Tuesday is French Catch Day: Mantopoulous! Zarpa! Bernaert! N'Boa! Gastel! Delaporte! Zarecki! Guguliemetti

Vasilios Mantopoulos/Armand Zarpa vs Pierre Bernaert/N'Boa Le Congolais 4/5/69

MD: Super enjoyable tag, endlessly entertaining. Bob Elandon was in the (yes, super racist) gimmick of N'Boa for at least four years now and there's much more of a sense that he's in on the joke now than in earlier matches we've seen. He seems to turn it on and off as the situation calls for, doesn't have his German handler with him, and spends a chunk of this looking surly as can be. When he turns it on, the crowd goes absolutely nuts, though, both with the blatant biting and getting outsmarted and outquicked and turned around by Zarpa and Mantopolous. They didn't start with the biting either. They really build to it as Elandon could bump and stooge and work technical spots as well. This one's very creative, with a lot of the double team comedy bits we've seen up til now and some we haven't. They even have the ref miss a hot tag, though they haven't quite worked out the value of actually paying it off with a tag that is hot yet. Zarpa's good, but Mantopolous is one of the best. There's a bit in here where he blocks a bodyslam with his leg that I don't think I've ever seen before and his turtling exchange with both heels popped the crowd huge. Bernaert and N'boa had a great act here. Bernaert was used to working with oddball characters as he spent a chunk of years teaming with Bibi. There's a moment half way where Mantopolis dropkicks N'boa to the floor and dives after him and they fight on top of the crowd more than in it and that represents the wild energy and imagination of this tag in a nutshell.

SR: 2/3 falls match going a bit over 30 minutes.This was the usual fun junior tag. Fast exchanges and bumping tour the force to start, heels cheat and faces get increasingly enraged. As usual with Mantopolous, it seemed there was never a real extended heat section, so the whole thing felt light hearted. I mean, there was still some really impressive stuff going on. Bernaert looked age, but he still looked like an expert stooge and he and N'Boa (Embaba? M'Baba?) bumped extremely well for Mantopolous magic. There was also a crazy bit where Mantopolous jumped on one of the guys when he was outside the ring. Overall, it was a good bout.

PAS: I thought this was a blast. Mantopolous is such a wizard at turning people inside out, and both N'Boa and Bernaert are great at getting flustered. I loved Mantopolous flummoxing N'Boa by curling up into a ball, and his half monkey flip where he drops his opponent on his belly is a very cool spot. We also get the first dive of the footage as Mantopolous jumps off the ring apron onto N'Boa. So much fun to watch a trickster play tricks. 

Robert Gastel/Roger Delaporte vs Warnia de Zarecki/Giacomo Guguliemetti 4/19/69

MD: We come in somewhat JIP here. I doubt it's too much so but we lose some of the early feeling out process. We have that 1961 tag between Delaporte/Bollet and Leduc/Gastel which was some sort of interpromotional battle. I'm not sure how Delaporte and Gastel ended up here together, but I'm happy for it. They make a pretty perfect pair. Most of the first fall is spent with the stylists in control with holds and Delaporte menacing from the outside, doing everything he can to interfere and just blatantly come in. Eventually, they catch on and do a blind switch while the ref is distracted by him. It's all pretty entertaining stuff where Gastel didn't have to do a lot from underneath since Delaporte was creating all of the interest  and excitement. Gastel might have been the best at all time of getting a single leg from a kneeling position, that old mainstay of 50s French bad guys. It wasn't enough here as Zarzecki managed a slick escape from a full nelson into a pin. The second fall was Gastel and Delaporte at their offensive best, as they trapped Guguliemetti in their corner and just mauled him: big, massive forearms and uppercuts from Delaporte and clubbering blasts from Gastel. As much as these two were mugging stooges, they could absolutely crush someone with their strikes. The third fall was pretty academic with Zarzecki and Guguliemetti pinballing Delaporte around the ring with harsh shots to the fans' delight, until Gastel was able to get a shot in out of nowhere as he was getting whipped back and forth across the ring to sneak out the infuriating (for the crowd) win. Constantly entertaining with two absolute master villains and a couple of game good guys. As we've already covered the Van Buyten match and the Williams/Barreto match which are chronologically after this one, I think that's it for us and Gastel, and I'll miss the flat-faced, grisly, clubbering lout. He was a real discovery of this footage.

SR: 2/3 falls match going about 30 minutes. Am I seeing things, or was Delaportes mustache shaved for this!? This is joined in progress about 15 minutes in. The first fall still had some impressively quick worked sequences. I also really liked Zarzecki beating the shit out of Gastel in the corner with fast european uppercuts. This was the stuff as all these tags, fun back and forth in the first fall, then the heels turn up the intensity, in this case by beating the shit out of the faces in the corner. Eventually the faces make their big comeback and all hell breaks lose. I'd say this executed the formula in a fun way, the energy was good and the heat was big. I liked the part where they stuck a mic in Gastels face after he got thrown over the rope.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death Week of 11/22-11/28

AEW Dynamite 11/24

CM Punk vs. QT Marshall

MD: Not a ton to say here. It went too long obviously, but it only felt too long because they had the Factory kicked out early and the commercial break, maybe due to the long opening promo, dragged the thing down like an anchor. They seem to be telling the story that Punk's having too much trouble with guys he shouldn't be having so much trouble with, but even so, QT's so far down the card and in that player/coach role that it would have worked out better if interference caused Punk's issues. Also, the announcers (JR specifically as Excalibur tried) didn't give proper credit to QT's low blow during the commercial break (something the PiP wasn't going to let you pick up on so easily) didn't help. What I did love here was the opening bit with Punk leaning hard into his reclamation of the bodyslam and QT selling them like death. Honestly, Punk's shine here was the most I've ever seen QT work towards the "wrestle like a manager, manage like a wrestler" mindset, which is, again, how I think he has the most value in-ring to the company. He should just lean all the way into it and wear the one-shoulder Heenan singlet. So this was worked ok but had some production/creative/layout issues.

Bryan Danielson vs. Colt Cabana

MD: Solid TV match highlighting Danielson's new attitude. I would have liked to see their familiarity play out a little more. You got it a bit in the early chain wrestling, a bit more in some of the dodges, and then with a tiny bit of hesitation at the end, but it played out more on commentary than in the match. I'd argue that the hesitation at the end, when Danielson had Colt's hands and was about to stomp, made the match though. There were other similar milked moments, points where everything stopped and took a dramatic beat, like when they were up on the top, but the pre-stomp one felt electric. It was probably the only thing in the match that did, though. Uno made more of his opportunity the week before. Danielson continued to showcase his aggression and uncaring drive, moving quickly to strikes even when he could have tested himself on the mat with Colt. He worked in the pose before the Lebell lock and brandished the tooth about after the match. In the grand scheme of things, highlighting Danielson's aggression was the most important thing, but it's not like these AEW matches don't often manage a number of different objectives at once and I'm not sure this one did.

PAS: I thought this was better then the Uno match the week before, as Cabana matched the hard hitting nature of Danielson more, I especially liked his short elbows. I am not sure about Cabana, who as at this point an undercarder,  doing a flip flop and fly in a promotion with both of Dusty's son's, feels like something a road agent should have nixed. The match had a lot of energy from Cabana being in Chicago, and Danielson showing no mercy on his friend with the stomps to the head was pretty sick stuff, especially with Dragon parading around with the tooth like a trophy. I am not sure what an Alan Angel's match next week really achieves, at this point I think they should get Danielson some partners and run some trios matches if you want to drag out the feud a bit more (Garcia and Moriarty? Call up Biff Busick?). 

AEW Rampage 11/26 (Taped 11/24)

20. Eddie Kingston vs. Daniel Garcia

PAS: I thought this was really excellent, a master class by Kingston who is on an all time great in-ring run right now.  He established hierarchy early, stuffing Garcia's shot attempts and stonewalling him on strikes. It felt like a grumpy Jumbo Tsuruta performance refusing to play along with what Garcia was attempting. When Garcia gets the advantage after the tweaked knee, he really presses it well, and we get two great Kingston sells: bad knee and damaged ear. Garcia's strength as a wrestler is his persistence,  and the whole match is Kingston repelling that. Kingston is still a bigger guy, and I loved he powered through the knee injury to hit that huge lifting powerbomb, and the pair of sick suplexes with the Exploder and backdrop driver. I also dug him using the missed first backfist to set up the second one where he almost beheaded Garcia. Kingston is a 90s All Japan superfan and it was fun to watch him do Jumbo vs. Kikuchi instead of Misawa vs. Kawada.

ER: This was cool, in that it starts like a Kingston squash and keeps building into something bigger. It's really easy to see Kingston running over Garcia while also constantly clowning 2.0 on the floor, and the first parts of this are just Kingston refusing to play along. Garcia would throw uppercuts or chops and whenever Kingston wanted to take back over he would just throw an eye poke or refuse to be Irish whipped, even biting at Garcia's ear. Kingston is one of the few guys in wrestling who can pull off Face Biting as a babyface move and it fully fits him. A weird thing happens when we move into the break, as Garcia suddenly becomes a monster in Picture-in-Picture, booting Kingston in the face multiple times and working over the knee Kingston tweaked while doing a kneedrop to Garcia. Injuring yourself doing something that benefits you is a thing most 40 year olds who still try to keep in shape experience, and nobody works a self-injury into a match better than Kingston. Garcia's fireman's carry roll into a heel hook looked good, and really made Kingston scramble to break. The knee is clearly Garcia's ticket, and Eddie is the best at continuing a plan regardless, so even with the bad knee he still struggles through delivering a big exploder and essentially a one-legged powerbomb. I kept thinking this was about to finish and they kept managing to kick each others' asses back into a match, with Kingston literally fighting from underneath and punching up at Garcia to break holds, then hitting a double backfist for the finish (well the first one missed but he had a second ready to fire just in case). I don't really need Jericho involved in this feud as Kingston really doesn't need Popular Loud Mic Guy around him, but they're nailing this so far so who am I to say. 

MD: Just a really interesting, hard hitting, multifaceted match that went a number of different places. I'd say it was one of the more ambitious AEW matches I've seen this year. I loved the Punk vs Garcia match, for instance, but that was very much just one thing (Garcia dismantling the leg). This was a whole lot more and wholly driven by the personalities involved and the situation of Eddie coming in banged up. One of my favorite things about Garcia is how he enters every match with a gameplan or a strategy. You rarely see him just locking up with someone. Here, he immediately went for explosive takedowns but Kingston was able to use his size advantage to goozle him. That's how most of the first third here went. Garcia would try something direct and Kingston would just shut him down. That might be wrestling; it might be strikes; it might be slowing things down; it might be using 2.0 as a distraction. None of it would work because of Kingston's size advantage, savvy (the eyepoke), and overall toughness. It (and it was Garcia's persistence and smaller, younger dog attitude) all slowly got under his skin though, to the point where he went up for that knee off the ropes when he didn't have to.

