick. Bibi's an absolute monster. After one King of the Mountain bit and a bump through the ropes by Bibi right towards the start of the footage, they basically just pound on each other for the rest of the time, Montreal with uppercuts, throws, and these deep, contested slams, and Bibi with upppercuts, headbutts, and these killer shots to the gut. The advantage shifts with Montreal charging in to fire away and Bibi going low. It maybe gets a little repetitive once you realize that they were working to the time limit, but it's such a clash of the titans (and one that we've yet to see despite being pretty familiar with both wrestlers by now) that you just sit back and enjoy it.

PAS: Can't help but love this. Two guys standing in front of each other throwing heat and refusing to bend to the wind. Felt like Wahoo vs. Johnny Valentine, which is about as big a compliment as I am going to give for a wrestling match. Loved how Bibi would mix in those nasty bodyshots with the uppercuts and forearms. This was the finish stretch of the match, and I would like to have seen how we got to this point, but I loved what we got. 

Roger Delaporte vs Warnia de Zarzecki, 4/9/65

SR: 1 fall match going about 25 minutes. Hey look, it‘s Warnia de Zarzecki. Haven‘t seen him in a while. And well based on this I‘d wish we‘d see him more. He was outstanding at looked like a wrestlers wrestler. This had the most grappling in any Delaporte singles in a while as they did some super smoth armdrags and headscissors type wrestling. Naturally though, the foul tactics come in, and soon you have de Zarzecki grabbing Delaporte by the  mustache. There were some really nice rope running sequences, including one where Warnia took Delaporte down with a top wristlock which was super simple but executed beautifully. De Zarzecki softens up Delaportes arm a bit and Delaporte threw some cool punch combos in the corner as a response. I was a bit underwhelmed with the finish was I felt like these two had another two falls in them. Really really fun match, though.

MD: I said the Frisuk match was the single Delaporte one to watch but maybe it's this one instead. There are funnier ones. There are ones with higher highs. There are ones with greater heat. If you want to know who this guy was in the ring though, this is a great example of it. In the back third of the match, Delaporte spends about five minutes cringing in the corner and getting his arm whacked only to show it was a ruse all along and get big heat for jumping about and waving his arm around after he took back over. Post match, he tries to boast about his win and gets absolutely clobbered by Zarzecki. At one point, he's tied up in the ropes and Zarzecki's charging in. The ref gets in the way and ends up part of the charge, so Delaporte, after the fact, while still stuck in the ropes, kicks the ref for good measure. That's Delaporte: craven, cringing, cowardly, dangerous, hard-hitting, cruel, spry. I see the criticism being that you have to be in the mood for him, but I'm always in the mood for this. At times, he's an excellent wrestler too though. I really liked the early armbar work here, where Delaporte kept control but where it also kept escalating through escape attempts and cut offs and moving in and out, with the two of them finally moving to big shots. Some of the slugging was just excellent too, especially the little bit on the floor. For a wrestler who was no physical marvel and that was very much the same thing in all of his matches, Delaporte, maybe due to the rigors and difficulty of the style, came off as an extremely complete wrestler.

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Paradigm Pro: UWFI Contenders Series 2 Episode 3

Akira vs. Hardway Heeter

PAS: I am a big No on this. Akira does a lot of things in his UWFI matches, and it is usually a question of ratio of cool things to not so cool things, and the ratio was way off here. I hated the suplex no-sell and the hands behind my back "let you forearm me" spot so much. The announcers were even saying stuff like "Don't forget this is a UWFI rules match" and well they seemed to forget. There was a couple of nice kicks, and a super nasty Kimura finish, but otherwise, no bueno.

