Found Footage Friday: ECCW DANIELSON~! FIRESTORM~! HAVOC~! ABBADON~!

Bryan Danielson vs. Abbadon ECCW 11/16/01

MD: Decided to finish up the year with some 01 Danielson up north. These appearances feel like a big part of Danielson's development because he was allowed to do so much, to really stretch. He had angles and mic work before and after a bunch of these matches. He got to play the invading American heel, a champion, someone who felt like a big deal. It was more than just trying to have the best match possible. There's a lot going on here. This had time, a hot post-match, and the back half of this was all go. Personal preference had me liking the front half more but I'm surprised I don't remember this one breaking through and becoming more of a thing on the boards back in the day. Abbadon was a, shall we say, randy madman type character, a wrestling savant wild man who was made for his time. In 1986, you ate the turnbuckle. In 2001, you humped it. So it goes. Obviously, he had some fairly weird rolls and move set-ups but a lot of his fundamental work looked pretty good. In fact, my bigger problem was probably that he lost some of the outlandishness in the back half when it was all about getting set up for the next big move/spot.

Danielson wrestled this in the match, wrestled it mouthy, was quick to insult the crowd, insult Abbadon, shout for the USA, proclaim that he was the sexiest wrestler alive, and so on and so forth. In the first half, he kept a slight advantage with tricky shots out of nowhere (a cheapshot kick out of the corner, a leg sweep, etc.) and submissions. Eventually he started jawing with the ref that let Abbadon come back an they never really looked back. Just a lot of "stuff". At times, when Danielson was taking it, he might show the impact or beg off, but more often than not, they were just going all out, until Danielson finally snuck in a mousetrap pin for the win. The greater whole of the two halves more or less had it all come together though, especially when you factor in the post-match where Danielson feigned sportsmanship only to have his goons come out to try to break Abbadon's leg. I could have seen this ending up on some 2001 lists at the time.

Bryan Danielson vs. Adam Firestorm ECCW 12/12/01

MD: Pre-match, Chance Beckett, the Jr. Heavyweight Champ who is down with a concussion comes out to begrudgingly lay down for Danielson, his promoted opponent. Danielson makes a big show out of it and then, after getting the pin, here in 01, runs around the ring doing the arm pumping yes chant. This is, I would like to add, before Diego Sanchez ever had his first pro MMA fight. So at least subconsciously, this was in Danielson's head as a natural movement.

Firestorm comes out to challenge after that. Danielson was leaning hard into the Jr. Heavyweight mentality, to the point of saying he didn't care about the heavyweight title (which Dr. Luther had). It meant pretty even tricked out chain wrestling (with Firestorm getting just a bit of an advantage) until Adam went crashing into the post shoulder first. That let Danielson start in on the shoulder. I don't know if WWE drilled this out of him because it doesn't work as well on TV relative to small crowds, but I do enjoy how vocal Danielson is in his matches in the first half of his career. He was having it out with the ref and the crowd, trying to start USA chants, doing the Fargo strut. Some of his offense here was pretty interesting too. He hit a hammerlocked belly to back that you don't see much, had a great cut off on the top where he jumped to the floor crossing Firestorm's arm over the top, and even hit a top rope Northern Lights later on.

Firestorm was game and was definitely working on his act mechanically but he wasn't there yet when it came to priming moments or selling consequence. He just dropped that shoulder selling when it was convenient and he only took a breathe and played to the crowd when it was to set up getting cut off by Danielson. They had a neat bit where Firestorm locked in the Cattle Mutilation first before Danielson could and like I said, it was a mechanically exciting juniors match for 2001, but Firestorm just wasn't the guy in this stage of his career to make it more resonant. Lots of moving parts with ECCW as Firestorm lost on a trip and then Danielson, bragging post-match, had his next challenger run in. Still, past the historical value of a 2001 Yes Chant, it's just a lot of fun to see this version of Danielson's personal development.

Bryan Danielson vs. Havoc ECCW 06/29/02

MD: I found this drier than the Firestorm match. It might have been that Danielson, more experienced and more confident, didn't feel the need to lean on more goofiness. He was still talking, still interacting with the crowd. They got on him because he was from Aberdeen early, which was pretty funny heckling. At times, this almost felt like him noodling with various submissions for the heck of it, just experimenting with the time he had. There was a nice entry into a seated surfboard, and he had a cool variation on the Mutalock where he had the arms double underhooked like in the Cattle Mutilation. He even did a handspring into the corner. Nominally, he was working the leg, but you wouldn't really know it from Havoc's selling. The only big thing came from it was the final transition to comeback as Havoc blocked/jammed a dragon screw which opened things up for him to hit a dive. Some of Havoc's knees (and that seemed to be his thing overall) felt a little wonky and he couldn't get the corner post figure-four to work right, but overall this was a perfectly sound technical affair. It was just maybe a bit more of a technical match to get Havoc over than another example of young Danielson sowing his wild oats and it suffered relatively for it.