2016 Ongoing MOTY List: Sasha vs. Charlotte Street Fight

53. Sasha Banks vs. Charlotte WWE Raw 11/28

PAS: You have to give a lot of credit to both of these women. Multiple times this year they have been placed in high profile, unprecedented spots and they have delivered every time. This was my favorite of their main roster matches. It had a real sloppy violent feel to it, which is the kind of wrestling I love, it actually weirdly felt a lot like the Jordynne Grace vs. Heidi Lovelace IWA-MS streetfight we loved so much from 2014 (review here). Same kind of crowbarring, same kind of recklessness. I loved that insane bump Sasha took off the ring apron, totally looked like it knocked her cold. Charlotte's moonsault was totally nuts, and the finish was awesome, looked totally painful and really took advantage of Charlotte's flexibility. I liked this a lot better than the Hell in the Cell, had all of the things I liked from that match, with less of the things I didn't.

ER: Sasha Banks has been one of my very favorite performers over the past year, while I think Charlotte keeps looking worse and worse in ring. I thought we had already added this match to our 2016 MOTY List, and when I saw I never wrote my part of the review (Phil wrote his share several years ago) I figured I'd fix that. The only thing I really remember about the match is the finish, with Sasha locking the Banks Statement on in the crowd, bending Charlotte back over a handrail. These two had a crazy 2016 against each other, and this match might have had their craziest material. This was falls county anywhere and was worked really stiff, and several of their big spots were dangerously ambitious. Sasha hits a really great dive early, following it through to the floor and landing like a super heavy crossbody. They both take hard suplexes and spills on the floor, Sasha breaking out meteoras from high landings, and she takes a really crazy bump off the apron. Sasha was always great for a reckless death bump in a big match. Charlotte has always had really ugly form on chops - that hasn't changed - but ugly or not, her chops on the apron landed with a thud. She was chopping Sasha right in the boobs and Sasha paid her back with an elbow. It all builds to a Charlotte moonsault off the announce table up on the entrance stage, and a moonsault from that high up, with the only thing standing between you and concrete being a 110 lb. woman, is a psychotic spot for a WWF main eventer. The whole match had a real strong fight feel to it, and the crowd picked up early on that they were killing each other out there, and that really added to things. We're a little over 4 years later and I think Sasha will be the biggest star in wrestling if her current trajectory keeps up. Meanwhile, Charlotte's in ring stock has fallen every year since. We'll always have 2016. 

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New Footage Friday: LASARTESSE! VAN BUYTEN! AMERICAN ALPHA! REVIVAL! CAIFAN! HECHICERO!

Rene Lasartesse/ Double Trouble vs. Franz Van Buyten/Scott Casey/Boston Blackie CWA 1992

PAS: Lasartesse vs. Van Buyten is an all time legendary feud and this maybe one of their last matches opposite each other. This is a really fun house show style six man tag. Van Buyten kind of reminds me of the Bullet as he has some really fun old man dancing, monkey flipping and armdragging. Lasartesse struts around the ring like a total dipshit and stooges great. Really enjoyed Double Trouble, they were a totally ok roidy tag team, sort of a heel High Voltage and they should have had a solid WCW Pro run. They even hit an assisted flip senton, which is a pretty big highspot in 1992. Lots of jazz and misdirection and hot tags, exactly the way you want to see legends showcased in their declining years.

MD: Watching this, I'm not sure what I'd rather see, late 92 Lasartesse vs Lawler, with both of them letting every little moment sink in or 92 van Buyten doing that headscissors (or step over) counter to the armlock vs old man Nick Bockwinkel. We've hit a point where we've seen that counter so many times that it doesn't quite have the same zing it did before, but if it was really so commonplace, why aren't people using it in matches today? Anyway, this was a tale of two matches. About midway through, with a lot of heat and antics, Van Buyten (who had played FIP very well for a lot of the first ten minutes, so well that the camera angle/video quality really wasn't a problem at all) and Lasartesse (who had played a chickenshit old heel during that time) both got tossed and it settled down into a 2 on 2 with Casey as FIP. It was still perfectly fine, with everyone playing their roles well, but we were here for the old guys so it was a shame to see them gone. It built to a pretty amusing spot with one Trouble tied up and the second one used as a battering ram, before the heels overdid it and everything got thrown out.

ER: When I saw the name Double Trouble I thought we were getting the two big fatties who worked WWF house shows in exchange for selling the Undertaker name rights. That said, I really liked them and yes they definitely seem like a team that should have showed up somewhere. They broke out fistdrops and flying headbutts and high legdrops, each took big bumps over the top to the floor, an unexpected Drive-By, set up a great spot where one of them got tied in the ropes and the other gets rammed HARD into his gut battering ram style and yeah these are probably the actual better Double Trouble team. I liked how the first half played as the old man Van Buyten vs. Lasartesse showdown, and the second half was our Double Trouble showcase (or at least a showcase for me). Van Buyten was still super spry in his early 50s and his early headscissors is downright majestic. Van Buyten had wonderful babyface energy and I adored all the mincing and posturing from Lasartesse, the whole thing was satisfying.

