Beyond Wrestling Greatest Rivals Round Robin Pt. 2

Matt Makowski vs. Tony Deppen 3/11/21

ER: I liked a lot of the submission grappling here, as Makowski is someone I'll happily watch work weird figure fours around any limb (or head), and he always surprises in ways he gets someone to the mat for one of those submissions. He's as likely to do a simple armbar takedown as he is to pop a beautiful high arc butterfly suplex. Deppen works some nice stuff too, and I really liked all the work he showed while getting Makowski into an abdominal stretch. You could see every step of him working to get Makowski into the hold, and that will always make a submission mean much more. He also hits this great sliding knee into the back of Makowski's headMakowski is such a beast, and easily my favorite part of the match was when he drags Deppen into this nasty, tangled trailer hitch deathlock that made somebody right next to the camera ask "What the hell is that??" Some things didn't quite work, and not long after Makowski's wicked deathlock variation, Deppen takes too long to set up an Indian deathlock pin that falls apart, then gets to his feet and follows it up with a slap that whiffs so high that the commentary has to immediately say that no part of the slap landed. They get things back on track, and we get another great Makowski finish as he throws Deppen into a kneebar with a crucifix bomb. Shoot that between my toes.

Chris Dickinson vs. Wheeler Yuta 3/18/21

ER: Yuta really feels like the odd man out in this series, and this was my least favorite match of the series so far. There's always a hesitation or a stumble with almost every piece of offense he tries, and I can never get any sense of who he actually is as a wrestler. He's one of those new breeds of pro wrestler who works every style, and works them below average. There's a reason why 4 pitch pitchers who can't locate any of them never land in the majors. Yuta is like an update on Rocky Romero's brand of never meeting a move he didn't like, except Romero's execution was better. I really don't buy him in this kind of stiff submission atmosphere, as all of his shots look lighter than Dickinson's but they worked the match as mostly equals. But Dickinson had a ton of stuff I loved, starting with an awesome Boston crab that he somehow rolled through while pulling guard. Yuta was probably most interesting working ground and pound and tying Dickinson's arm in the ropes, but I thought his stand-up was ugly and too planned. The finish was a real pair of exclamation points, with Dickinson sticking Yuta into the mat with a Death Valley driver, then trying to shorten his spine with a brainbuster. This did get me more excited to see Dickinson/Makowski, so in that, it did its job.