Adam Priest vs. Tim Bosby ACTION Wrestling 10/17/25
ER: Adam Priest is no secret anymore, but Tim Bosby might still be. I don't think his secret will be kept for much longer. He does too many things well, too many things that show how well he understands pro wrestling. This was a great match, pitting the normally despicable Priest into the role of Georgia Super Babyface vs. the hateable Bosby. Bosby is the big Tennessee heel bringing his title into Georgia and Priest is the scrappy local face taking it to him, and the whole thing rocked. I love heel Priest, but it's great seeing him fired up in the crowd throwing punches at this much larger beast, knocking the heavyweight into fans, throwing uppercuts into him that forces Bosby to use the fans to brace against the impact. Priest is just as great at being a fired up babyface as he is at being a despicable heel, as if there were two different Priests.
Bosby is a real monster, but a monster who is really smart about how he wrestles. He does so many things in one match - big and small - that make him stand apart from other monsters who are merely men, and other men who are merely wrestlers. When he throws himself into the mat as he whips Priest into the buckles, that's one of those things a wrestler can do every other match or so that will make me like that wrestler a lot more. It's a flashier version of a guy holding onto a headlock when pushed off, in terms of things a wrestler can do to make me tell others they're a really great wrestler. Bosby matches are full of such things, and I can say the same thing about Adam Priest matches. When Bosby takes a back body drop on the floor, Priest walks off hunched holding his back, because Priest understood he needed to fight to get Bosby over, to his own detriment, and it made the bump look and feel even bigger.
That's key, because they understood exactly what the size dynamic was and they stayed within it the entire match. It looked like a struggle for Priest to back drop Bosby, because look at the two of them! That size difference led to some incredible moments. When Bosby sinks in a smothering sleeperhold, it takes Priest several jawbreakers to break out of it, because they understand the physics of their battle. It's also how they create such a realistic nearfall out of a Bret/Austin Survivor Series finish. Bosby catching Priest's suicide dive roughly over his shoulders then screaming his way through an F5, hurtling Priest at the apron, is one of those things that should make everyone a fan of Bosby (and Priest) and showed how hard Priest would have to work to overcome this beast. I had no idea just how much this match was going to continue peaking.
Once Priest almost pinned Bosby, it's like Bosby knew he had to Terminator his way through. He keeps utilizing heavy back elbows to break holds and set up sequences, and Priest runs into a back elbow better than anyone going. He also gets powerbombed over Bosby's damn knee for a two count, which is a pretty crazy two count on an ACTION show. ACTION has conditioned me well to understand that big moves finish matches, and overkill will not be tolerated. Priest kicking out of that powerbomb told me things were about to change. I do not think this ever drifted into overkill, I just think both men are 2 Stubborn 2 B Put Down. Priest's tenacity as a hell works just as well as a babyface, and I bit at every nearfall down the stretch, where Priest was at his wrestling physics best. Both men kept making me lean forward in my chair, made me want to skip back to see what I had just seen.
When Priest chopped Bosby across the thighs and pounced on him with a short piledriver, I flipped out. When he broke out his small package reversal out of a full speed Bosby F5, I bought it as a fully credible title change finish. His crucifix after was a nice follow up jump scare nearfall, because Priest knows exactly what kind of surprise element to utilize here. Their skill in peaking this match from start to finish was so impressive. The F5 kickout was done so well. Bosby played his anger perfectly with some realistically expressionless jock anger rather than bug eyed Performance Center shock, and Bosby does yet another one of those things he does that show how well he understands wrestling: he knows he has the time to slowly pull both straps down before pulling Priest off the mat. Had the match ended right there, I would have loved it. F5, kickout, straps come down, one more F5, no chance of a kickout.
But this is Adam Priest! We get more, and it gets better. Bosby doesn't just do another F5, he wants to do thee F5. He takes things to the top rope, and Priest gets wise to that while on the top rope. The visual of Priest standing on the top, punching and elbowing at King Kong, eventually winning the battle over a crazy frankensteiner, looked like we were seeing the most insane version of Misterio vs. Nash. The finish is pretty ridiculously overdone but it was truly well done bullshit. After getting another believable nearfall, we go through Priest blindly DDTing the referee to Bosby hitting Priest with a loaded backpack. It wouldn't have hurt Priest's credibility to just take the biggest spinning F5 anyone has thrown, as that's a reasonable way to lose a match to the champ. That Bosby knew that and still went through all the bullshit to win is kind of the point.
Bosby leaves to Leonard Cohen's "Everybody Knows" and if people don't, they sure will before long.
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