The second third was about the opportunities Kingston's hurt knee provided Garcia. Unlike the Punk match, he didn't go right after it. Instead, he stubbornly wanted to prove himself and his striking game, and started targeting the ear. The knee slow down Kingston's offense and unlocked the ear for Garcia, and maybe the ear would have unlocked more, if Kingston didn't cut him off by outright biting him. Which led to the last third, where the knee gave out again and Garcia honed in on it. Even then, as Kingston kept getting the ropes, Garcia would lose his cool and go back to striking. Kingston would lean on the savvy here, playing possum to lure Garcia in for an exploder, drawing him into strike exchanges when he should have stayed focus on the hurt body part. Garcia was out there to prove himself as much as win though, and you prove yourself against Kingston by meeting him head-on. Kingston leaned into this, squeezing out opportunity after opportunity until he finally managed a killshot. What made all of this work was Garcia's desire and penchant to drive forward with every opening and Kingston's top notch defensive wrestling and selling, the most sympathetic, down on his luck, affectionately miserable guy in the world. In the end, both of these characters care so much, even if Garcia can't help himself and Kingston cares despite himself and that made for such a meaningful, resonant clash.

2021 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Chilanga Mask Love Letters 2018

Difunto vs. Masada vs. Último Demonio vs. Wotan (Chilanga Mask, 5/20/18)

SG: Matches with eliminations give you a lot to talk about, but this is one fall to a finish. Luckily for us, it’s one of the most sheerly violent matches that I’ve ever seen. Wotan is fully unhinged even to start, cracking a giant beer bottle over Demonio’s head to some of the shriekiest of audience shrieks. Masada looks giant compared to him but is really out to give one of his most physically active performances since who knows when. Feels very much like him to not want to get shown up on the road, even if I appreciate his dickishness/desire to not do shit making him one of the few American deathmatch guys ever who wrestles with a genuine sense of hierarchy. The first half is mostly Difunto/Masada primarily pairing off in the ring with Demonio/Wotan in the crowd and eventually the merch table. 

Bless whoever had coffee mugs printed out because Wotan is ready to blast Demonio with a few, just insane. I think that he delivers about 200 headbutts in this match, all as nasty as what Black Terry did to him here a couple years before. Demonio’s refusal to not engage him in stand-and-strikes really pays off for the match in a rare occurrence because I can’t remember the last time that someone broke a mug over Ishii’s head. I’m less bothered by the deathmatch magic elves and some revealing camerawork than I could be because it adds to how grotesque it all is, because the action is already in the Bumfights territory. Like, what’s more desperate than Wotan sticking Demonio’s head with skewers that he’d already been stabbed with by Masada?

The best lucha brawls come off like real fights between broken men in bad neighborhoods, and no offense to whoever owns the Toyota dealership with which Coliseo Coacalco shares a lot, but that’s already the ennui of this shit, so why not go for the gusto? The final third breaks down, less in quality but more in depravity, as a chair table on the floor comes into play. Deathmatch magic elves and all. Masada nearly breaks Wotan’s neck with a Death Valley from the apron onto it and it just gets worse from there after two nasty powerbombs on the outside. 

Meanwhile Difunto has bled more than anyone and is barely making it into the review! His dueling beer bottle to the dome spot with Wotan goes as well as you’d expect. Finish is Demonio getting his revenge and knocking Wotan unconscious with a falling powerbomb from the top to the chair. Well, it’s sort of a finish, because Difunto & Masada then stage-dive in onto the two as the staff attend to Wotan. And then a fight breaks out in the crowd after a fan yells out that they should let Wotan die instead of getting him treatment. Impulso, there to carry his brother to the back, responded by kicking the shit out of someone who might not have been that fan. Also, Facade is here. Everyone should just know that. Sadly, he didn’t kick the shit out of a fan.

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Matches from Beyond Wrestling Uncharted Territory 36 11/4/21

Masha Slamovich vs. Davienne

ER: This was a 6 minute pre-show showcase match, and it worked as advertised. I'm not sure I've ever watched a Masha Slamovich match before, and I'm sure that I've skipped past her matches on shows before. I assume I wrote her off due to her name sounding too Chikara Gimmick and never thought about it again. Now that I've seen her in a showcase match, I would like to seek out potential great matches, because I thought she came off great. This was 6 minutes, and this was a fairly breathless 6 minutes. Neither took a single breather and this was just wave after wave of some stiff shots and big kicks and a go go go pace. Davienne has nice selling, can get some nice force behind her clubbing shots, and went back to a flat boot yakuza kick that I liked. But Slamovich worked with a ton of intensity and really went for the kill on strikes. She had a solebutt that was like a young Naoki Sano, a couple of spinning heel kicks where she really used her heel as the blunt object and not just the side of her leg, and a lariat so much stronger than you'd expect from her frame. She packs a wallop and it made me want more Masha. Luckily she's wrestled practically as much as any human on the planet in 2021 so I have some options. 

37. Slade vs. Alec Price

PAS: Slade is pretty much a must watch wrestler for me at this point. I am not sure why he isn't booked in GCW or ICW-NHB as he is the most compelling guy to be doing that kind of new age ECW brawling. I hadn't heard of Price before, but thought he was great too. He has a real Harmony Korine vibe to him, a real scuzz who is great at making the crowd want to see him murdered. He takes a Wrestling Slade level beating, but actually is super vicious on offense too. Price gets mauled for a bit including getting lawn darted into the ringpost, but takes over by driving the top of a steel chair right into the top of Slade's kneecap and unleashes some sick looking leg work including one of the cooler dragon screws I have seen. The knee gives him an opening not to get steamrolled by Slade, and Price actually goes over by kneeing Slade hard in the balls and rolling him up in the ropes using the no DQ stip to steal one. Feels like a big rematch is coming, and Price is a new guy I am into.

ER: I agree, Slade is can't miss right now. He's the most NWA-Wildside vibe we've gotten out of a new wrestler in ages, a guy who feels more like a cult MMA star from UFC3 than a pro wrestler. It's testament to how good Alec Price was here that he managed to outshine Slade at times and come off credible against a guy I thought was going to tear him apart. Price looks like Jardi Frantz but wrestles more like Jimmy Jacobs or Brian Kendrick, which is a style I love. His pre-match mic work showed impressive timing and confidence, the kind of thing MJF wants to do every week but goes so long that it loses all momentum. Price made me a fan in just one minute, snatching the mic to say that this is his fed and he doesn't need to wrestle anyone in a No DQ match, delivering his demands with the right amount of venom and indignance. By the time Price clonked Slade with the mic I was sold, and when his strikes landed just as hard as Slade's I was through the roof. 

This looked like a bratty college Freshman somehow holding his own against a hardened convict and that's a vibe we don't get enough in wrestling. He stood up to a Slade beating and fought back by crossing Slade up, throwing hard stomach kicks and insanely taking a fight to a very dangerous man. His leg work was really vicious, dropping Slade patella first on a chair and throwing a Maeda-level dragon screw. The chose their chair spots really well, making them stand out as uniquely violent. Slade getting dropped on his knee looked even more painful than Price taking a disgusting snap suplex across two chairs on the floor, and that's because they went out of their way to make everything look vicious. Price pulling out the win felt like a huge shock, and he's so great at being able to fully piss off every person he wrestles. The Slade/Dickinson/Price 3 way feud could yield some memorable beatings, and this just made me want more.  

Matt Makowski vs. Tracy Williams

PAS: Williams had been in ROH for the last couple of years and off my radar, but it was good to see him back and working a very Catch Point style match against Makowski, who may be the best of that next generation of Catch Point inspired guys. Lots of very cool grappling, as you would expect. Williams put on an Octopus hold and when Makowski got the break he rolled it into a Fuller leglock. There was also some nice violent arm work from Makowski. Really appreciated how Williams would adjust his body in submission holds to lessen their effect, for example Makowski put on a cloverleaf and Williams rolled onto his side so he couldn't fully crank the back. Finish had a slap fight which I thought didn't look great, although I liked Makowski sneaking in a thumb to the eye to stun Williams enough for Makowski to sink in a sick looking choke and give him a nap. 

ER: I really like these two and like a lot of what they did to each other, but a lot of it felt a but more time-filling than match-building to me. There was some strong shootstyle wrestling, with some cool grappling fakeouts and mistimed striking, and all of it looked good but never felt like it built to what it could have. Still, there was a lot to like about this, because a lot of it was them doing their very cool thing. Makowski has some of the best strike exchanges in modern wrestling, sneaking in kicks in cool ways and excelling at catching strikes. Williams is able to work a strong mirror to Makowski's heavier onslaught, and I even thought the slap fight worked really well. I thought it looked like some of the better UWFI standing battles and not something that kept to a turn based system. This was two guys throwing open hands to face and body and I thought looked good, with the Makowski thumb a great climax to it. The submission work looked good, the striking looked good, it just felt less than the execution.  

Trish Adora vs. Jordan Blade

PAS: This is a pair of the DMV's finest fighting for Adora's Pan Afrikan World Diaspora Championship. This is my first time seeing Adora, but I have been a fan of Blade from her PPW UWFI rules stuff. I really liked how this started, with hard aggressive simple mat wrestling. Blade is a powerlifting champion and does a really great job at making her grappling feel weighty. Adora is able to whip down Blade's arm and then really goes to work on that, forcing Blade to do some throws with only one arm which was super impressive. Sadly I think they lost the thread a bit near the second half of the match. It got very Garganoish, lots of faces of despair on two counts and talking to hands, and the finish run was a lot of 2 count nearfall stuff. Adora has a signature "Lariat Tubman", and she did a short arm version of it for the win, and it didn't land the way I want a finishing lariat to land. Still there were lots of this match I liked and both wrestlers feel like they have a lot of promise. 

