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. 

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