We Need to Get Dixie on a DEAN~! Show

 

Dixie vs. Rainchild JAPW 7/13/02

ER: Why did Dixie beloved by me and all the Real Ones during the early 2000s? Who's to say but he starts this match with a long standing cravat in 2002 and proceeds to work mid 90s Jamie Dundee schtick in Seaside Heights while selling hiptosses and armdrags. He is the youngest man working rope scrapes across the eyes in 2002 wrestling and he knows how to shit talk during a chinlock as well as Tracy Smothers or Adam Pearce. Rainchild was so good for wrestling so few matches. He does "simple" offense well, like his beautiful dropkick, and aims high on his big offense. He might have bit off more than he can chew but I like his brand of go go go. A complicated DDT doesn't quite work? Whatever, he also does a shooting star press to the floor while a ferris wheel glows in the background. His offense is big, like his backpack stunner and his beautifully executed falcon arrow, and he is a dynamic bumper. His bumps are athletic, but in a way where he clearly leans into offense to force the bumps, not looking like he predetermined which athletic bump to take. It looks great because Dixie is someone who can force a mean bump. 

Dixie runs a knee into the side of Rainchild's head and hits increasingly violent back elbows, aimed at Rainchild's eye, and does single arm chops that hit as hard as Tenryu (once you scale the size accordingly). He keeps returning to that cravat he began with and hits snap suplexes with full Dynamite energy, building to his stiffest back elbow of the match. Dixie missed a kneedrop off the top that was so sweet it brought a tear to my eye. I love how Singlet Era Dixie always had the visual threat of a strap drop but he never used it as a regular spot, preferring to keep the straps secure in case the need for a strap drop arose. Finishing the match with an Alabama slam into a snug jackknife pin is a perfectly heel troll Dixie way to win a match that featured a shooting star press to the floor. 

After he's won the match, Dixie hits a fistdrop and doing that feels so on the nose for A Thing That Eric's Favorite Wrestler Would Do that it makes me believe slightly more in a Truman Show universe made just for me. I hate this world in its current state, so at what point did my show get canceled? Taking my girl out to a cheap happy hour now costs $60 but when I was 21 skinny east coast fliers were perfecting southern style and doing perfect fistdrops. The world was mine. 

Dixie vs. Azrieal  JAPW 8/10/02

ER: I don't know if wrestling gets better than Dixie wrestling in Seaside Heights. It's like a perfect Conner O'Malley bit. He's challenging guys to step over the rail, telling loudmouths exactly where they can find him outside after the show. He responds to Azrieal's side headlock takeovers like a guy who is wondering what this shit is all about. What's this Working Holds shit!? There are too many things I love about Dixie's wrestling. How was he this good? He isn't just a good bumper, he's a good bumper who can add comedy after the bump. He takes a huracanrana with 0.7 Juventud speed and turns it into a comedy bump as it's happening, taking the rana as if it quickly bumped him to the floor. It's like the comedy bumping of Chris Candido with the athletic speed of Juvy. His leaping kneedrop is something nobody in wrestling is doing right now. There's a wide open market for Best Drops because all forms of Drops are a dying breed. How strange is that? Fistdrops are barely around, kneedrops have been phased almost entirely out, even elbowdrops are nowhere near as common (or as good) as they were a couple decades ago. Think about how few elbowdrops there are in modern wrestling, and how everything is worse for it. Can you name any of the guys in the current discussion for best elbowdrop? No good ones come to my mind. 

Dixie is great at little individual aspects of wrestling, like fighting for the ropes. I like the levels of panic in which he fought for the ropes, like he has a 1-5 panic dial and knew when to start kick his legs to help him scoot faster when the dial hit 4. He is great at putting over the armbar of a man with the smallest arms on the roster. Azrieal does a wild swan dive cannonball into the aisle and Dixie catches as much of it as we can reasonably expect a small teenager to catch. I always loved how Jersey All Pro guys sold big offense that didn't fully hit. I thought it only added to the craziness of spots when one of them would stand up slowly but proudly, in pain after hitting as much concrete as man. They did the thing, they survived the impact, they'll deal with the bad joints in a decade. Dixie was great at using the Alabama slam as not just a finish, but as a move to set up the finish, and thinking about his own offense as multifaceted and not just a myopic "This is My Finish and it comes in This Order" was just one more thing he did that was a cut above the rest.