2021 MOTY MASTER LIST

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New Footage Friday: New Japan Hand Held 8/3/83

New Japan 8/3/84 Yokosuka, Summer Fight Series

 
Kuniaki Kobayashi vs. El Halcón

MD: Solid juniors match. Both guys come out swinging, Kobayashi with a wild spin kick attempt and Halcon with some cool rolling takedowns. Neither guy is afraid to toss each other into the railing on the outside and they get pretty chippy with each other with headbutts. Kobayashi goes after the mask and this whole thing ends up more heated than you'd expect while they still work a number of quick exchanges and big moves.

PAS: This was fun although had some moments that looked a bit awkward especially by Halcon who looked a bit lost at points. I liked the nasty headbutt by Kobayashi, and Halcon took a nice hard bump into the guard rail. This was the least of the three matches, but that isn't really isn't a criticism.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Pete Roberts - GREAT

MD: Technical and skilled chain wrestling and mat wrestling here. When they hit, they hit hard (especially Roberts' European uppercuts) but it never reaches a level of real animosity or leaves the realm of sportsmanship. There are a few really nice bits of subtle positioning or counters, including one hammerlock that Fujiwara really gets out of absolutely nowhere and an up and over headscissors by Fujiwara out of an arm hold that's out of the catch footage playbook. Roberts' cravat and 84 Fujiwara's bridges and overall flexibility also both stand out as well. It feels like a very good first chunk of a rounds match that never quite boils over.

PAS: This did feel like a first act to a great match, but it was a very cool first act. I really enjoy Fujiwara testing himself against other mat wizards, and it is fun to watch the variation in style between Roberts WOS stuff and Fujiwara's more shoot wrestling style. I am a fan of well executed knuckle lock sequences and headscissors escapes and we some good ones here, and a couple of nasty Roberts uppercuts as the match moved on. Abrupt ending kept this from top tier Fujiwara status, Fujiwara is such a master of finished that a roll up out of nowhere is pretty disappointing. Still a fun discovery as we don't have a ton of Fujiwara from this early

Fit Finlay vs. Tiger Mask

MD: Great bullying performance by Finlay here. He targets the arm early on and uses his relative size and power to really tear it apart, including lifting armbars and an awesome dropkick to a held arm where the physics shouldn't work but it still looked great. Nothing sportsmanlike here, as he's more than happy to slam it over guardrail too. When they move into the finishing stretch, it's one huge bomb after the next. Interesting that both this and the Halcon match ended with lucha style quebradoras.

PAS: I loved this, it was one of my favorite New Japan Tiger Mask matches. Finlay is an absolute savage going after Tiger Mask's arm, slamming it, cranking it, smashing it into a guardrail, just focused and violent limb work. Sayama hits all of his super athletic stuff really cleanly, kicks looked good, reversals were slick. Finlay matches him in the fast spots, including bolting up to the top rope for a missed headbutt with crazy speed. I usually don't say this about juniors matches, but I would have liked an even crazier finishing run. But these guys had great charisma and there feels like an alternative world big match Finlay vs. Tiger Mask feud which would have been even greater then Dynamite vs. Tiger Mask.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE FINLAY

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE FUJIWARA

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Thanksgiving Slade!

Slade vs. Atticus Cogar Beyond Wrestling 7/21/21

PAS: So is Slade the new Necro? It is a slightly different vibe, but he has that wild brawling sense of real menace and willingness to take uncalled for bumps in weird ways. Atticus Cogar is pretty much a create a wrestler goth death match guy, but he is there willing to take a beating and do gross stuff. Slade throws some of his crowbar elbows, drives Cogar spine first into the legs of a chair and gets an air raid crash off of a stage through the bottom of a stood up metal garbage can, which was literally shocking. I liked how the Beyond announcers just stopped talking mid match because of what they were witnessing. I think Slade's best matches are still to come, but he is a really compelling guy to watch.

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2021 Ongoing MOTY List: Gacy vs. Troy

29. Joe Gacy vs. Desmond Troy WWE 205 Live 6/29 (Aired 7/2/19)

ER: What the holy hell is happening on WWE's D programming? Here we have a 205 Live match between a stud amateur wrestler and a CZW asskicker, neither within 50 pounds of 205. Who's in charge of anything these days? Did somebody know that this match happened? How did Joe Gacy vs. Desmond Troy happen? This match is the kind of match that makes trawling WWE's unnoticed programming a worthwhile effort. This was an out of nowhere style clash and showcase for a guy making his debut and a guy making his re-debut, and it ruled. It started with some nice armdrag work and athleticism, with Troy showing off eye catching leapfrogs and floating kip ups while Gacy slammed into him as hard as possible with a shoulderblock. Gacy kept hitting harder the longer this went, getting impressive impact on standing clotheslines and even more steam with a few feet of headway. Gacy's clotheslines really move Troy and Troy is no pushover, and it builds to Gacy throwing a forearm shiver that would make Ron Simmons flinch. The more Troy got rocked with Gacy's gravity, the more he upped the wrestling. Troy had some absolutely insane gutwrench suplexes, lifting Gacy from deep bends and throwing him far, then throwing him into his own knees. When Troy hits an overhead belly to belly, it looks like Scott Steiner hurling an eyes-closed job guy to his doom. I dug these two slamming into each other and the way both were believably being thrown or slugged, it created a feeling that anything could happen. A match where someone gets realistically stopped by a punch to the chest is a match that should be celebrated. Here it is. 

PAS: Really fun match which didn't feel like a WWE match at all. Gacy hits super hard, and I loved how Troy wouldn't take a back bump for every shot, sometimes he would just get stunned or staggered. WWE style is heavy on constant bumping so it is cool to see someone get their bell rung. Troy had crazy athleticism, his double leg was super fast, his leapfrog was super high and I loved the gutwrenches. Gacy was much more of a brawler, and this almost had the feel of a Buzz Sawyer vs. Red Bull Army New Japan match. The back handspring into the lariat felt unnecessary, but that Lariat was nasty enough to end any match. Really got me excited to check out more Troy, so of course this was his last match, and he was cut a month later. What an idiotic company.

2021 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Gastel! Magnier! Barreto! Williams!

Abdel Kader Boussada vs. Jean Luc 2/1/69

MD: We get maybe nine minutes of this, which is probably around half, and it's pretty good if a bit formless. Jean Luc's a fairly nasty bad guy with solid forearms and brazen stomps. Boussada comes back with headscissors takeovers and dropkicks but gets cut off with some rudimentary but solid legwork. Eventually they pick up the pace for a rope running finish. Either of these guys would probably put on a strong showing against a different opponent but this never rose above a certain level.

Guy Cavillier vs. Albert Sanniez 2/1/69

MD: Twenty minutes of pure forward motion. Sanniez is excellent and has maybe the best bridge in wrestling history and a great ability to land on his feet. This is our only look at Cavillier and he could more than hang with Sanniez. This built but never stopped, beginning with a wristlock that Sanniez did everything possible to try to escape to holds and shots, finally culminating with Sanniez with an athletic advantage, but both wrestlers sailing to the floor for an unsatisfying double countout. At times, they were almost flowing one forearm into the next, back and forth. The best part was probably a bridge so deep out of a chinlock that it first looked like Cavillier was going to break Sanniez in two until it became obvious that his trained flexibility actually gave him an edge in the exchange, ending with both guys roll into the ropes and the ref. Good stuff but it mainly left me wanting to see more.

Robert Gastel/Fred Magnier vs. Don Barreto/Eddy Williams 3/8/69

MD: Williams and Gastel are two of my absolute favorite guys in the footage. I wouldn't say they always end up in the best matches, but their performances are always excellent. Williams is smooth, has the crowd behind him, hits hard on comebacks. Gastel is a mean mug, a clubbering, stooging beast, one of the most distinct personalities we've seen, endlessly memorable. They're not always partnered with the best wrestlers, especially Williams who ends up with attractions who can't always carry their weight. Here though, they have perfect partners. I can't find much about Barreto but he could hang with Williams, able to do what was expected in France like the up and over headscissors escape, had some great shots, including an amazing corner flurry to the gut towards the end, and had a great jumping headbutt that was exactly what the crowd wanted. Magnier looked like Gastel's little brother, same body type, same mugging expression, same hard shots and mean stomps. Their favored means of assault in this one were hidden chokes while holding their opponent up, Magnier using a fireman's carry and Gastel a rib-breaker position, and then dropping them neck first over the top rope.

The heat was accordingly great, especially since the fans really wanted to get behind Williams and Barreto in the first place. While this was structured like a normal French tag (long first fall with plenty of heat, a hot tag or two, and the heels ultimately winning, a second fall where the faces come back and win fairly quickly and a third fall which is just as quick where the faces continue their advantage and either slip on a banana peel or pick up a win), the crowd was up for everything and everything worked. Towards the end of the first fall, the fans were absolutely going after Gastel and at one point, the heels rolled back in the ring just so the crowd would stop swiping at them. All the while, the low lighting gave this a fairly unique mood. The finish let the stylists keep the momentum going while still protecting the heels even if it wasn't exactly satisfying. Still, overall this was a great tag.

PAS: This was really cool, I love that we have a cool black tag team in 1969 France, I can just see Eddy Williams hanging with Josephine Baker or  James Baldwin in a Parisian cafe or nightclub. I loved how this whole fight escalated, with the heels choking and slugging and cheapshotting until the babyfaces exploded and laid them out. The spot where they were bouncing Gastel back and forth with uppercuts was awesome as was Barreto's combo punching in the corner, it really felt Lawlerish. We didn't really get a super satisfying finish, which is often the way these tags work, but I loved all of the meat. 

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AEW Five Fingers of Death Week of 11/15-11/21

AEW Dynamite 11/17

Bryan Danielson vs. Evil Uno

PAS: It was fun to watch Danielson turn full heel with a very well done mic segment to do it, and he was a total dick in the match with Uno. I thought the early parts of this felt a little off, like their timing was a bit skipped. It picked up near the end with Danielson being really vicious, telling the crowd he was going to kick Uno's fucking head in, and then unloading with some really nasty stomps to the temple and the double flex triangle. Uno had some moments, I liked the slaps and the violence party, but he was there to be a foil and was great at that. 

MD: They covered a lot of ground here. This got over Danielson's heel act immediately as he pushed Edwards right from the get go with the "I've got til five" act. Then, instead of starting a chop fest with Uno, he just slapped him across the face. There was a lot of that, Danielson goading Uno and Uno responding with violence, but a lack of control that would cost him in the end. I don't know how many other big moments he's going to get in his AEW career (I could see at least one more if O'Reilly comes in) but he milked the chants and that one moment on the apron before he went up to the top for as much as he could. My favorite bit of this was probably his too, when he kept walking up and planting Danielson on the face with kicks. The spinning forearm from Danielson was amazing and seemed to parallel the big shot from Suzuki onto him a few weeks ago. Each member of the Dark Order brings something unique to the table, so it should be fun to watch Danielson mow through them.


