DEAN~!!! 2 Day 3: JD Drake vs. Josh Woods

DEAN~!!! 2 5/24/25

JD Drake (w/Anthony Henry) vs. Josh Woods (w/Tom Lawlor)

MD: The chaotic and mutable spirit of indie wrestling lives here as this was initially supposed to be Woods vs Lawlor, but ended up with Lawlor seconding Woods. Thankfully, this time around (as opposed to DEAN~!!! 1) Filthy Tom had time to carefully prepare his sartorial style and he came in looking like the caddie-ist of corner men. It actually matched Woods' turquoise wave gear well. Henry, on the other hand, has been training hard in his absence and felt it important to let everyone know that by coming down to second JD without a shirt.

I missed the Workhorsemen and this was a great venue to see them both back together again (even if it wasn't a tag, though I'd like to see this tag, but that's beside the point). They're the ultimate utility players. You can plug them in to any role and they'll get the job done. You could debut them as Ricochet's new crew next week (as opposed to CRU or whoever) and people would gawk (not a bad thing given they're trying to get heat and dissonance drives heat) but they'd be in the right place at the right time doing the right thing the right way every single time that they'd need to be and it would work. You could have them call out FTR and do a short program, could have them try to survive the Hurt Syndicate for ten minutes on TV, could have them challenge Dustin and Sammy on ROH, could have them menace Top Flight (not sure anyone works better with Dante than Drake), and they'd get the job done. Drake's instantly credible between his size, how he moves, how he carries himself and Henry has that snap precision execution and throws himself into everything he does. 

Woods, given his background, is instantly credible, and he definitely threw himself into everything here. This was just his second match this year (with a VIP match earlier in May). He got the better of Drake early on with takeovers, holds, and some nasty knee strikes on the floor. You don't want to be on the floor with JD Drake though because he's got the best transition move in all of wrestling, his press up against the ropes into a big meaty shot. I liked Dylan's call explaining that you're hurt not just by the strike but by the pressure of the ropes going the wrong way at the wrong angle or what not. After that, Henry made his presence felt and it made sense that he'd be a little more impactful than Lawlor out there (a perfectly fine encouraging cheerleader, mind you), given the tag team stylings of Henry and Drake. That included a beautiful neck twist on the apron with big follow through as Drake was distracting the ref. 

Woods came back with quicker, more high-impact, high-motion offense than you might expect and they rolled into a stretch where Drake hit his cannonball but missed the moonsault allowing Woods to hit a pretty impressive corner twisting suplex. Just good wrestling executed well. I don't think it chipped into the same sort of unique space that Woods vs Lawlor might have but it helped ground and round out the card.