Found Footage Friday: FUNK~! SPIKE~! STEEN~! AXE~! WAGNER~! BABE FACE~! BLUE FISH~! DIFUNTO~! ROMO~! ESCOBEDO~!

Terry Funk/Spike Dudley vs. Kevin Steen/Jason Axe 5/17/13

MD: How much do we love Terry Funk around here? We love him so much that almost all of the matches that people posted to pay tribute (handhelds with Bock from Japan, chain matches and streetfights with Doug Gilbert ten years apart, etc.) were things we already had covered. Thankfully, this came down the pipe too. It's clipped with a few minutes of entrances and Terry talking at the end, but what we get is good. Spike looked great early on controlling Axe with chain wrestling. It was basic stuff, but snug and with purpose. Post-clipping it seemed like things broke down to a match inside the ring and one outside, with Steen and Funk brawling around ringside and Spike working from underneath in the ring. I wish we were able to catch more or it than we did including the transition, but what stands out most is the image of Funk and Steen careening towards a door in the back of the room and someone trying to film it all on his phone but unable to keep his focus because he has to throw his hand up in excitement and exhileration at the idea that these guys are brawling with such purpose and energy just a few feet away from him. That instinct to film everything just got shattered by the feeling of the moment and that's the magic of even a 69 year old Terry Funk for you. Finish was feel good like you'd expect. Axe survived an Acid Drop and really planted Spike through a table with a running DVD and Funk finally made it back to the ring, queuing things up for tandem spinning toe holds. What we got here was good, with Steen really reveling in the moment. I bet the whole thing would have been even better.

Sergio Romo Jr./Chuy Escobedo vs. Difunto/Principe Rebelde CMLL 1992

MD: Totally solid undercard lucha. Chuy and Principe Rebelde didn't do a ton for me but Romo and Difunto stood out. Difunto just checks a lot of the boxes for me, a stooging, basing, bruising rudo with a big personality, big selling, big reactions, and some impactful offense. He was matched with Romo. The primera was three exchanges (matwork, rope running, and then things breaking down) and I though the rope running especially stood out. Romo had this cool headstand into an armdrag I hadn't seen much. Escobedo and Principe were fine but they had less time and did less interesting things. It ended with a pretty funny bit where they had the ref pin the rudos and do the count.

They switched partners for the segunda but things quickly shifted to beatdown after an errant Difunto hug. Solid but not too over the top. The comeback almost went there with some crowd brawling but it never really boiled over. There was an absolutely amazing dive through the ropes into a body press by Romo where Difunto's head went cracking into the front row seats. Just a top notch dive. Romo didn't always look special, but he had an extra gear he could tap into occasionally. That's my early impression after a couple of matches at least. This was very much undercard lucha for the sake of lucha but all you need is one or two good hands to make that enjoyable and this was overall.

Dr Wagner Jr/Blue Fish/Babe Face vs. Milo Caballero/Centurion/Monarka CMLL 1992

MD: This was the usual mishmash of local guys and bigger names at various stages of their career that we've been getting. Wagner doesn't jump off the screen for a number of years to come but he was already in his late 20s here. It's still a good match situation for him to be in, I guess. Babe Face had been at it for almost twenty years but he's still a kind of refreshing guy to see in 92. Blue Fish was something of a local legend. He's got a fun mask with a big dolphin type fish on the side and in general was very good at being the right place at the right time and feeding into rudo miscommunication spots.

This had time and not a lot of urgency. It picked up a bit whenever Babe Face and Milo Caballero were in there together. I think the commentators even joked that they were made from the same physical mode, but they matched up well together both with exchanges and just throwing shots. Otherwise, I'd call it a professional match. The rudo beatdown in the segunda was laser-focused. Babe Face stooged here and there and kept things entertaining but for the most part, it was just workmanlike. I'd not mind seeing most of these guys in other matches, but I'd expect them to be in more supporting roles.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 8/21 - 8/27 Part 2

All In 8/26

CM Punk vs Samoa Joe

MD: Even almost a week later, we don't know what we don't know. The Observer hit this morning, etc. Look, we tend to look at the text itself here at Segunda Caida, at least with modern matches, but you can't separate this match from what led up to it in the minutes prior. I won't focus much on what we don't, won't, or can't know, but this match goes down differently on a rewatch when you have some sense of what came before. Punk's Punk, a shit-eating grin on his face as he goes through the curtain, absolute satisfaction with his little shitheel chop and dodge away from Joe to start the match, mirthful elation as he hangs on to a headlock through a suplex. You'll almost never see a man quite so alive as Punk as he shifts from Cena to Hogan and basks in the boos and he carried his weight for the other half of this, bleeding, stooging, and outright begging off for Joe's Hulk Up. 

I said almost no one was more alive though, and the reason I said almost is because for as much as Punk was living in this moment and channeling every internal and external bit of stimuli to feed into his performance, Joe was simply more. From all accounts, Joe manifested this moment through sheer determination, presence (physical and otherwise), and force of will. You can read this as the culmination of a redemption story for Joe. We've all seen the pictures of him in the poncho during the Mania pre-show in Tampa, and while some of those have him smiling, it wasn't a proper last chapter for him. Neither was the bizarre start and stop of his final NXT moments. This though? Standing in Wembley with tens of thousands of people chanting his name, with them oohing and ahhing every move he chained together, with enough of them singing for him or going up for his pointed response to Punk's heatseeking channeling of Hogan... he basked in each and every second of it. The energy of the crowd radiated off of his body and fueled his every movement. He wrestled this match like someone who knew how far he had once been from the possibility of it and how close he had been to losing it at the last second. I could write about how they cleverly leaned into their own familiarity with one another, how they leveraged that early to build anticipation for certain spots later in the match, how balanced letting things breathe with keeping things moving. I could even give JR some flowers; over the last few years he has a mortifying tendency of calling the worst possible thing at the worst possible time. Here though, even as the match didn't feel like it was quite ready to be over, he noted how both wrestlers were going for that one big move, the perfect set up for Punk hitting the plunge. In a hundred other matches, he'd have mistimed that sort of a call completely. Here, it covered up the lack of a more developed finishing stretch perfectly.

Past those last 100 words to smooth past the finish, I think I'd rather just let the above sit as the review though. This one wasn't about structure or tricks. It was one old pro, as strung out as someone straightedge could possibly be, channeling a moment despite it all, and one old lion with legendary strength, clenching his fist hard enough to prevent the sands of time and opportunity from slipping out of his grasp. Maybe someone has the words to do that justice, but it's sure not me. The match stands on its own. The match speaks for itself.

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