AEW Rampage 11/19

Darby Allin vs. Billy Gunn 

ER: Darby Allin vs. way larger opponent is always a great match, and Billy Gunn is the largest guy on the AEW roster. Billy Gunn is maybe the wildest guy from the 1993 WWF roster to be this active in 2021, but Gunn is basically a better version of the wrestler he was in 1999. He's a great stooge and can stall in fun smug ways, and as AEW's Giant he absolutely runs over Darby for the first 80% of this match, and it rules. He launches Darby way into the air on a backdrop and brutally oles him into the guardrail on a fast Darby tope. During the commercial break he drags Darby around by the neck scruff and tosses him by his rib tape, then punches him right in the jaw in the center of the ring. Gunn really knew how to milk the build to the comeback that every single person in attendance knew was coming (Billy Gunn isn't pinning Darby Allin on TV while Sting watches), and it made Darby's comeback kick so much ass. 

Darby starts by hitting a Coffin Drop into Gunn's two dumb sons, then just assaults Billy with everything that makes Darby so great. But what was maybe most impressive about the finish, was just how good Billy Gunn has gotten about occupying himself while waiting to take offense, and how good he's gotten at getting into position for offense. Gunn sets up all of Darby's coolest stuff really well, and had a bunch of logical sells to get him into position for whatever was coming next. He sells the flipping stunner by stumbling, pitching forward and stopping himself from face planting by settling into a drunken 3 point stance, which sets up Darby's Code Red. Gunn flips the Code Red so that he lands in position to get stuck by the Coffin Drop, kicks out at 1 and then drags his body away from the corner, only to get nailed by another Drop mid-crawl. Gunn was never this good at acting his way through anyone's comeback, and now I want to see Billy Gunn working some lucha matches with other near 60 year olds. 

MD: I'm not going to try to follow Eric move-for-move on this one, but I will point out a few things. Depending on where you look on the internet, you get wildly varying reactions. Obviously, you get some people who saw this as a disappointing joke after the Malenko/Guerrero stuff in Darby vs MJF and then you get someone like Dutch Mantel who thought Gunn led young Darby by the nose through one believable sequence after the other but that obviously the wrong person won. This is probably why someone shouldn't go out onto the internet.

Anyway, Gunn is a dinosaur, big and old, and he's outlived all the other dinosaurs and now finds himself in a world of small mammals, with Darby as one of the smallest, most tenacious, most dangerous mammals of all. Gunn took his time, was smart in his hefts and throws and shots and cutoffs, treated Darby as Darby and not just some random opponent. I love how he managed the picture-in-picture commercial break which is always the most problematic part of a Dynamite or a Rampage. Usually that's where they bury the heat which provides structural issues but he slowed it down even more and worked the crowd and just grinded it out in a way that put more fuel onto things. 

It's 100% telling that the crowd went from goofing on Gunn's kids with a Danhausen-inspired chant (and Gunn was great at stopping what he was doing, turning the match around and reacting to that instead of just moving on) to cheering for Darby to come back. That's a testament to Darby and to Gunn, because on paper, a modern crowd is more often than not going to want to get itself over than giving in and buying into a match. Darby choosing to take basically his first, best opportunity for offense in the match and use it to drop onto the Gunn kids instead of attacking Billy is completely in character for him. The fact that it took two coffin drops to take Gunn out tracked with the lack of damage Gunn had taken so far. I can't speak for the rest of you, but I know Eric and I would be on board for a featured Gunn Club vs. Darby/Sting/Paul Wight match. Someone has to give them their first loss as a trios after all.

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Eric's WWE Survivor Series Live Blog 11/21/21

ER: Gotta say, it's pretty difficult to find much interest in WWE's programming these days. These constant roster cuts have turned things into the worst possible Oakland Athletics team, where any single one of my favorite wrestlers to watch could be pushed on one program and then released the next day. WWE hasn't been paying off storylines for a long time, making that aspect of their product completely pointless to follow, but still had a roster with a ton of people capable of great matches on any given night. But no wrestler allowed to get past a certain level of popularity, combined with my favorites to watch being on the chopping block every day, and absolutely terrible direction  - the biggest wrestling promotion in history has been presenting the literal worst visual wrestling presentation for several years now - has made this a nearly impossible promotion to get behind and enjoy. I know next to nothing about this card, but I have a tragically boring Sunday afternoon with a sudden hole in it so let's see if they give us something worth showing interest in. 

Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Damian Priest

ER: This was at its best during the first half, before the part of the Damian Priest match where every exchange became a reversal of a sloppily thrown spin kick. I like Damian Priest when he throws strikes intended to land; I hate Damian Priest when he throws a strike intended to set up an opponent's strike, which is then thrown to set up Damian Priest's strike. This match was a 50-50 blend of those two Priests, and it kept things from being as good as they could have been. Nakamura isn't without flaw, but it's tough to not look like you're messing things up when you're forced to wait in place for someone's in-ring springboard axe handle reversal. Long story short: The parts where they hit each other were fun, the parts where they missed each other were dumb. 

I am so sick of seeing The Rock in every piece of media. I have had my official fill of The Rock. You gave us Rampage and we will always have that but I am tired of seeing The Rock be The Rock in things. 

Becky Lynch vs. Charlotte

ER: Regardless of how much I don't love this specific kind of match build, where both people just come off like unlikeable smarmy assholes and the heel is the one who I guess is more of an asshole, we can all agree that Becky Lynch's Toxic tribute ring gear is perhaps her greatest all time look. That's a look that feels more important than a match with an uneven worked shoot build. The two people in the ring couldn't back up the build even if the energy felt there at times. Energy can be enough to turn something like this great, but it needed to be done without Charlotte's canned ham. You needed more shit like Becky ripping out a bit of Charlotte's hair to prevent a figure 4 reversal, and less of Charlotte doing Andrade tribute offense that makes her look like George Costanza running through pigeons. Charlotte looks like a total klutz who can't hit the broad side of a barn, and after every Lynch kickout you never know where the Al Pacino overacting dial is going to land. Charlotte has the gift of making it really obvious when she is maneuvering into position for offense, while also being really bad about being in place for offense. The moonsaults looked as bad as ever, and doing a bunch of handspring moonsaults that don't connect in the middle of a worked shoot atmosphere is just the stupidest kind of energy. Bad finish that doesn't resolve anything doesn't do anyone any favors, and surely guarantees more of the exact same build to another similar match. 

Bobby Lashley/Austin Theory/Finn Balor/Kevin Owens/Seth Rollins vs. Xavier Woods/Jeff Hardy/Sheamus/Baron Corbin/Drew McIntyre

ER: When the rosters of two different TV shows have been pointlessly churned with seemingly no communication to talent, it's a bit much to sell a 5 on 5 match expressly under the banner of Brand Bragging Rights. I could not imagine caring less about a team from Smackdown beating a team from Raw, and if there are fanbases of people who have allegiances to either Raw or Smackdown but not both, then I cannot imagine that will ever be me. Best to watch a match like this as a match randomly generated by your AKI engine, since WWE's roster at this point has the consistency of me frequently erasing wrestlers and making new CAWs in No Mercy. And as a low stakes 10 man elimination match, it settles into a very fun match very quickly. Corbin was the early standout, loved his big right hands and how good he is at creating openings and setting up spots for Balor. Woods drops a great leaping fistdrop, Sheamus runs in with a leaping knee, Drew runs in with a kick, it's a cool team working in a good rhythm. These matches are about rhythm and if everyone keeps it reasonably well, it is automatically good. You just need them to be as well oiled as any All Japan Senior Circuit trios match. 

Balor sticks Corbin with the double stomp which looked good, but a shame because Corbin was the guy here who best knew how to tie this into an Actual Match. Austin Theory is someone I enjoyed in his NXT role, who feels completely fish out of water in this match. I buy him on NXT. I do not yet buy him moving Sheamus. With Corbin gone, we quickly wind into Drew/Lashley. Now, I think McIntyre and Lashley are two of the better guys in current WWE, but for the past couple years it has felt like EVERY match has come down to Lashley vs. McIntyre. It is a good pairing that also makes me feel like I'm trapped in time. Still, give me all of Bobby Lashley's big ass backdrop bump from the crowd to ringside. I think the steam gets taken out of this way too early and then continues too long after. Once it settled down to a Rollins/Theory vs. Sheamus/Hardy tag if felt like a house show tag between guys who don't know how to work a good house show tag. I will hoover up the slop on any random WWF house show handheld from the early 90s, but is there anyone out there who would get excited to watch a Sheamus/Hardy vs. Rollins/Theory handheld? This went on too long for what it overall accomplished, and I think it was a mistake to make this seem like a long epic instead of a quick paced showcase. Nobody could look at this match and think it makes for a useful Brand Showcase, and if a Brand Supremacy match can't do that then what did it really do? 

Vince needs to do more eccentric unhinged billionaire stuff like silently pantomime with a golden egg, because what the fuck else would we need from him at this point? 

This Brand Battle Royal is not a serious match and doesn't need to be considered as one. This is a Pizza Hut commercial and not a battle royal, and we don't need to act like this matters and that Colored T-Shirt Wrestling isn't one of the stupider features of modern WWE Survivor Series. 

The Usos vs. Randy Orton/Matt Riddle

ER: A not bad tag that relies on the strong timing of Randy Orton and Jey Uso. Riddle has been having a tough to watch year, with some of the worst vignettes and listless in-ring. We all get in ruts and his rut has been difficult to see so frequently this year. But it's fairly effective have him sell, run into nicely timed Jey Uso superkicks, and make dumb faces until making the big hot tag to Orton. Orton has always been a strong apron guy and he's been utilizing his apron work well in this tag team. Apron work is one of those skills that will keep on aging wrestler's floor high with me, and I like how Orton keeps leaning on it as a strength. He's good at tossing Usos around and hitting snap powerslams, and his RKO on the Jey superfly splash looked like a great finish. This match benefitted from its lackluster surroundings, but still earned enough of its status as "the best this show has given us".