Caifan Rockero vs. Hechicero Poder y Honor 1/31/09

PAS: This is the earliest Hechicero match we have on video and we get to see him against probably his greatest rival in Caifan. This was really a treat, you could tell that they had kind of a touring match worked out, and this had all of the little beats you want from these two.  They had an opening llave section with a lot of very cool twisting leg locks, the rolling leglock submissions is a Hechicero trademark, and he breaks out a bunch of cool ones here. It build to a bigger near fall section with some cool arm trap slams, a big armlock triangle submission near fall by Hechicero and a nifty top rope springboard rana by Caifan. You could see that both guys hadn't fully developed their personas yet, there was a lot of mirroring that was cool, but didn't allow then to differentiate themselves, the way they would in later matches. It felt like what it was, two super talented young guys in a garage figuring their stuff out, our boy Rob Bihari dug this one out of his crate and it was really cool to see.

MD: This is a great little piece of history and I'm glad Rob posted it. We don't have a ton of pre-2010 Hechicero online. I wrote up their 2010 match almost five years ago when I was still figuring out lucha. That was a hair vs mask match with more intensity. This had a very different feel given the sparse crowd. Hechicero didn't forget they were there certainly, but this did feel a bit like a match in a bubble or an exhibition. They had all the time in the world and a thousand things to try. It made for one tricked out hold or interesting spot after the next. I think I preferred it once they picked up the pace because they were more actively trying to foil and counter each other there. Honestly, I think my favorite thing in the whole match was Hechicero feigning not knowing that Caifan had landed on the apron after getting hoisted over the top so that he could try to launch a sneak attack. It failed, of course, letting Caifan fly in, but the set up with Hechicero tapping his head and really milking it before going for the sneak attack turned a normal spot into something with extra wrinkles just like one of his tricked out submissions.

24. American Alpha vs. The Revival WWE 4/23/16

MD: It's a little bit hard to remember just how special those first run of NXT house shows were. They didn't get around to my part of the country until Fall of 2016, and by then, a lot of the match-ups and moments I had wanted to see before had been cycled out. Top of the list was probably American Alpha vs Revival. We obviously have a number of big matches between them, southern tags turned up to 11 style, but it's nice to see one on a smaller stage.

The first fall was basically all shine, super athletic with well coordinated, complex spots and reversals, with AA looking world class and Revival being just competitive enough to make it seem like Alpha earned it. There was a transition tease at the end (with Dawson swatting down Wilder's feet from the apron to prevent a German) which really stood out.

The transition was also the end of the second fall, a set up for a shatter effect so elaborate that it could have served as a finish in and of itself. The structure of 2/3 falls tags is always interesting to look at. We have so many from Portland specifically that there are great examples. I think my ideal is when the heels takeover at the end of the first fall and the babyfaces come back at the end of the second, with a reset and second bit of heat into the third, but having an extended shine through most of the first two falls and lean into the heat for the third was a fun (and very WWF/E) house show variation here. Alpha has enough stuff and Revival stooges well enough that it worked. There were a lot of little things to like too. Dash is underrated at working the apron. Dawson doing a twenty second set up for a slingshot suplex in 2016 is how you make a move matter. I don't care whether they were just playing along or not, the fan reaction to the ref missing the tag was just what you wanted, as was the Gable chant that followed and the pop for Jordan pulling down the strap (even if maybe you wanted a bit more for the actual hot tag pop). The crowd knew that what they were getting was special and unique. Glad it popped up now.

PAS:  This was a lot of fun, I could totally see going to an NXT house show and just being engrossed with what they were doing. I was really impressed by Jason Jordan in this match, what a bummer the ending of his career ended up being. He was totally explosive, almost like Doug Furnas with better amateur takedowns, some of the better popped hips on suplexes, a total treat to watch. The Revival have their shtick down, and are really good at filling time, which is a real skill for a heel tag team in a southern tag style.

ER: I have been to three NXT house shows and all of them have been great experiences, real high bang for my buck while being set in nice smaller venues (including a gorgeous old rock venue in the middle of downtown Sacramento). By the time I got to see my first NXT house show in 2016, neither of these teams was on the tour, and this match was better than any match I saw across three shows (with a War Raiders vs. Strong/O'Reilly match from 2018 being the closest competition). This felt like an actually fleshed out (and better) version of the fondly remembered Brain Busters/Rockers tags from 30 years earlier, without ever feeling like they were aping those matches. AA just felt like such a timeless classic babyface team, a team who moved so explosively that it felt like they could be responsible for getting casual fans excited about high dropkicks and tight armdrags and classic Morton/Jannetty style headscissors (that Gable himself doesn't even do anymore). Both of them - especially Jordan - had such pop in everything they did, and this is the kind of go go go I wish had caught on as a house style instead of the learned behavior horseshit we got instead. Gable was charismatic as hell, loved him hitting an axehandle off the middle rope on Dawson, rolling through and coming up swinging at Dawson on the other side of the ring; also loved him hitting a second headscissors on Dawson right near the opposite side of the ring and pointing at Wilder on the apron while before taking Dawson over. It was like he was waving to his buddy from the top of a rollercoaster. Both teams spent their time in control wisely, and Revival particularly feel like a team that can work an interesting 5 minute or 45 minute tag match on any given night. Down the stretch we even get a perfectly timed moment of Jordan finally getting a hot tag only for the ref to send him back to the apron and admonish him for not using the tag rope. This was such a good tag, and it felt like they had material they hadn't even worked through yet. These teams worked a ton of matches throughout the Carolinas, I have no doubt that all of them ruled.


