The Possibilities of the Now: Liiza Hall vs Hazuki

PRODUCE: PRODUIT 7/26/26

Liiza Hall vs Hazuki

MD: Pro wrestling is interactive and no pro wrestling is more interactive than indie wrestling. 

That's not just true for people watching in tightly packed, close-up rooms either. It's true for us as viewers at home. You don't just consume pro wrestling. You engage with it. That's doubly true for indie wrestling. 

It's not just closer to the fans there live. It's closer to all of us. There's less polish, less distance, less over-production. It's more natural, more organic, less about glitz, glamour, and artificial spectacle and more about passion, showmanship, and human spectacle created entirely by the wrestlers plying their trade. It's more a conversation.

WWE isn't going to challenge your priors. It tries to drown them out in slop and noise, rewriting history and presenting a twisted insubstantial alternative to reality that it needs you to buy into without doubt or hesitation. Without thought. AEW's better along these lines, but it still goes out of its way to reinforce your priors, giving you what you want, even if it's often not what you need.

Indie wrestling is out there trying to figure it all out with you. Sometimes it works out for the best. Sometimes it doesn't. But that risk, that effort, that triumph and frustration is half the joy, half of what reminds you that you're alive while you're watching it.

I had priors coming into this, not a ton, but some. I think Hall did too. I think the PRODUCE as a whole did. Hall had been presented a certain way leading up to this show. PRODUCE may not flood your senses and try to shut off your brain like WWE does, but it certainly works to establish the wrestlers and the fights ahead of time, encourages them tell their own stories in their own way. In my eyes, Hall came out to the ring with a certain expectation clearly expressed through her reaction to the crowd and subsequent bemusement when the crowd didn't want to love her back. 

She's Canadian. She works hard. She fights hard. This was Canada. Except for it wasn't. It was Quebec, and she doesn't have a big history with the province. Hazuki was more the attraction, someone that this crowd might have felt like they'd never get a chance to see live. 

Either way, whether this was the plan all along or whether Hall shifted in the moment, it's a testament to her that she landed where she did and a testament to indie wrestling that it has that sort of flexibility to be agile, to turn on a dime, to live in the moment, to face the human reality before it and adapt to take advantage of all the possibilities of the now. 

I came in thinking that Hall would have a chip on her shoulder after her loss to Billie Starkz, sure, that she would meet the opportunity for what it was, that this would be spirited and technical and hard hitting, and that eventually it would boil over into something mean. 

But I didn't think it would start that way, that the chip would split into a fissure before the bell and any sportsmanship or good will that Hall might came in with would fizzle away in the face of a crowd that had a very clear preference for Hazuki. 

I didn't think Hall would be trying to distract the ref so she could pry at fingers just a few minutes into the match or that Hazuki would have to channel her fire to fight from underneath from the get go because Hall had every intention of using her superior size and reach to bully her around. Maybe it all cost Hall in the end. She took that yellow card with panache but she simply couldn't keep Hazuki down. Maybe she was thrown by the crowd. Maybe the strength that resentment fueled in her wasn't pure and potent enough to get the job done. Maybe she couldn't get out of her own way. 

But that's why we watch, isn't it? That's what makes pro wrestling, and indie wrestling especially, interesting as an art form. It's not enough to just see a bunch of spots and yell This is Awesome. That's just being fed candy. It's fun once or twice but eventually, you get sick to your stomach. Sometimes you want something that's real, that hits at odd angles, that comes together a little off center, not polished and perfect, but with just enough dirt and grit. Sometimes it doesn't even come together at all, but the parts that hit still hit you in ways you didn't expect, ways that have value, that make you engage and strain and grow instead of just being another picture perfect spotfest for you to consume.

So maybe, just maybe, this crowd and this match gave Hall something she wasn't expecting, and because of that, they gave me something I wasn't expecting too. If you go and watch this now, you might have a completely different reaction. Maybe it'll even be my fault for priming you a certain way. But that's fine, that's good. Wrestling is art and art is subjective and the journey matters a hell of a lot more than the destination.