Bianca Belair/Carmella/Liv Morgan/Rhea Ripley/Zelina Vega vs. Sasha Banks/Shayna Baszler/Toni Storm/Shotzi Blackheart/Natalya 

ER: I like how this looks on paper, this looks like a match I want to see! The women all have blue/red-accented gear is such a better look than the t-shirts. This looks like a real joshi final battle where everyone is taking this seriously. Guys wrestling in red t-shirts look like employees participating in a mandatory 5K.  The pace of this match is much better than the pace of the men's match. It's a shame Carmella went out so early, but Natalya did that weird thing where she memorably shows up in a match with 10 people, and I liked Baszler rolling on the mat with Ripley. The match was already the most fun of the night when we got to the great Sasha/Bianca section. WrestleMania feels like an eternity ago but their match was the best WWE match of this year and their in-ring chemistry still has a lot to offer. When they're in the ring together they really feel like the two biggest stars in the company, the two closest to being chopped down, and there are few people who actually feel like stars when I watch them. Bianca's kip-ups look punched with confidence and Sasha is able to convey the same kind of "can you believe this shit?" attitude Charlotte shouts to the back row but using only her eyes. 

Sadly, we hit a bad patch right after those two megastars made the crowd sit up and pay attention, with some quick eliminations and suddenly several women all lying dead around the ringside area selling mystery injuries. This isn't a ladder match, why are they all suddenly doing ladder match disappearance selling? A few dumb do-si-do moments on the floor lead to a Sasha count out in completely unsatisfying fashion, and the way Bianca goes from being down 4-1 to eliminating Baszler and Shotzi felt forced and cheap. The disappearance selling takes away a lot of the charm of a charismatic Survivor Series match, a series that can benefit from apron work. These women get so out of sight while selling nothing that you forget who is even still in the match! You could have made Belair look really really good while also having her plausibly fight off Shotzi and Baszler, but this felt like suddenly everybody had to be somewhere and it killed the buzz. 

Big E vs. Roman Reigns

ER: I think this was a good match, but these Roman matches have really become the blown out 150 minute MCU epic instead of the tight 90 minute action and stunts movies that he could be having. This was a long show, filled with long matches that mostly didn't deliver, and you need to be better at reading the arena than this main event was. This was a cold, tired crowd and that did not lead to any kind of pace being pushes AT ALL. That said, Roman did his specific thing that - love it or hate it - did turn a dead silent crowd into a slightly more involved crowd the longer he stuck to his routine, and there's some respect there. In its favor, even though the melodrama of them getting to the action was at times too much, when the action was gotten to it looked like a well done Godzilla/Mothra collision. Big E took some hard bumps for Roman's biggest stuff, and that uranage on the shoulders looked deadly. Roman's punches all looked big and the deadlift powerbomb was impressive. I wish we could have made this more of an unpredictable Brock bombfest and gotten out of here quicker, but they made the good stuff look good and that stands out on this show. 

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2021 Ongoing MOTY List: Kingston/Penta vs. Young Bucks

37. Eddie Kingston/Penta El Zero Miedo vs. The Young Bucks AEW Dynamite 6/30 

ER: This is the exact kind of match anyone who goes to Dynamite wants to see, a match AEW has been delivering pretty consistently since they began. Kingston and Penta weren't really a team I foresaw happening, but they've gotten pretty glued together. The Young Bucks have new facial hair and and dingle ball headbands and look like a couple chooglers who just added a sitar player to their band. Kingston and Penta have some real cool double teams, some good ways to combine their offense. Early on Penta stomps on Matt Jackson's taint from the top and Excalibur says he is "punishing the perineum". There's a couple beats of silence before Schiavone roars in with "Did you say punishing the perineum?" 

The Bucks work this as a cocky team who aren't thinking they will lose, which is a tough attitude to take opposite a guy like Kingston who will fight hard even when he knows he is going to lose. But, the Bucks do a double team fistdrop and that is a kind of cockiness I will always support. There are several great moments of Kingston going up against both Bucks where he decides to not treat their offense seriously, taking both of their little kicks as he stands with his back to them, eating more superkicks than he should late in the match, because Kingston doesn't always fight the smartest fight, and there are no better emotional fighters in wrestling. Kingston gets a nice superplex and makes a hot tag, and there's an awesome nearfall when Penta hits a corkscrew code red for a VERY late kickout from Matt. The crowd thought they saw the win and Jackson was hilarious with prayer hands and upturned eyes thanking the lord above for guiding the referee's hand a bit too slowly to the mat. The back stretch is loaded with bullshit but I thought it was all highly entertaining, a bunch of ECW run-in misdirection, Kingston showing he would have been the all time best Tommy Dreamer, Penta taking out a bunch of people with a tope con giro, a great Nick Jackson ball shot to King, and a sick 1-2 finish of a Penta stuff piledriver and King backfist. Helluva way to start an episode of TV. 

PAS: This was a bunch of fun, maximilist Young Bucks tags aren't my thing, but Eddie Kingston is great at working match styles I don't like and bringing me into them. I loved all of his hulking up, the semi-no sell of the superkick, only to get smashed with two more was great. He is a hell of a face in peril, and my favorite part of the match was Eddie working under and making the big tag. Penta isn't really one of my guys either, but he was fun in the hot tag role. Finish run of nonsense worked well (although I don't miss the Good Brothers at all) and led to a big moment of the Kingston and Penta team overcoming the odds and getting a big win. Really fun TV match. 

2021 MOTY MASTER LIST

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE EDDIE KINGSTON

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New Footage Friday: SABU~! PSICOSIS ~! REY JR! KANEMOTO! SAMURAI~! DEVIL'S REJECTS! CASKET!

Psicosis/Sabu vs. Rey Mysterio Jr./Konnan IWAS 7/1/95 - FUN

PAS: This is from John Arezzi's Patreon and a cool chance to see Psic and Rey at their young peak. This is JIP which is a shame because Psicosis and Rey opening sections are usually huge highlights. This was them doing a lot of TJ/ECW stuff, like cookie sheets and chair shots. That isn't what you want really out of 1995 Rey Jr., although there were some real moments, including a nasty springboard rolling senton. Sabu absolutely eats shit through a ringside table, and sometimes you forget about Sabu, but you shouldn't. Konnan had some nice clotheslines, but was Konnan. Fun little snapshot of a time. 

MD: We come in somewhere in the segunda here and it's impossible to say that what we haven't isn't a lot of fun, even if it's not at all complete. Right at the get go, the rudos take over, and Sabu is beautifully cast as a rudo, with Rey as a perfect receptacle for his body thrashing assault. He hits all the classics, contorting off a springboard, using a non-folding plastic chair as a launching pad, twice, and hitting the Arabian Facebuster with some sort of metal tray. You have to applaud Psicosis' restraint, as I've seen him do some crazy things, but here he didn't follow any of Sabu's antics and try to outdo him (he might have been able to but at the expense of a year or two of his lifespan), though he did hit a pretty nice moonsault. When the tecnicos come back in the tercera, it's by whacking skulls with said metal tray. All of this builds to Sabu absolutely wiping out through a table as Konnan moves. It was definitely a shame that we lost the opening exchanges but Konnan wasn't exactly zooming about in the bits of offense he got in late, so maybe it's not the end of the world. What we got was more or less what you'd imagine it to be, so long as you imagined slightly more Sabu than Rey.


Koji Kanemoto vs. El Samurai NJPW 3/17/96

SR: Crazy stiff match that builds to a huge finish. A nice reminder of how good the NJPW juniors could be in the 90s. Samura is fired up to begin, slapping the taste out of Kanemotos mouth before hitting a big dive. Samurai is this weird guy who is often dull but when he‘s on he‘s pretty great. He was on here working like Fit Finlay, dropping elbows across Kanemotos face, even headbutting him in the nose. Of course Kanemoto is a right fucker too and when he comes back he cracks Samurai with nasty stomps to the skull and kicks to the ribs. The whole match was pretty much all guys stubbornly sinking into submissions, not cooperating on basic moves and brutalizing each other. It builds to a pretty big crescendo, Kanemoto is slapping around Samurai, pulling him up spitting on him. He goes for a big German Suplex off the apron (you know, this was before moves like that were thrown out 10 times a month) but hits his own head weakening himself, his hatred got the better off him. Samurai in desperation mode trying to inch out a win after being beaten to a pulp was great, hell this whole thing was pretty great. Apaprently before there was only an 8 minute TV version of this available before so praise the lord for handhelds like this so we can get the full undistilled brutality.

PAS: This was killer stuff, a lot more based around stiffness and grappling then I remember from this period. 70% of the match was hard nasty grappling and forceful stiff shots. I loved those short elbows which Samurai was throwing across the bridge of Kanemoto's nose and his cheeks and Koji of course is going to respond in kind. The Kanemoto kimura counter of Samurai's German Suplex was incredible looking and the big spot section at the end had appropriately big spots. Spots on the apron are an overused thing in wrestling today, but not in 1996 and the German on the Apron was incredible stuff. Very cool this showed up in a more full format. 

MD: Liger vs Otani from the same show has been out there and talked about but this didn't get released in full apparently, which is a shame as it's both a title change and a hell of a battle. They get time on this and work it that way, mixing holds and hard shots and then escalating into bombs. Samurai's great early on after an match-starting tope, just bullying Kanemoto all over the ring, switching holds anytime Kanemoto starts to come back. It's all both perfectly smooth while still being accented by nasty shots. While Samurai had an advantage early and Kanemoto has an advantage late, a lot of this feels very even, full of gamesmanship, even if no one can chip away at a specific body part. It's a theme throughout with them going for similar moves and managing similar counters. The bombs, when they come, are outright huge, a reversed suplex to the floor, a kick off the top to a head dangling on the ropes, the German onto the apron that crushes both guys. This leads to Kanemoto's advantage and a great finishing stretch with the sort of parallels we've seen all match where it could have gone either way. Exciting stuff.

Devil's Rejects (Dominus/Iceberg/Azriel/Rev. Dan Wilson) vs. Team Anarchy (Jerry Palmer/Jason Justice/Micky Free/Abyss) NWA Anarchy 11/4/06

PAS: Dan Wilson talked about this match on my podcast it was the end of the Team Anarchy vs. Devil's Rejects feud and the start of Reject's vs. NWA Elite. It wasn't the bloodbath brawl I was expecting, this was worked mainly as a straight main event six man tag. Lots of big showdowns and some booking but mostly a traditional match. Abyss was fun as a guy getting hyped for a hot tag, but Abyss vs. Dominus punch exchanges are no bueno. Iceberg was a fun momentum eraser, just killing folks with big splashes. They really put over Palmer, as he is suplexing and spearing the heels, gets the dramatic stretcher to the back only to return, and finishes off Rev. Dan by stabbing him. Definitely left the crowd satisfied, especially with the AJ Styles cameo. 

