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Thursday, May 29, 2025

DEAN~!!! 2 Day 2: Arez/Gringo Loco vs. Coven of the Goat

DEAN~!!! 2 5/24/25

Los Desperados (Arez/Gringo Loco) vs. Coven of the Goat (Tank/Jaden Newman)

MD: Of all the matches on the card, this felt like the most DVDVR-coded one. It's like you could just grab guys off of a 2025 DVDVR 500 and here they'd be. WAR jokes. Tilde marks. Making sure everyone knew it was king sized. And man was it ever surreal to see the Coven out there with the Rev doing his thing in the daylight, surrounded by flashing digital casino billboards, amidst the palm trees. There was something downright post-apocalyptic about it, like the early stages of a Mad Max wasteland timeline where society was still breaking down and some of the old bastions of late-stage capitalism still creaked on. And here were these marauders to let everyone know that despite the sugar-coated trappings plastered around the ring, things were not okay and no, they'd never be okay again.

Between their match on DEAN~!!! 1 and the fact I've seen Loco in his share of crazy IWRG brawls back in the day I was expecting this to go all over the place and cause havoc. But it really was a conventional tag, one that was smart and hit the marks you'd want and some that you didn't know you needed. Arez and Newman got to play on the mat for a bit and do their thing. Loco and Tank were able to lay it into each other. Towards the end of the shine, Arez hit a series of rapid fire mid-air kicks on Tank and that was one of those moments where time stopped and you just had to gawk at the impossibility of what you were watching. It was a moment that would have never existed without Dean, without his openness of mind and broadness of interests, without his ability to inspire his friends and cohorts to create something in his memory. It was a moment that shouldn't be, this behemoth of the southern indies having his back percussed upon by the educated feet of the strangest of lucha masters. 

But then the Rev grabbed a leg from the outside and the Coven did their thing, cutting off the ring and doing damage. This didn't go particularly long but it doesn't have to when Newman's using his body as a weapon and Tank's leaning on you. A little then will go a long way. As they cycled into the finishing stretch, Tank, maybe feeling the sun on his back, maybe inspired by the palm trees, maybe drawing dark energy through the Rev from the bitter tears of a thousand lost souls who had bet away their pensions and alimony money at the casino nearby, moved with renewed fervor of years past, crashing into Gringo Loco in the corner again and again. That came at a cost though. He had been able to save Newman from Arez once. Spent and drained on the floor from his lost-in-the-moment exertion, watching from the outside in, all he could do was look on at the three count. But the Coven were able to lay in a post-match beating and walk out with heads high. The wheel ever circles on from one strange, dark encounter to the next. And this one was stranger than most, just like Dean would have wanted and just like we all need now and again.

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