ER: This one kept losing the score the longer it went. Heeter was kind of used as a submission dummy, and Heeter is more interesting when he's stiffing someone. He is not nearly as good at being in position for complicated submissions, and the submissions kept getting more complicated and looking more clunky the more they tried. I thought this actually was ending early with Akira getting his great armbar (with Heeter getting his leg over the rope), but I really did love Akira rolling Heeter into a guillotine with a leg lace. But I don't think you need to hands behind back thing in every match (although I would have loved it being used as a way for Heeter to get a surprise knockdown), and by the end you had stuff like Hardway flipping himself into a kimura, and was all a bit much.  

Sidney Von Engeland vs. Dustin Leonard

PAS: This was awesome. Leonard is a ju-jitsu black belt who is built like Don Bass, who had a cool grappling match with Garrini in their last tourney. Engeland is either British or working a British gimmick. Leonard dominates with simple powerful grappling, overwhelming Engeland with skill and size, including really rocking him with knees. Engeland is forced into rope breaks until he uses a fishhook to break a submission and hits a couple of Exploders, including one which dumps Leonard right on the top of his head. A stunned Leonard rushes him and hits a kneebar out of a Gotch lift which was just awesome. Super cool short match which really gets my hyped for more Dustin Leonard.

ER: Great to see Leonard back on my screen. I love gi wrestlers, and you usually don't see gi wrestlers with Leonard's body type. He's a southern wrestling/MMA guy who looks like a shorter RINGS guy. I think he's from Oklahoma, but I bet at least a couple RINGS guys were from Georgia. I really like when Leonard gets to the gi removal moment of a match, and he really needs to stick with it. It could easily be his own Lawler strap spot if he keeps this up. A ju-jitsu guy with a boiler tossing his gi down and coming back in for a takedown is just always going to be cool. Engeland's exploders looked real tough, and Leonard's selling was great, really made it look like he got his bell rung on the second one (he did kind of take it on the back of his head), and the finish was tremendous. Leonard looks like he's going for a Gotch piledriver and flips Engeland out of it into a perfect kneebar, the kind of thing that was and should be a quick tap. Leonard's post-fight promo only made me more of a fan, as he talks up real - and not bullshit - ju-jitsu as the best style, and I just want him to claim more ACLs. 

Alex Kane vs. Phoenix Kidd

PAS: Kidd is a black guy in a mask with a cool leather jacket, who they say was a submission grappler trained in Alaska. Kane is 2021 Taz, which is a really cool thing to be. Kidd shows some skill early blocking a couple of Kane's throws by using leverage and grabbing limbs. He is able to hit a German of his own (somewhat improbably) only to get Pablo Marquezed with a couple of gross suplexes, including the Mark of Kane which lays him out stiff. I like Kane running through lower level guys early. There are legitimately a dozen guys in this promotion I am excited to see him against, they have really built a roster full of awesome matchups.

ER: This was great, with Kidd going into this knowing what was likely to happen, and finding some pretty good ways to stave off the inevitable. Kidd was really smart about tying up Kane's limbs on suplex attempts, just suctioning himself to the nearest limb to prevent getting tossed. That makes it sound more desperate than it looked, as it was a very smart and well executed strategy, and things didn't go upside down for him until he abandoned it. He blocks an exploder by grabbing Kane's wrist, and he stops what surely what have been a horrible landing by wrapping himself around Kane's leg while upside down. I liked his own German, as it really felt like something he put everything into and still barely got Kane over, didn't look like Kane leapt into it at all. I also like Kidd's chippiness by flipping Kane off after immediately taking a far worse German, that last little gasp of getting in an insult before you lose a fight. Kane hits him with hard kneelifts and then destroys him with the Mark of Kane, and love how they are treating that as a killshot. 

Appollo Starr vs. Chase Holliday

PAS:  Holliday has never fully connected with me. He isn't bad, but I want things to land a little cleaner and harder. I do like how he uses his size to control on the mat. Starr is an old school midwest legend, and is a bunch of fun in this. I really liked how he used a jab early, nice wrist lock takedown, and he also showed some really solid amateur wrestling. I would have like the finish more if both KO blows landed better. I mean people are murking each other in this show, that backfist has to be more Aja for it to work as a KO blow.

