Super Dragon and the Greatest Match Ever to Happen in Pacifica, CA
ER: I was at this show. Terra Nova Hight School in Pacifica. It was top to bottom one of the best wrestling shows I've been to, and I've been to a ton of great wrestling shows in my life. I was 21, there with friends, and the show was loaded. A small four man title tournament meant we got two good Robert Thompson matches and two good American Dragon matches, the latter being their arm work main event. Three great singles matches, a strong undercard, but this tag was the match we were talking about on the drive home. This tag match is the best match of the dozen or so shows APW ran in Pacifica in the late 90s/early 00s, many of which I attended. I wish I remember the Excalibur vs. James Watkins match. I'm sure it had a great clothesline. Cheerleader Melissa and Sara Del Rey in a trios? That was probably good too. Chad Collyer worked American Dragon in the first or second match of the night, and after his match I saw him sitting up in the bleachers watching the show. I went up and sat with him, asking him a bunch of annoying questions, so I don't remember much about those two matches.
I doesn't matter, nothing on this card can compare to this tag. Only one match in Pacifica APW history comes close and that is the Westside Playaz (Robert Thompson/Boyce LeGrande) vs. Jardi Frantz/Vinny Massaro match from 5/6/00. That one is not far off, but this match clears it. Two of the greatest all time APW tag matches. APW even ran a tag team tournament show in Pacifica now that I think about it. The people of Pacifica demanded to be treated as a Tag Team Territory. You need to run a strong tag match at your Pacifica show in 2002 if you run one at all, and you don't even need to make the rest of the card good. This card was good, but had it been garbage we would have still spent the drive home talking exclusively about this match. On paper, it was exactly what my friends and I wanted to see in wrestling. It was a dream. Our special West Coast version of the burgeoning super indy dream match. That it actually delivered on the on-paper promise was what made us true believers.
Every man enters separately. The first sounds we hear are "Down With the Sickness" because Bobby Quance is inspired by no other man. It feels impossible that nobody else in indy wrestling history would have used Disturbed's nu metal classic as an entrance theme, but Bobby Quance was somehow the only wrestler who had the vision. Jardi comes out in a kimono to Hayabusa's theme, which is some tremendous weeb cosplay after going one on NOAH tour a year earlier. Spanky continues the rib of coming out to songs with long or constant instrumental intros, coming out to the Proclaimers' "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" with an intro long enough to make more than one adult man yell "get to the fucking ring already." These guys were all about their bullshit and nothing was going to stop them.
While I was there in attendance, I have no memory of chanting SUPER HOMO at Super Dragon and don't believe it's a chant I would have participated in. However, I recognize that it was a very loud chant, and with only 200-300 people in attendance any loud chant would require many participants. There is no video footage that confirms me doing or not doing the chant, but this was 25 years ago and we were all still collectively processing 9/11, so who's to say who did what at Terra Nova that night. I also don't remember Spanky working shtick around throwing his pubes at Jardi so some things just get lost to time and memory.
Jardi Frantz is now a well kept secret; a mostly forgotten wrestler only thought of by those who were there or those who memorized DVDVR 500s. I was there for basically his entire west coast APW run. He had evolved into a pretty great wrestler by 2002, a real slimeball who was surprisingly tough. A babyface only be default. His matwork was really strong and he got a lot of quick leverage over Spanky. This was during an era where APW was pushing all of their graduates to do real wrestling training and all matches had focused matwork. It was a great era. It's an era that should exist in full on tape and yet is the most unreleased great indy wrestling of the era. The Dragon/Quance matwork was an excellent example of their matwork ethos, worked like snug World of Sport, less flash more weight. Quance used his speed for leverage and rolled Dragon into a crucifix that had strong physics. Dragon had a stunning camel clutch application where he forced Quance into a full nelson and maneuvered that painfully into a heavy weight camel clutch. I wish he held it instead of quickly moving to a Gedo Clutch, I wanted to see him twist Bobby. All the matwork was tough.
Things really took off when Spanky and Super Dragon fully cut Quance off. That was when they got everyone's attention. A lot of people in 2026 probably don't know the name Bobby Quance, but he was a super fast learner who looked like the next West Coast super worker from go. This was less than 10 matches into his career and he hung impressively with the rest of the very advanced guys in the match, and he was a good and right fit getting cut off. He played great from under and Dragon is best when he's sadistically going after someone. Dragon had an amazing back elbow cut off that started it all. A back elbow that would have played in 1983 Georgia. Spanky slid a fast loud kick into Quance's face and catapulted him into one of those Super Dragon chops that sends an echoing snap through a building. Spanky's pinfall attempts are as painful as his offense, every pin a stump puller, stretching this boy's ligaments. When Dragon did a springboard kneedrop onto Quance's stretched out torso and cleanly rolled through to the far side ropes to talk shit, everyone in Pacifica knew they were seeing greatness. Imagine Hayabusa with the attitude of Deranged. Sounds like the best wrestler ever.
Jardi was great as the veteran Kings Road partner teaming with the guy who was 100% taking the pin. He gets a lot of impact on his basics, even if he doesn't look like a guy who would have hard bodyslams or heavyweight biels, a legdrop with unexpected impact from long slender legs. Spanky and Dragon bump big for Jardi's shine, Spanky going over the top to the floor on a missed charge while Dragon wraps himself around the ringpost. Jardi's running senton over the ringpost into them had the same energy as 1997 Juvy. Quance's shooting star press over the ringpost into them had energy that wasn't even imagined five years before. I remember being blown away the first time I saw someone do a standing shooting star, or Kidman doing his shooting star press off the ring apron. Quance, pro for a few months, shoots himself into brave new pro wrestling possibilities. It's as if several dozen people saw Blitzkrieg and decided to become wrestlers so they could invent more dangerous versions of flipping onto someone, acolytes forming over three years.
Super Dragon was the best at taking Bobby Quance's offense. Quance wasn't around long, but he fought Super Dragon a lot during his run. Dragon was the SUWA to Quance's Dragon Kid. They're doing 1997 Rey vs. Juvy with their own spin and they're really great at it. Dragon is Juvy, decapitating Quance's Rey with a downward angled springboard spinning heel kick to the back of the head, catching and folding on Quance's springboard huracanrana. What takes it beyond, is neither Rey nor Juvy were as vicious as Super Dragon, and that viciousness ramps up to a big finish involving Dragon ragdolling Quance multiple times. There's a wild sequence where Quance is murdered by a cradled brainbuster, Jardi hits a 450 splash on Spanky that Dragon breaks up with a top rope double stomp, Quance gets whipped into a pair of brutal Burning Lariats, it's all just monstrous.
I wonder how many other people went to the Taco Bell near the beach that is designed like a surf shack. That's a thing you used to do in Pacifica after seeing some of the best wrestling of your life.
Labels: APW, Bobby Quance, Jardi Frantz, Spanky, Super Dragon
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posted by EricR @ 8:00 PM
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