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2016 Ongoing MOTY List: Gallagher vs. Gibson

51. Jack Gallagher vs. Zack Gibson ICW 7/29

PAS: Gallagher returns from the US to Europe with a triumphant homecoming. It feels like the excursion to the US has made him a bigger deal. This has a neat structure with Gallagher tooling Gibson with really perfectly executed Johnny Saint style counters with Gibson getting more and more frustrated, so he chucks Gallagher into the ringpost and starts working over his shoulder.  Match has some fun back and forth, with Gallagher being just as adept and a more violent style then he was with the fancier stuff. Loved the finish too, with Gibson trying to get tricky, slipping and eating a huge corner dropkick.

ER: Ever since Gallagher joined WWE he's remained one of my favorites, but I don't think I've actually gone back and watched ANY of his pre-WWE career. It's as if he did the Cruiserweight Classic and I went "cool!" and just waited around for new stuff. And now it's nearly 4 years later, he improbably has an action figure, and he works one of the weirder schedules in WWE (very few house shows and none this year, 30-40 matches per year), and I got the urge to just go back and see what he was like pre-WWE. At this point I've seen 10x the WWE Gallagher as I have UK indy Gallagher, and I saw Phil had done this draft closer to when this show happened, and here I am tapping in that alley oop several years later. And it's impressive how little of his act Gallagher has changed from his UK indy days to his WWE run. The only difference that really stands out is that he doesn't take as many big bumps now, but other than that he's the same man. 

And the match is a good story, with Gallagher confounding Gibson with horseplay and annoying Johnny Saint offense until he snaps, and that's when we get Gallagher the bump king and the most interesting version of Gibson. Gallagher takes the crazy Cassandro bump around the ringpost, and this one is even crazier because the ringside area is not very big, and on his way down he manages to hit his head on the guardrail and a chair. Later Gibson hits a chestbreaker and it looks like Gallagher takes it vertically on his damn face. There were some very clever twists here, like Gibson going for a big missile dropkick only for Gallagher to perfectly time it and catch his ankle, or a strike exchange that ends with Gallagher downing Gibson with his big headbutt, but Gibson goes down so violently that his foot kicks up into Gallagher's balls. That's a spot that looked totally natural, like somebody at a work picnic getting tossed a soda when they weren't paying attention and taking it to the groin. And the finish is even more fun as Gibson goes to run up the turnbuckles the way Nigel used to but slips off the middle buckle; while the fans are laughing and he's about to respond he eats Gallagher's nasty dropkick in the corner and Gallagher wins. It was so well done, the way an expert like Chris Hamrick could fit a fake blown spot seamlessly into the match and manipulate a series of reactions. Doing it for the finish is bold and I've seen it not work, but this was maybe the best I've seen that kind of moment done.


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Monday AIW - Against the World 8/26/16

42. Jollyville Fuck-Its (Nasty Russ/T-Money) vs. Cheech/Eric Ryan

PAS: This was the Fuck-Its' return to the promotion and was kind of a Fuck-Its showcase, which is a hell of a showcase. Colin Delaney couldn't make the show so Ryan replaced him, and Cheech and Ryan are a fun makeshift team. T-Money was especially great in this, his tope looked as good as ever and he was wrecking people with clotheslines and slams. Ryan hits a chop where he runs around the outside before landing it, and when he goes for it a second time, T-Money explodes out of the rail and pounces Ryan into the crowd, it looked like one of those NFL films violent collision videos they stopped doing after CTE became prominent.

ER: Any show that starts with a Jollyville match is gonna go up a grade in my book, and I love a cool WCW style thrown together tag team. WWE always threw together as a lazy way to write in tension. WCW thrown together teams were always born out of a guy suddenly left without a partner and forced to find the best substitute on short notice. It's how we end up with a cool Bobby Eaton/Mike Enos team, or Rick Steiner/Kenny Kaos, or Bobby Eaton/Kenny Kaos! Eric Ryan is an awesome wrestler and Cheech is a great flashy counterpart. Jollyville are just a great team, that honestly also would have fit into WCW. They feel like an awesome SMW team, T-Money hits hard shoulderblocks and clotheslines and punches like the best possible Ice Train. Nasty Russ has the long combed back hair and looks awesome, like a badass estranged brother of Mr. Rosso on Freaks & Geeks. And this whole thing was awesome, just my exact favorite kind of tag match. Jollyville looked great. This is absolutely one of the best Jollyville performances I've seen, and these guys are my team. Russ bumps like crazy but hits hard, and sometimes he hits the mat hard while hitting hard. He takes a clothesline in the corner at one point that knocks him up to the top rope and back down on his shoulders in one quick shot, and it's like a Psicosis bump that never happened before. And the match ends with him hitting one of the most gung ho cannonballs, really throwing himself into it like he was  jumping into a pool and not onto a man. T-Money looked so big league here, Just running into guys like a freight train with hard punches, big ass lariats, and an all time great no hands dive into both Ryan and Cheech, the greatest double clothesline. Money leans into beatings too, and he bravely took his lumps in the corner to eat a mean facewash from Cheech, coast to coast dropkick from Ryan, and that cool 619 around the ringpost from Cheech. Ryan has great snap on everything and is always running fast and crashing hard, and Cheech as I've said a ton just blends so well into a great formula tag match. I loved all the exchanges here, from the big hard hitting flash right down to simple missed exchanges. In fact, my favorite part of the match was T-Money missing clotheslines, just running fast as possible off the ropes and swinging so low and so fast with those meaty arms that any miscommunication would have ended in murder. That kind of stuff is why I love pro wrestling. I love this tag scene.