ER: I thought this was plenty fun, thought they kept active in interesting ways, and was a really great performance from the commentary team pointing out some small details. Bringing in old midwest indy guys like Starr will only make these Paradigm shows more interesting. I mean now I definitely need to see a Soul Shooters Explode match on a future episode. Starr had a really cool knucklelock takedown, snapping back on Holliday's wrist so he had no choice but to go to his back, and commentary was great at describing how much power Holliday has in his strikes, getting Starr to break the hold even though Holliday was only throwing straight clubbing shots from his back. They also notice when Holliday briefly shakes out his hand, wondering whether that wristlock might have something to do with it. I thought the finish looked decent, and liked how they got there. 

Bobby Beverly vs. Lexus Montez

PAS: This match had a lot of booking setting up a Beverly squash. Not sure what the point of Beverly getting the #1 contender match was. I guess a Beverly vs. Hoodfoot match makes sense, but heel versus heel against Makowski really doesn't. I am a Young Studs fan from way back, but not really sure what role Beverly has in this version of Paradigm.

ER: This was the rematch that was set up by the early stoppage finish we didn't like from the season 1 finale. That might have been the worst stoppage in this series' history, as Montez's strikes really looked like he was shadow boxing or lightly smacking a sibling without hurting them. I think the angle was supposed to be that it was a bad stoppage, but you can still do a bad stoppage angle without the thing stopping the fight looking bad. So the rematch has more of that bad Montez striking, then Beverly throws some back suplexes, they do a kind of silly Beverly superkick/Montez pop up knee, and then Beverly finishes him with another back suplex. I'm with Phil, love Beverly, not really sure what his longterm role is going to be in this Paradigm series. These angles haven't worked for me and the layout of this match didn't work for me, but it's Bobby Beverly so I can only assume it will eventually produce a match we love? 

Hoodfoot vs. Matt Makowski

PAS: Loved the idea of Elite XC veteran Makowski defending the legacy of Kimbo Slice. This was a big main event, and felt like it. Makowski was playing the role of the more skilled fighter who was going to pick apart Hoodfoot, while Hoodfoot was trying to land that KO blow. We get a couple of really heavy suplexes by Hoodfoot, and Makowski strafing his body with body shots and liver kicks. I thought they may have gone one suplex too many, but Makowski hitting his chaos theory into a armbreaker was a holy shit move and a great way to switch a title. Team Filthy invading PPW and cleaning house is a great and Makowski has a lot of fun matchups with the belt. Still kind of sad to see Hoodfoot drop it, he really brought something unique to that title.

ER: Give me an "I knew Kimbo Slice, and you sir are no Kimbo Slice" angle I never realized I wanted. These two are a perfect pairing, and this is the Paradigm match we were most excited to see the moment we found out Makowski was joining. Atlas is an excellent seller, sells strikes more honestly and poetically than anyone this side of Eddie Kingston, so seeing Makowski - man who can throw several nice strikes - tee off on Atlas is wrestling joy. Atlas sells strikes so passionately, really makes me belief in the power of a leg kick or a shot to the ribs, makes me fully buy into his arm getting knotted up from taking a couple of strong kicks. Makowski suplexing Hoodfoot was a big moment, love how Hoodfoot falls and folds over, and you know he was excited to toss Makowski as payback. Makowski's spin kick doesn't quite land, but it works well to set up Chaos Theory into the excellent match finisher cross armbreaker, a fantastic spot to win a title with. I am sad that Hoodfoot isn't the champ, as he's a GREAT fighting champ, but Makowski is someone strong to have on top. Plus, I think there are a ton of fascinating Hoodfoot matches we haven't gotten yet, and I like how the dynamic changes with him no longer champ and instead fighting to get his belt back. This match should splinter off into several subsequent great matches, and I can't wait. 

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