MD: If we've learned anything from all of this Anarchy footage it's that they knew how to lay out these big matches. Here, Abyss was the special attraction on the side of NWA Anarchy's team, with fireman owner Palmer involved on one side and satanic emissary Wilson on the other. They went out of their way to shine up Palmer early on knowing he'd get taken out by Iceberg and it was a tricky balance. Azrael was in there to take his stuff and outside of a back body drop and some of the moments where Palmer just threw himself at him, it didn't look all that great. Obviously, it wouldn't have worked against Dominus or Iceberg but you didn't want him getting his hands on Wilson before he came back from being stretchered out either. If I was laying this out, I would have had him get a few more assists from his partners as he was hitting his stuff. Punching Azrael in the corner so he could hit a big shot from Justice or Free or Abyss and then Palmer could hit something. That's a nitpick though.

Abyss was a great cheerleader on the apron and it was fun when he was in there working with Justice Served. Once Palmer got taken out, Wilson served as just enough of an irritant to rationalize the heel advantage. It all built to the implement of destruction being unleashed and Palmer's return before things got cute (but in a crowd-pleasing way) with Tempers interfering and AJ Styles making a surprise appearance. I would have liked to see the Casket play into things a bit more before the finish. That's my only other nitpick. Even if it was just a few more shots in there. In general, it's no surprise the promotion lasted so long if it was giving fans moments like this and the others we've seen so often though.

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WWF 305 Live: Akeem vs. Hogan!

Akeem vs. Hulk Hogan WWF SNME 1/7/89 - GREAT

ER: This is a real important show in my personal pro wrestling history, as it was the first episode of Saturday Night's Main Event that I saw. It reminds me of that great feeling when you're a kid and you discover that a thing like Pro Wrestling exists, and you learn about new wrestlers every week, and you piece together information about all of them and mentally fill in their histories. At this point I had discovered WWF weekend AM TV shows Superstars and Wrestling Challenge, but I didn't realize SNME was a regularly scheduled special event. This was the first one my dad taped for me, meaning this was a show I watched a ton. I didn't know who half the people were on this show, but I came to be very familiar with all of them (and this was probably my only tape, for a long time, that had a Ron Bass match on it). I had no idea who Akeem was before this show, but I remember that Akeem dancing his way through selling for Hogan strikes was a huge hit with me. 

Akeem looks massive here, vibing his way to the ring with a never bigger Boss Man, then dance selling his way through the match. He did terrible moonwalks on offense, hit Hogan with clubbing arms, and did variations on the electric slide while taking many Hogan right hands. Akeem is great at waddling around a ring and making faces like a mammoth Dom Deluise, then takes some big flat bumps off Hogan axe bombers. Boss Man and Slick were working overtime too, with both taking big bumps off the apron. Giving Hogan several targets that all fall in spectacular ways is a smart way to organize a Hogan match, keep him busy and constantly battling enemies, crowd stays hot, etc. Boss Man seriously takes three different big falls off the apron, with the best being Hogan running Akeem into Boss Man. Boss Man gets hit and holds the top rope while doing a huge power squat, butt hanging way over the edge of the apron, before hitting the floor with a big splat. 

This whole match was so dominantly Hogan, that when we hit our mid-match twist the crowd gets furious at how much the Twin Towers are running the board. Akeem pulls Hebner into the way of another axe bomber, Boss Man nails Hogan with the night stick, and then we get a couple glorious minutes of the Twin Towers falling repeatedly onto Hogan like he was an NYC firefighter reliving the worst day of his life. Akeem doesn't so much do "standing splashes" as he gets a couple inches off the ground before horizontally flattening Hogan. Over and over, two fat monsters just splashing Hogan, as garbage starts to rain into the ring. Now of course we get a Hulk Up and Akeem runs into the big boot in an amusing way, but Boss Man draws the DQ which saves Akeem from a legdrop. I need to find any of the Hogan/Gang singles matches from 87/88 to see how they hold up to our only existing Hogan/Akeem match. Those likely won't have any dance selling so they are probably worse.  

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE 305 LIVE

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Chilanga Mask Love Letters

Hello, I'm Siobhan Gear. I cohost the Wrestling Is Gross podcast with my friend Bucky Barnett, which both Eric and Phil have guested on multiple times. I'd love to get the box set of Segunda Caida contributors on the show-- truly, I can't wait to Skype TomK through a payphone. I love pro wrestling and good pro wrestling criticism, first reading Death Valley Driver just over seventeen years ago (in the unlikely event that any of you have forgotten that time is an awful bitch). It's an honor to write for Segunda Caida.


Chilanga Mask has largely gone dormant after Dhani Ledesma started promoting under the Lucha Memes name but its anniversary shows have kept the energy alive with some truly brutal main events and apuestas. This year gave us two shows and three enticing matches that keep up the running rivalries over the last four-five years, so I thought that a look back at some of them was much deserved.


Black Terry vs. Makabre vs. Mr. Maldito vs. The Platino vs. Solar vs. Trauma I vs. Trauma II Chilanga Mask 4/23/17

SG: Billed as a ruleta de la muerte but worked as a reverse cibernético where the last two left fight it out for their hair/mask. This is a really perfect example of an indie lucha match lineup giving you all that you could want: old legends slumming it, fat guys, scummy guys, two sets of brothers, and the guys you least know stealing the show. And most of these guys fit in multiple categories! Action starts before we even hit the ring with Makabre jumping Trauma II from behind the curtain and then we’re off to the races as all seven participants loosely pair off and start hitting stiff chops and chair shots. Trauma I threatens to carve up sweet old Solar with a broken beer bottle before the maestro fends him off with some adorable granny-ass chairshots. There’s nowhere in the world where crowd brawling comes off better than Coliseo Coacalco so everything stays hot early. 

Solar & Terry are the first two who save themselves after the match progresses to staying in the ring because yeah, they’re really old, leading into an extended stretch of Maldito/Platino (aka the phenomenally named “Las Torres Gemelas de la Maldad”, the Twin Towers of Evil) and the Traumas working a tag match with Makabre in to stir shit and look like he has scurvy. Great almost-nearfall with T2 saving T1 after a true Vadersault by Mr. Maldito only for Platino to punish T2 & Makabre with a wild tope con giro and Maldito to pick up the crushed scraps of Trauma I and save himself. Los Torres have spent almost all of their career in Baja feds which is, off of the basis of this match, indefensible on the part of DF promoters. Enough time passes for T1 to recover and get a lo negro del negro on the buzzarding Platino to not seem egregious but only just enough. Trauma II has begun to pour like a fountain as we get down to the nitty gritty. Platino gets a big fat miss on a dive to the dirt that should have ripped a nipple off and it’s all downhill for him from there, though he does valiantly fight out of two negro del negros before a few brutal kicks to the mush and a headscissors armbar put him down. No shame in losing your mask after this performance.

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Tuesday is French Catch Day: Van Buyten! Bollet! Delaporte! Mr. Montreal! de Zarzecki!

Andre Bollet vs. Franz van Buyten 1969

MD: As we'd already covered the Andre match from 68, here's our first real look in this chronological process at Franz Van Buyten in a nice long 2/3 falls singles match with Bollet. They were doing something weird here where the commentating was for the crowd. I say this a lot with Bollet, but this felt like another iconic match-up. Van Buyten is an amazing seller, one of the best ever, maybe, at drawing sympathy, at full body selling, selling of exhaustion and damage, and drawing the crowd into his big, righteous comebacks. And Bollet, of course, portrays one of the biggest shitbag jerks ever, who despite his obvious talent, which here includes a nice up and over counter, an Indian Deathlock, the somersault senton that ends the first fall, deserves everything he gets. Unlike some of the 2/3 falls tags we've seen lately, this felt perfectly balanced, with a very hard-worked, gritty feeling out period to start, with Bollet starting to cheat and Van Buyten firing back, leading to a nice bit of heat as Bollet kept tossing Van Buyten out, one that got so heated that they brought in someone from the crowd (maybe a weird plant) who took his shirt off and brandished a cane, and then a big comeback in the second fall, with plenty of revenge spots with Bollet tied up, before they went more even (though with a clear Van Buyten advantage) towards the banana peel finish and the post-match brawling. This was a beloved hero against a terrible villain and everything you'd want along those lines.

SR: On paper this should've been good, but in practice this was really long. It seems Bollet was past it at this point. He could still hit hard, but was struggling to kill time when controlling the action. Van Buyten always sells big and makes stuff look hard fought, but in this case the match took forever to get anywhere. We eventually got the signature Van Buyten comeback. Miserable ending. At least we got to see Van Buyten slug it out with Bollet on the floor. That was more exciting than anything that came before.

PAS: I am closer to Matt than Sebastian on this one. I thought it was pretty great with Bollet being really brutal, landing senton's so nasty that Van Buyten seemed to be nearly puking, hard forearms and uppercuts. We had the wildness of a fan (or plant) running in and some really heated Van Buyten comebacks at the end. I am into the idea of a babyface getting so fired up that he crotches the heel on the top rope, only to realize he went too far. 

Andre Bollet/Roger Delaporte vs Mr. Montreal/Warnia de Zarzecki 1/25/69

MD: We'd seen this tag a few years earlier, but here everyone's a little older, and excitingly enough, the match is in color. I can't say the color adds all that much, though. Delaporte looks a little greyer, maybe. The crowd seems a little more vivid on close-ups. The ring apron is very red. And this match follows many others we've seen, a long first fall with the back half full of heat and two short falls of babyface supremacy to make up for it. Bollet and Delaporte are, of course, masters of controlling the ring and they show that here. They'll get outwrestled and outpunched by their opponents but all it'll take is one moment to get control of things in their own corner once again. They played up Delaporte's age a bit more now, though he was old when he was young, always writhing and wincing even though he'd hit like a truck. Bollet seemed as athletic as ever, able to hit those somersault sentons and go up and over to escape a hold, plus bumping and stooging all around the ring and getting in fights with random members of the crowd (and here, the camera crew as well). We know Montreal and Zarzecki were good and they seemed it here even if they didn't stand out (even in their own usual ways like Montreal's strength) relative to other stylist teams we've seen lately.