Shawn Shultz vs Louis Lyndon

PAS: This was a match with some cool individual moments, some nice kicks by Lyndon, a brutal DDT on the floor by Shultz, but it was ultimately kind of a mess. It seemed like they were switching from face to heel every 90 seconds or so, there was some super dancey stuff from Shultz who is supposed to be working as a Southern wrestler, and the aforementioned DDT on the floor was so nasty that it makes no sense for them to work a your turn my turn roll up section a minute later. I have liked both guys in the past, but this was no bueno.

Britt Baker vs Crazy Mary Dobson

PAS: Britt Baker is the big female AIW graduate and definitely got pushed past her ability level. Mary Dobson was throwing bows like someone who was putting over someone she shouldn't. The parts of the match where Mary was kicking her ass was fun stuff. The Baker wrestling sections significantly less so. I have dug Logan in the WWE, is there fun Crazy Mary I should be checking out?

14. Eddie Kingston vs. Shigehiro Irie

PAS: Kingston Road matches are specific subset of his big matches and there have been some awesome ones. I think this might be my favorite. Irie is a sawed off asskicker, who is going to hit hard and take a beating but this was Kingston taking what he can do and crafting a classic around it. Standard hard hit start, until Kingston takes an elbow to the ear and collapses. For much of the rest of the match he does some amazing head trauma selling, constantly shaking off cobwebs, unsteady on his feet, but moving forward and attacking. Irie is a force in this match, he breaks Kingston's hand by ducking his head on the backfist so Kingston hits the top of his skull instead of his jaw. Such a simple counter and so awesome looking. He also shrugs off a big lariat, hard to lariat a guy with no neck.  There was a bunch of tough guy selling in this match, but Kingston especially put enough pain behind his eyes that it wasn't just a cheap stunt. Finish had Kingston dumping Irie on his head and Irie popping up to stumble around, it was a tribute to the Williams vs. Kobashi finish and done about as well.

ER: Goddamn do I love 2004 NOAH Eddie Kingston. He is so damn good at perfecting one of my all time favorite eras of wrestling, with a unique slant, inventive selling, and a ton of personality, he's just going from I guy I've always been into to an all time great. This is everything Kingston does great, distilled into one match. I see this and it makes me angry I never got to see him against every guy who worked NOAH from 2001-2007. His stand and trade tough guy dying on his sword bombfests add so many more interesting dimensions to his style that it feels like it's exposing every single big dumb New Japan wankfest for what they are. This whole thing is just Irie and Kingston hitting each other while Kingston plays out the best vinyl pants Kawada match structure. I loved it, and I loved Kingston's heavy armed chops, backfists to the neck, big damn STO, and his selling while taking a big bodied beating. When he goes to hit Irie and hurts his hand, recoiling and falling down to a knee and then back on his butt, I was gleeful. And by the end of the match where Irie headbutts to counter two spinning backfists, and Kingston is rolling around on the floor holding his hand while the ref tries to get a read on the situation? I was in wrestling heaven. Two incredibly fun personalities, throwing blows, adding their personal color in a wonderful combination, harkening back to a style of puro I greedily consumed (and looking even better coming not several hours after checking in for the umpteenth time on New Japan to the usual disappointment). Another Kingston classic. 

BJ Whitmer vs. Jimmy Wang Yang

PAS: This was Yang's first match in 3 years (he took another 2 off and worked a Tokyo Gurentai match in 2018). It was a lot of shtick to cover up a guy who hadn't worked in forever. They took a plant from the crowd and made her Yang's manager, had lots of stuff with the Duke, etc. Yang had some nice looking flips, but wasn't landing anything with particular force. It was OK, but more of a live crowd match then anything to revisit. 

Alex Daniels vs. Matt Cross vs. Triton vs. Laredo Kid

PAS: Fun spotfest. Triton had a nice double jump dive to the floor, but was a bit slow and a bit leadfooted for some of the stuff he was trying to do. Dainels was surprisingly adept at the armdrag/lucha rope running part of the match, he looked like he had been working in that style for years. Lots of crazy spots, leading to kind of a lame ending with Gregory Iron tossing in a belt for Daniels to graze Cross with for a roll up. Took a bit of the steam out of the match honestly.

Tracy Williams vs. Michael Elgin

PAS: This was a very 2010s wrestling match. With your opening feel out mat sections, exchanging of big bombs, moves on the apron, forearm exchanges and big 2.9 sections at the end. It is expected stuff. This did lack some of the true excesses of the style, there wasn't a bunch of no-sells or a big "fight forever" finisher killer end run, and it had some little moments I really dug. Elgin is a big strong guy, and they did a short arm scissors deadlift spot, which is one of my all time favorites. I also loved how Elgin stepped into William's forearm blunting the impact with his belly. Overall this was a good match in a style I am weary of. Williams had a hell of a singles match run in AIW from around 2016 until he got signed by ROH, and this was a worthy part of that run.

Josh Prohibition vs. Nate Webb

PAS: Prohibition gets on the mic and says that no one paid to see them wrestle a mat classic, so they go relaxed rules. This was a greatest hits Nate Webb show, from the Teenage Dirtbag entrance, to a bunch of dumb bumps, to all of his twisty offense. I am a Nate Webb fan, so I was happy to watch him play his hits (Eddie Kingston even makes that call on commentary). Prohibition got put through a table and thrown around a bit, he was fine Nate Webb dance partner, made him look good.

Teddy Hart vs. Facade

PAS: This was a super Teddy Hart match. Mr. Money comes down with him. They open with some pretty awesome Teddy matwork, including a Fujiwara take down, and an incredible spot where he caught a kick to the chest and turned into a mid air leg lace, it looked like something Tamura might do. Then, of course, Teddy hurts his ankle applying a spinning scorpion. They stop the match, have people come from the back, take his boot off. Teddy limps to the ring gets on the mic and apologizes to the fans and puts over Facade as the future of the business. Facade thanks him, and attacks him giving him a Canadian destroyer. Teddy is able to fight back though and lay Facade out with a Destroyer on a guard rail. It did a nice job turning Facade heel and setting up a blood feud rematch (although Teddy just should have been laid out and not gotten his heat back), but of course since this is Teddy Hart, he never comes back to AIW. Still a cool, if ridiculous bit of business.

ER: Teddy Hart pulls off things that most wrestlers can't, and this is him pulling off a modern era Chris Hamrick performance. Chris Hamrick never had a cat, but you can imagine how successful he would have been with a white cat (obviously) wearing a matching shiny confederate flag vest. I loved those matches where Hamrick would take a grizzly bump and stop everything, bring out a couple guys from the back to check on him, lie motionless talking under his breath in a scared tone about his neck or his knee, get an organic Hamrick chant going, and basically derail everything for 8 minutes just to cheapshot his opponent with a ballshot. Could he have just kicked his opponent in the balls without falling off the top turnbuckle and twisting his knee in the ropes? Well, yeah. And HHH could have just hit Stone Cold with a sledgehammer in the first segment instead of setting up an elaborate series of costumes and double switches before hitting someone with a sledgehammer (except faking a knee injury to kick someone in the balls is infinitely more interesting and HHH didn't understand that). Here Hart punches Facade across the mouth a bunch, drops some cool unexpected transitions, and eventually hurts his ankle and limps back to the ring to put over Facade, AIW, the crowd, the boys in the back, and professional wrestling. And I liked the twist of Facade being the one to lash out with a Canadian Destroyer. I think it would have been a great heel turn...if Teddy Hart didn't immediately get to do a FAR cooler Canadian Destroyer from the apron onto a freaking guardrail that Facade had set up. Oh my god Gordy just slammed the cage door right in Kerry's face! But look at that, here's Kevin, and he slams the cage door right in Flair's face!! Von Erichs win!! And they never fight again.

71. Raymond Rowe vs. Tommy End

PAS: These two looked like a mosh pit fight at a Black Metal concert. I think this could have been an incredible 10 minute sprint. Both guys have super cool ways to throw knees, kicks, forearms and punches. I really like how End throws combos from different places, shooting low kicks to the knee, and punches to the ribs and kicks high. Rowe had some bangers too, although he did do some unnecessary leg slapping. There were some especially gross knees to the back of the head. This did feel a bit bloated, lots of killer shots which should have ended a match, but instead were just kind of there without any context. This was a big main event with Rowe fighting his friend in his home town, so I get why it was worked at the length it was, and it was overall a good match, I just think with some edits it could have been a great one.

ER: I really liked this, but agree it went too long. It's a bummer when I find myself really hooked into a match, and then feel myself mentally checking out through the last few minutes of kickouts and strikes. There were a couple of those "I am definitely checking out now" moments, like nearfalls where the guy doing the pinning is the one who kicks out first, and the peak just felt like it hit, then we shot past it and it's like we don't actually know how to end things but at least we still hit hard. But I really like these two! End is a strike combo guy, but he's one of the few who doesn't actually do the exact same combos in the exact same order every time out. There's a lot of strike combo guys. Every one that I'm thinking of always goes through the same sequences in the same way. End always winds up surprising me with a couple of the ways he sets up a kick. He hits his hooking spin kicks so quickly and accurately that they really do seem to come out of nowhere, and we never wind up with any of those stupid "I kick you and then you bounce off the ropes and hit me and that spins me around into another kick" kind of bullshit, End just comes up with cool ways to land shots without ever swing dancing. I really dug the stuff on the floor, both guys hitting the railing, Rowe setting up knee strikes on the apron, but wherever they were at I was never quite sure what was going to happen next. They always kept me guessing, and I like the strikes and big slams from both (that standing splash mountain from Rowe is damn cool), they manage to avoid the worst parts of this style.


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Monday AIW - Double Dare Tournament Night 2 11/5/16

PAS: So in classic Segunda Caida style, I watched night 1 of this tourney a year and a half ago, watched 80% of Night 2, and then it sat in our drafts forever. As part of Monday AIW I decided to finish off this review, and there is some fun stuff here.