SR: 2/3 falls match going about 30 minutes. This was in color. It kind of made you wonder, where the other matches from the time period also in colour and this was just the only one that happened to get archived in color? Or were they testing the technology here? Eitherway, the match wasn't much special. Some gnarly heel beatdowns and technico control segments, but nothing you haven't seen in better tags. Warnia and Mr. Montreal seemed somewhat subdued. Bollet and Delaporte still made for a decent heel tandom, at least. The last 2 falls were microscopic and I had to wonder if the match would've been better in more evenly spread out form.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death Week of 11/8-11/14

AEW Dark 11/9 (Taped 11/5)

Darby Allin vs. QT Marshall

MD: This was about getting a crowd that was owed stars a look at Darby. The pre-match promo by QT saying he'd do a favor to a friend and soften Darby up for MJF was just a way to try to put a little more heat on a throwaway webshow match. I have a lot of thoughts about QT actually. He's apparently Khan's Bruce or Fink (probably somewhere in the middle), the guy he'll call to talk booking plans at 4 am and that conveys a lot of the messages forward. Wrestling in AEW wasn't actually a given for him; it just sort of happened. He's also an experienced journeyman wrestler, has fairly decent size, can hit stuff. I saw him vs Danielson in 2010 in Puerto Rico a couple of weeks ago. AEW has an unbalanced, large amount of undercard heels though, and while it's possible, maybe, if all the stars align, that he gets some sort of DDP run that gets over, he'd have so much more value to the promotion if he started to work more like a manager. There are a bunch of managers and seconds on the roster, but they're all older and shouldn't be bumping or more non-wrestling looking guys like Andrade's assistant. I get why QT wants to go out and be more of a player/coach than just a coach of the Factory though. I just don't think he has as much value as he might leaning hard, at 36, into being what Paul Jones and JJ Dillon were five years later in 83.

Ok, the match: Early on, I liked how all the motion was about getting over Darby; Marshall would use his strength to redirect Allin or force him up, but it was all about Darby smoothly recovering and keeping the motion going. Darby countering the suplex in midair with a kick is the third time in a week I saw that sort of spot. Have I just not been paying attention or is it a new zeitgeist spot thing? I like it, but not if it's overdone. Anyway, it's not that Marshall's belly to belly and top rope headbutt didn't look good, but he probably would have stood out more on the show with a chinlock with his feet on the ropes and a Memphis headlock hiding a punch. I liked the comeback and the suddenness of the coffin drop, where instead of just sitting around, you could buy that Marshall had no idea where he was or what was about to happen. Ok showcase match for Darby for the crowd but I still think it would be good for Marshall to see the hole in the promotion and gravitate towards it.

AEW Dynamite 11/10

Bryan Danielson vs. Rocky Romero

ER: I've heard recently of the Rocky Romero Renaissance, but I'm still a skeptic. If Danielson is going to have matches that I've already seen him have 15+ years ago in CA, then I am still more excited for the upcoming matches against Larry Blackwell, Scott Lost, and Jardi Frantz. Still, this is the same kind of very good TV match that Danielson has been having for a long time now, and those will always be satisfying. I liked how Danielson took Romero's offense, like catching a rana off the ring steps or taking a hard back bump off a tope, and I liked Romero trying to spam the cross-armbreaker (as if anyone in attendance thought Danielson was going to tap to a Rocky Romero submission). I wish Romero did some more interesting things to set up the armbars, as other than a cool knee to Danielson's shoulder it was pretty much him doing Rocky Romero Offense and then just trying for the same cross-armbreaker from the same position. They sold throughout like they had already each worked a match, and that was kind of odd, and it felt like there were missing steps in this, as if those glue moments happened somewhere else and nobody will ever get to see that full match footage. But this was a fun Danielson TV match, and it's his own fault for consistently crafting matches better than this one that a match like this can come off Less Than. 

PAS: I am coming off watching Romero kill it with Negro Casas live, so I am at a high point in my Romero fandom. I was into this, it is fun to watch Danielson work as a skilled counter mat wrestler. Romero isn't Drew Gulak, but this match had some of that same energy. I especially loved the last couple of minutes, which were all about trying to grab something and twist. The finish with Romero flattening out to stop the LeBell lock, only for Danielson to switch to the Tequila Sunrise was sick stuff. Danielson is a guy who can come out of nowhere to get you and this was great example of that. 

AEW All In 11/13

33. Darby Allin vs. MJF

MD: I get the build was about MJF winning with a side headlock takeover, and everyone lauded the Malenko/Guerrero opening bits, but they built this with MJF mocking Darby Allin's dead uncle, so maybe that wasn't the way to go? It worked out fine, as Darby would be stepping on MJF's throat on the apron a couple of minutes later and with the goading skateboard finish, but it was all a little too cutesy with mirrored body language and synchronized timing on lifting shoulders up and what not. I think there would have been a way to do this with MJF going for the side headlock over and over and Darby having to reverse and counter that would have been both more logical and story-driven as opposed to chain wrestling for the sake of it. Once the match actually got going and became about Darby's back and ultimately, after backbreaker after backbreaker, MJF's leg, it was very good. Darby's going to bump and sell around the ring as well as anyone on the roster and I liked the variations. If they felt gratuitous, it's because MJF is such a troll. Shame on the announcers for not being able to call the Billy Robinson backbreaker though. 

The leg was a way for Darby to believably stay in it without ever totally taking over the match. MJF's timing for Darby's tope and the camera angle for Darby running across the ring wasn't quite as good as the one with Sting and 2.0 but it was a close second. I liked how MJF used the Scorpion Deathlock and Darby used the figure-four which almost felt like the heel was using the face submission and the face the heel submission. MJF shouldn't have been able to turn it; the heel ought to get to the ropes in that situation instead. That's a nitpick though. The things that hit well, like the code red reversal into a power bomb, hit really well, and the match more specific spots that worked than didn't. I liked the finish. Maybe I would have liked it a little more if he had taken the ring bell because they were aping the Savage/Steamboat stuff as well. The deal with the Savage/Steamboat Mania match is that they'd already worked all of the hate-filled revenge matches around the loop so all that was left was wrestling and the title. This match tried to balance the two a little more and the ultimate result was impressive but maybe a bit uneven.

PAS: I thought this was really excellently worked, but had one too many ideas. I thought the opening of the match actually worked well. Darby was trying to answer MJF's taunts about his wrestling ability by hanging with him with counter wrestling. Darby has such incredible body control that it is really a pleasure to watch him do that stuff. I also liked MJF getting frustrated with being matched move for move and unloading with the cheap shot. The second part of the match, with Darby having the bad back from the missed apron coffin drop and MJF constantly crushing his own knee trying offense was neat too. That avalanche powerbomb counter of the code red, and the powerbomb on the knee were both incredible looking offensive moves. I didn't love going back to the Malenko vs. Guerrero roll ups, felt like that part of the match had passed, and MJF doing the spot with the skateboard and the ring felt like something this match didn't need. Almost like a TV show with too many plot lines, it felt like you could have saved some stuff for a future match.

ER: This was an incredible match yet I wish they had decided to drop a few of their ideas (as if they won't fight again and won't need something to use in that next match) and I wish it didn't have the first couple and last couple minutes. This match is something that excelled far past the headlock takeover and Malenko/Guerrero roll-ups and it's the bulk of the match that I loved so much. Once things moved past fast count roll-ups where shoulders aren't even touching the mat and moved into MJF working over Darby's back, they hit on something really special. I think MJF is an underrated in-ring guy and a vastly overrated promo guy, and this match was a testament to how far his in-ring has come. I loved the story of him destroying Darby's back at the expense of killing his own knees. Darby splats fantastically onto the ring apron on a missed Coffin Drop, one of those falls that would have me laid up for a week, and MJF wastes no time exploiting it. MJF's best in-ring attribute at this point might be that he's really great at being the "smart dumb guy", planning out a smart strategy but able to be lead away from that or continuing his strategy as it hurts him. This was a great match for that, and his work over Darby's back was really punishing. 

"Big move onto my own knee" offense almost always looks stupid, but MJF's powerbomb onto his own knee looked absolutely crushing, like Darby's spine should be completely misaligned. There's an incredible spot where Darby fights for a code red, and MJF fights it into a kind of cursed splash mountain. He drops Darby with backbreakers that look devastating, and his knee selling is so good that even as Darby is getting crushed you get the sense that he has ins. I am happy the crowd rose to their feet while they were both rolling around like goofs getting 2 counts for things that weren't even close to pins, but I hated that choice with a passion and thought it really distracted from everything they had done. The match had become something different and much better than they had initially started with, and it felt like a major regression - not a callback or joined loop - when we went back to that shit. The cheapshot leading to the side headlock takeover win was well done, and the bulk of the match is incredible, bookended by some things that a 22 minute match did not need. 


16. Bryan Danielson vs. Miro

MD: This one was all about Miro controlling the pace. Danielson would try to turn on his asylum-escapee-no-longer-straightjacketed adrenaline and Miro would just shut him down. It's interesting Danielson didn't target the neck earlier. He even went out and said that would be his gameplan when he was on commentary on Dynamite. The leg was bandaged but he didn't gain much ground there either. What's going to stand out, what we'll remember years from now about this one, was Miro taking three shots from Danielson just to hit one of his own. Miro, being one of the great vulnerable monsters in wrestling history, knew exactly how much to give and in doing so put over both the kicks and himself. The finish was sudden and ugly but in a good way given that you needed something out of the ordinary to explain Miro's collapse after a match where he was getting chipped away at but still seemed to have a lot of armor left.

PAS: Danielson has been such a force during his AEW run, it was really cool to watch him run into someone he couldn't just overwhelm. Miro's strength allowed him to shrug off Danielson's submission attempts like Kimo on Royce Gracie, and Miro has one punch KO power. Miro does really cool versions of my two least favorite current wrestling tropes: his religious fanatic cursing god is the best possible version of NXT shocked face, and the Bolo Yeung style offering of his ribs is the coolest strike exchange you can get.  I loved the finish, it looked really awkward in the best way, with Danielson just spiking Miro on his bad neck from the top in a way which almost looked like an accident. Breaking someone's neck is a great way to crack a brick wall.

ER: You know it's a great match when you get a classic fired up Danielson performance where he's leaning  into the prospects of getting a potentially deadly concussion, and get to see an equally fired up career high performance from his opponent. For several years now Miro has felt like an absolute dead in the water guy, doomed to either not live up to or not get the chance to ever really show how far he can go. I had completely written Miro off, a guy whose big run feels much further in the rearview than its actual six years. Rusev Day was four years ago? Feels like a decade. When he joined AEW and immediately started goofing around with the worst act on the roster? I thought he was unrecoverable. Now, Danielson has been on a genuine tear in 2021, having high end matches all year with everyone, and it's really easy to credit Danielson and Eddie Kingston for Miro's big resurgence...but he is clearly a changed man. 