Night 1 Review

Jollyville Fuck-Its (Nasty Russ/T-Money) vs. Massage NV (Dorian Graves/VSK)

PAS: Massage NV's gimmick is less rapey when it is against guys, although it is still pretty stupid. Once we got through their shtick and got to the Fuck-Its beating their ass it got pretty fun. T-Money was especially laying in the clotheslines. I wasn't really buying the offense of Massage NV when they had control, although their spot where VSK oils himself up and slides on Graves back into a headbutt is amusing. Finish was pretty great as T-Money nearly murders VSK with a pounce, great bump by VSK he honestly looked like he broke his neck.

ER: I dug this the whole way through. The comedy massage stuff was relegated to the beginning, and then we transitioned suddenly into the violent part of the program. I've never seen Massage NV, but I actually thought the massage stuff was pretty amusing. I don't know how much legs it has (probably not a gag I'm going to be chuckling at during my 5th NV tag) but I got a kick out of them working out T-Money's traps and doing some deep tissue work between the shoulderblades. Maybe it's just because my neck could use a good massage, and watching this is like going to Trader Joe's when I'm hungry. It didn't crop up at all when things got serious (outside of some oil), and I don't think it overstayed its welcome. And the actual tag wrestling we got was really good! Jollyville really laced it in when they finally went on the attack, and I thought NV held up their end. Graves did a great classic bulldog, and I loved a spot where Money missed a charge in the corner and Graves shot out of the corner to knock Russ off the apron. It felt like something the Fuck-Its would do and it was cool to see the tables turned on them. But not long after, T-Money was throwing lariats through them and hitting his big spinebuster, Russ hot tags in and is throwing even harder lariats and whipping VSK violently into a cool as hell spinning blue thunder bomb, all great. I was impressed by Graves throughout; his elbows packed a wallop and he threw his whole body into pinfall saves. VSK's oil slide headbutt was freaking great, he really lawndarted himself into Russ (little did I know what was about to happen). The actual finish was spectacular, Russ planting Graves with a tornado DDT to get him out of the ring, and a shocked VSK taking the absolute worst neck crunching bump off a Pounce that you've seen. He really takes it on the back of his neck, and there's no way someone should be kicking out of that.

Headhunters vs. Dr. Daniel C. Rockingham/Brian Carson

PAS: Short squash as might be expected. You aren't going to have the Headhunters work two long matches on one night. Couple of nasty chairshots and a big second rope splash call it a night. Headhunters v. Fuck-Its is the match I want to see in this tourney.

Team IOU (Nick Iggy/Kerry Awful) vs. To Infinity and Beyond (Cheech/Colin Delaney)

PAS: This match kept bringing me in, losing me and bringing me in again. All of the opening matwork by Iggy and Delaney was cool, as was IOU's double team beat down on Delaney. I thought Cheech's hot tag kind of sucked and the TIB offensive set was full of improbable double teams where their opponents end up suplexing each other. Lots of set up for not a ton of delivery. We had a pretty hot finishing run with Iggy killing folks, and then IOU ends up winning with a goofy "make a guy Canadian Destroyer his own partner finish. It had more I liked then didn't like, but I really didn't like the parts I didn't like.

Tracy Williams/Matt Riddle vs. Crazy Pain (Steve Pain/Gringo Loco)

PAS: When Riddle quit AIW he shit on this match, claiming the promotion jobbed him to "two luchas who couldn't work," but this was one of my favorite Riddle matches of 2016 and Crazy Pain were awesome in it. The match opens with Riddle hitting a flying armbar, and quickly all four guys throw on cool submissions with Riddle and Williams being more shoot and Crazy Pain being more llave. I also loved the story of Pain being a tough motherfucker and refusing to stand down from Riddle's big shots, and Riddle getting pissed that this guy is stepping to him. At one point Riddle eats a bunch of body kicks and hits this great flurry ending with a springboard rana, which he ripped off like he was Soberano or someone. Finish run is pretty dominant for Crazy Pain with them hitting a bunch of big double teams including this awesome move of Pain putting on a step over toe hold on Riddle, quebradoring Williams and holding him as Loco gives him a Demolition Decapitator, I have no idea how it didn't shred Riddle's achilles.  Match end with a clean win for Crazy Pain with Riddle getting Pain Killered on top of Williams. I was expecting this to be a bit of train wreck, but it was awesome instead.

ER: Yeah this ruled, a style clash that I never thought of but loved that it happened. I never heard the Riddle comments at the time, but I have to assume there were two different luchadors, because this was constant fun. I honestly have no clue what part/s Riddle would even be complaining about. I dug all of this. Williams rolling Loco around in painful crossfaces, Pain throwing strikes at Riddle until it kept inevitably blowing up on him, Pain throwing hard elbows but staggering around great to get caught by BroSauce's shots, throw in all the crazy double teams and this was tag mismatch heaven. Riddle's rope walk rana was impressive as hell (weird how everybody has an impressive landing on their flying when Steve Pain is the one whose feet are on the mat), we get a couple big dives to the floor (love Pain vaulting over the ref with a tope con giro), and Phil is damn right about some of the craziness of these double teams; that sequence ending with Williams getting upended by the Decapitation was flat out crazy, but then moments later Loco is vaulting off the top, onto a prone Riddle on Pain's shoulders, and coming off that with a splash on Williams (that isn't far off from him coming in vertically). This was a wild spotfest, a great clash that never crossed my mind as a possibility, the kind of thing that would have made me flip out the whole time live.

Flip Kendrick vs. Eric Ryan vs. Lucky 13 vs. Facade vs. Angel Ortiz vs. Mike Draztik

PAS: Fun six way scramble with three of the eliminated teams trying to one up each other with crazy moves. Eric Ryan was the highlight, taking way too many bumps and doing way too much for a throw away non-tourney match. He has a spot where he three straight topes on three different guys only to tope the ring rail ribs first with the fourth. He also smushes Flip's face with a huge double stomp and gets bealed over the top rope through a barbed wire board to the floor. Ryan is nuts. Kendrick gets the win with some flippy stuff. Nothing I will remember tomorrow outside of maybe Ryan being a loon, but it was a fine use of 8 minutes

Jollyville Fuck-Its (Nasty Russ/T-Money) vs. The Headhunters

PAS: I expected this to be a wild brawl, but it was actually a pretty deliberate Southern tag, with the Headhunters dominating Nasty Russ for a large part of the match. One of the Headhunters missed a second rope senton which let Russ tag in T-Money. T-Money gets a little offense including a great over the top rope tope, but then the Hunters took over again with chair shots. and a nasty Michinoku Driver on two folded chairs. Finish comes with one of the Headhunters missing a moonsault onto the chairs (totally nuts that such a fat old guy is still doing moonsaults) and then Russ hits a crossbody which gets caught and T-Money hits another and they get a banana peel win. The work in this was fine, and the Fuck-Its make surprisingly good underdog babyfaces, but I am not sure why you would book your tough guy team to get dominated by semi-retired fly-ins only to win like the 1-2-3 Kid. If the Headhunters wouldn't cooperate, book Horace Hogan and Crash the Terminator or something.

Team IOU (Kerry Awful/Nick Iggy) vs. Crazy Pain (Gringo Loco/Steve Pain)

PAS: This is a match where despite liking all four guys, I thought it fell a little short of my expectations. Crazy Pain were put over huge in this tournament, as they dominated much of this match too (which is a match structure which doesn't maximize what a pair of big bumping rudos do best.) I have mostly seen the Carnies work heel, so it is strange to see them work strict babyface, Awful is a pretty great hot tag, and I loved his Warriors Way style Earthquake drop. Parts of this just looked a bit ragged, although the structure was good, this was the best Loco's platform dive superfly splash has looked, he really lands on Iggy hard. I have a feeling this would be better now, as they would have a chance to iron out some wrinkles.

No Strings Attached (Alex Daniels/Gregory Iron/Marti Belle/Ray Lyn/Veda Scott) vs. Weird Body/Garry Baller/PB Smooth/Dick Justice/Space Monkey

PAS: I want to start with the positivity. Alex Daniels and Weird Body had some really fun exchanges, with Weird Body taking some really sick bumps on slams and a great looking discuss lariat. Outside of that stuff, this was a rough watch. Lots of borderline non-consensual spots with the Twerk Team, including Dick Justice jamming one Twerk Teams face into the crotch of another, gonzo porn isn't what I want in my wrestling, I guess I am getting to be a prude in my old age. Most of the match is guys cycling through all of their comedy spots, and a lot of the actually wrestling looked pretty bad, with some moves really whiffing. Maybe just fast forward to the Weird Body spots.

Shayna Baszler vs. Britt Baker

PAS: Man Baszler was so great so early. Her she is Fuchi mode for most of the match, twisting and pulling at Baker's joints and limbs, super nasty stuff. At one point she throws Baker to the floor, ties her calves up in the ring barrier, places the ring steps on her back and puts on a camel clutch. Baker gets a couple of spring boards, and some tetchy forearms which Baszler sells her ass off for, before falling to a rear naked choke. Baker was game, but I can imagine this match would have even been better with someone with better looking offense.

Crazy Pain (Gringo Loco/Steve Pain) vs. Jollyville Fuck-Its (Nasty Russ/T-Money)

PAS: This was a lot of fun, but kind of short, and it really makes me want to see a match between these two teams that wasn't a tourney final. First part of the match is all ringside brawling, and these are four pretty great brawlers. Pain and T-Money were especially heavy handed. There was a really cool spot where T-Money goes for his pounce and ends up hanging himself on the second rope, and some really nifty dives by Crazy Pain. It felt a bit abbreviated, as both teams seemed to leave stuff in their bags, but everything we got looked really good.

ER: This did come off short, even though it was 8 solid minutes of action, and I actually liked how fatigued the Fuck-Its came off. They came out selling a tournament's worth of injuries, Russ especially had some great zombie stagger throughout, even while on offense. I thought it played great. The crowd brawl stuff was fine, Russ smacking Loco with his inflatable middle finger before just punching him in the face, people getting tossed through chairs, Loco getting suplexed on the ramp, all done as tired guys who already hurt. Loco and Pain's flip dives were really impressive, super graceful with heavy landings while also looking totally safe. My favorite spot of the match was T-Money missing a Pounce but committing to it, flying hard into the middle ropes and recoiling. It was such a cool moment I wished they had saved it for part of the finish. Crazy Pain brought some mean stuff, like Loco hitting a missile dropkick to start Pain spinning on a blue thunder bomb, or double stomping Russ in the ribs to eat Money's knees on the big splash. Russ breaks out a dragon rana to the floor, which - c'mon, you guys are crazy - and then really gets whipped into the mat on Pain's powerbomb, then rolled directly into the Pain Killer. Russ took the PK better than anyone in the tourney, really getting crazy height and landing flush, looked like something that would finally finish two asskickers.