Lean mean crazed eyed murderous Miro looks like the star that Believers have been saying is there since before the Cena win. Danielson *could* have worked this great match with just about anyone on the AEW roster, but Miro helped this get to a higher level because Miro felt legitimate. Miro looked like a New Japan Red Army psycho here, hammering into every part of Danielson's body and responding to Danielson's kicks and elbows with more violence. Miro took all of Danielson's offense and made it look damaging, while making himself look properly unmanageable, and it's a really impressive window to hit this well. He threw Danielson so wildly overhead, and Danielson is a maniac who will take great throws on his head and shoulder, and that kind of give and take punishment made this feel like a FUTEN fight. Miro takes a DDT on the top of his head that made him look like the guy on the cautionary Check Pool For Water sign, and the KO stoppage from that looked great, like Kurisu shoot knocking a dude out but still locking in a submission. 

2. Eddie Kingston vs. CM Punk - EPIC

PAS: An absolute classic. The build on this match was tremendous and they went out and delivered everything in the ring. So many brawls these days are full of elaborate set-ups for stunt bumps or weapons shots, so it is great to see an old fashioned fist fight. I enjoy someone getting hit with a chair, I love it even more when it is a fist.  Kingston laying Punk out before the bell with a backfist and laughing maniacally was a great start, as was a dazed Punk flipping him off from the floor. We were off from there with great hard shots from both guys, Kingston delivering some of his epic selling (both GTS's felt like he got hit in the head with a shovel), and Punk leaning into his assholeness. I thought the Cena taunt was great (although I could have done without the Guerrero tribute, I get why he did it, but not this match), and Punk really looked deranged with blood flowing down his face. I loved near the end when both guys were slumped in the corner, and they rose up to maybe the only good looking Frye vs. Takayama exchange in wrestling history (non-Necro Butcher division). I am torn on the finish. I really am so invested in Eddie at this point that any time he loses it pisses me off, but hopefully they keep this going and its leads to Eddie's moment. There is so much meat left on the bone.

MD: Totally unique, unbridled match, with a lot to pull apart. Was it a case where the match got away from Punk in the most amazing ways or was it the plan all along? They definitely got the mood right here to start, with Punk skipping all of his usual pre-match antics and getting right to it, only to walk right into the backfist. That said, while it never really let up from there, it did take a somewhat bizarre turn. The blood came early, to the point where Punk worked most of the match with it and the back half of the match with it basically dried all over his face. I'm not sure I've ever been more disappointed with announcers than in this one. They left so many potential hooks on the table, and with Khan's post-match comments about the boos for Punk being like Rock's at Mania vs. Hogan, I can only imagine some of the way the match turned wasn't entirely the plan. Those boos came late in the match when Punk pounced on a mostly defenseless Kingston with the elbows and knees, though. They weren't facile boos. They weren't boos in a bubble. They weren't goofy Canadian nostalgia boos. The fans specifically disliked what Punk the wrestler chose to do in that moment. It was heat. And it had been something building in the match until then. 

Before that, Punk clearly disrespected Kingston by hitting the Cena spots. Even with the blood coming down his face, that's what he chose to do against this opponent, with this issue, in this setting. Then there was the moment that the crowd first went from dueling chants to chanting solely for Eddie, a real turning point in the match. How did Punk respond to it? By deciding it was time to do the Guerrero tribute (the third or fourth of the night at that). Whether or not it was genuine and heartfelt and whether or not it just happened to be the point in the match when it was originally planned, it came off as a complete jerk move, using Eddy's memory as a way to willfully (and pettily!) misunderstand and twist how the crowd had decided to solely get behind Kingston with their chants. In the end, even if the announcers didn't pick up on virtually any of it, even if Khan seemed to indicate it was something else in the media scrum, I'm pretty certain Punk knew what he was doing, and it all added to the animosity in the match and got the crowd more and more behind Kingston and his defiance. Ultimately, I had a sense that Punk, the character, was punishing Kingston for ruining his fun, and though it seemed like he was offering his respect with the handshake post-match, to me, there was something else going on entirely. Hopefully this isn't the end of it, because there are still places for this one to go.

ER: Not many matches can come off as both a feud blowoff and a feud starter that's merely laying the groundwork for the danger to come, but this managed to do that while being 25% shorter than the next shortest match on the PPV. I had no idea how the fans would react to this one and wasn't sure they would turn on either man (I was expecting far more Both These Guys type chants) and loved how Punk was able to draw those boos WHILE being busted and without resorting to any kind of actual cheating. Punk drew heat by just choosing the best moment to throw grounded punches at Eddie Kingston, a man who talks constantly about how much he loves punching and being punched. Punk and Kingston understand the moments and the context within their matches, and they understand how to use it to add even more depth and then pay that depth off. 

I'm with Phil, in that Kingston matches are some of the few in modern wrestling where I stop thinking about who will be booked to win, because I only want to see Eddie Kingston win. Eddie Kingston makes me root for his victory in the same way I root for the Giants to win (presumably) shoot baseball games. But he's so easy to connect to that I also root his stupid decisions, especially if they seem like its what he personally wanted. I didn't want to see Kingston get nailed with a GTS, but I cannot deny the man the joy of popping up before getting hit with one. Kingston took both GTS as effectively as any man can, and I love how Punk has shifted his delivery and selling of the delivery. The move doesn't look sloppy, as it used to, and now just looks difficult to hit, and like it takes more out of him TO hit it. Those are conscious changes to a small part of a wrestler's game, and seeing someone evolve their game like that always catches my attention. These two catch my attention, and I want to see them evolve this feud. 

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Borga Stepped Into My Life from a Magazine

Ludvig Borga vs. Tatanka  WWF Superstars 10/30/93 - EPIC

ER: It's crazy that this match was on Superstars, because this match felt like something that easily should have taken place on the upcoming Survivor Series PPV. Borga was positioned as the #2 heel at this point and Tatanka was at worst the #4 babyface (behind Bret, Luger, and Razor). Both had undefeated streaks, with Tatanka's now at 20 months, and it would have made way more sense to give this match a PPV platform. I love the Rock n Roll Express but there's no reason they needed a match at Survivor Series when this could have been positioned 2nd from the top. This was really Borga's first big singles match (outside of house shows, he dominated Marty Jannetty at Summerslam, so really the only opponent TV viewers would have seen give him even minor trouble would have been Virgil), so the first real opportunity to see a star get actual offense against him. 

Tatanka was a popular attraction at this point, a popular babyface who did nothing but win matches. But this match is probably the first time I ever heard him get a USA chant, and this match was really the first time the WWF heavily billed him as "An American, Defending America". Despite calling him a Native American often, I am sure many fans viewed him as a foreigner, because wrestling fans don't always have a firm understanding of race and cultural heritage. But here Tatanka was An American, Defending America, after having only previously served as The 4th Most Patriotic American At Best. Now a Proud Native American, Tatanka was never before treated as American as Hogan, Duggan, or Randy Savage - specifically during the 11 summer weeks of 1993 when Savage presumably lived in and slept in his stars & stripes sequined tuxedo and matching cowboy hat. 

Ludvig Borga's hands down best quality is that the second he comes through the curtain until the moment he's out of sight (and assuredly beyond), he looks like he is absolutely disgusted by every person he sees. Borga is filled with revulsion at this life that chose him, and loathes the sticky handed children and mustachioed north easterners who surround him. His scowl is iconic. The match plays out as a satisfying house show main event, with Borga goading the fans the entire time and getting loud heat and playing to all sides of the ring. Watching Borga with a full push behind him really highlights the things he was great at, and by now he was second in WWF only to Lawler at working the crowd. Heels played to crowds more at house shows, but Borga and Lawler were the only ones doing it in all of their recorded matches. Borga works over Tatanka's midsection with punches (finding specific people in the crowd to threaten before and after every one), and they milk a lot out of Tatanka knocking Borga off his feet. Borga misses a big avalanche and Tatanka goes wild with multiple clotheslines to finally knock Borga down, and the man challenges Tatanka to do it again! Borga works this match as if he's 7' tall and 400 lb., dropping down to one knee after a dropkick and getting knocked off balance but not down by chops and clotheslines and eventually gets knocked down by a nice crossbody. 

The USA chants are coming in steady when Borga hits one of the greatest body shots my eyes have seen, when Tatanka ducks a Borga lariat but Borga catches him with a whipcrack full arm shot to the belly that I guarantee was the loudest strike on this show. It's a loud enough sound to stop the USA chants cold and Borga gloats about that, rubbing that punch into the collective faces of Worcester. Borga hits a big vertical suplex and works a long but effective side headlock. This was not an IRS chinlock in the middle of a squash match for reasons nobody could ever know, but instead an actual worked headlock with both making it build to something. There's a surprisingly dominant Borga spot where Tatanka powers up out of a headlock and plants Borga with a hard back suplex, and Borga ROARS to his feet and plasters Tatanka with a lariat right under the chin. You didn't get a lot of no selling in late 1993 WWF so this stood out as some Zeus level shit. When Tatanka starts his war dance, Borga tries cutting him off with punches to the kidneys (which Tatanka has been selling the entire match) but Tatanka powers through, and we get into our finish - my only real fault with the match. Mr. Fuji had come to ringside to act as foreign distraction, and Fuji's distraction allows Borga to waste Tatanka with a folding chair. WWF wasn't using a lot of chairshots in this era, and while it wasn't to the head it was still a loud shot. Borga lunges at and scares a kid in the front row on his way back into the ring, and then pins Tatanka in the middle with only one finger. 

And with that, Ludvig Borga has once again pantsed America in front of the girl he has had a crush on for 3 years, pointing and yelling to all of the other countries about America's baby dick as America scrambled to pull their pants up. We get a post match finish that is greater than any angle that has finished an episode of Raw to this point, with Borga and Yokozuna manhandling and flattening Tatanka while the Quebecers keep Luger tied up. Luger gets to run off the heels, but the Steiners were supposedly locked in the dressing room and Luger was - AGAIN - too late. I think for the angle to have really worked they needed to really wreck Tatanka. Borga needed to do way more cheating to win, and Yokozuna needed more than one banzai splash. But the fans HATE Borga and Yokozuna and the heel side feels incredibly strong right now. This could have given us an excellent Borga/Yokozuna vs. Tatanka/Luger TV tag, but they only used that match a handful of times on house shows...two months later. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE LUDVIG BORGA

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