ER: Another AIW show, another AIW show that lands a couple matches on our 2016 Ongoing MOTY List. I think these two shows had the earliest Jollyville matches I saw, and it's fun looking back before they became my favorite team. The Catch Point/Lucha Base tag was fun as hell, AIW is fun as hell.

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Low-Ki Advent Calendar Night 4: Fat Frank's Suicidal Games

54. Team Doghouse (Low-Ki/Homicide/Da Hit Squad vs. Team Pazuzu (Chris Dickinson/Jaka/Team EYFBO) JAPW 4/30/16

PAS: This was a War Games style match without a cage and a fans bring the weapons stip (more ECW style weapons like stop signs and ironing boards, then the kind of CZW style barbed wire and glass basement hooker torture devices.) It had the kind of chaotic fun that the best ECW fights had, lots of fun charismatic, talented guys, grabbing everything they can to try to brain each other. Really impressed with Mike Draztik from EYFBO here, he bled the most, took some nutso bumps and hit a crazy tope. Dickinson and Ki had a match in 2015 which I loved, and they had some awesome interactions here, I really wish this was a touring indy matchup. There was some really fun bumps by everyone, Dickinson was delivering cool old school piledrivers, Mack gets blockbustered through an ironing board.

Finish was a little goofy, Mack does a very 80s wrestling "you accidentally hit me, so I am going to turn on you" thing where he pushes Ki off the top rope (Mack turned on Ki on the 2015 show, although they didn't acknowledge it, which is kind of like Terry Taylor joining the York Foundation on every WCW Syndie, he turned on Dustin like three times.) Then instead of that causing Ki to be pinned, Ki ducks the clothesline from Compton and they have a stare off, Joker comes from the back and hits a nasty running knee on Mack, and Mack does a great open eye KO sell, the ref calls the match and awards it to Pazuzu. The knee was awesome, but the whole thing was super confusing, Mack felt like the heel initially, but then came off sympathetic because he was sucker punched and KO'ed, Pazuzu also felt Shelton holed, disappearing completely to set up the big important angle, after how much they killed themselves, they deserved more.

ER: This is 8 guys I really like in an unhinged brawl, so the odds are high I was going to like this one.  This is worked like a WarGames without the cage, with Dickinson and Homicide starting, and one new entrant every couple minutes. Dickinson was awesome throughout the whole match, you want someone working with intensity if they gotta be in there for 30 minutes and Dickinson always brings intensity. Jaka is in next and I love Doom Patrol stuff, the dudes mesh really well together and they were my favorites in this. They were both the glue here and always bring out clever offense in brawls (Jaka had some awesome throws, big capture belly to belly, headbutts, kicks with his heels, Dickinson dropped a huge piledriver, huge running kick at ringside to a seated Homicide, threw sharp chops and was super active the entire match) but they also know how to work through everyone and eat offense to let other team shine, Dickinson especially just eating all of Ki's strikes when Ki came out as the final man. I was also super impressed with EYFBO, especially Draztik. Draztik was a real ham (in good ways), bled way more than anyone, and both EYFBO guys basically got beat around by Hit Squad the whole time, and all built to them hitting a pair of dives down the stretch. The dives were nuts as security was trying to hold the guardrails with their backs to the action, and the dives were coming right at them, would have been real easy for security to get rolled up on. We get fun moments like Mack giving Jaka a cannonball while holding Ortiz on his back, later Mack takes a bump through an ironing board. In fact the true MVP of this match was the camera crew and whomever edited this match together. We jumped around perfectly to all the action happening at ringside and in the ring, never felt like we missed anything, never felt like the cuts were jumping from one to the next too quick, just excellently timed bursts of violence. It helped the chaotic feel of the whole brawl, really seemed to find the best action currently happening. Now the finish sucked a lot of wind out of this, took way too long to set up, and required everybody in the match not directly involved in the finish to just disappear. And it wasn't worth it. Mack turns on Ki for an errant dropkick moments earlier, then stands in the ring forever to set up his big clothesline, which eventually misses. The Joker stuff looked fine but felt so dumb coming as the end of a 30 minute match. Suddenly 75% of the guys in the match are selling damage and not working for the first time all match, and it just ground everything to a halt. The KO knee from Joker looked good, Mack sold it great, but it came off like a super flat and confusing way to end what had been such a wild fun match.


2016 MOTY MASTER LIST

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2016 Ongoing MOTY List: Crane vs. Cage vs. Muertes

20. Jeremiah Crane vs. Cage vs. Mil Muertes Lucha Underground 6/26/16 (Aired 10/18/17)

ER: My god the insanity! This match delivered beyond what I was hoping for, turning into an epic big boy X-Division spotfest, that also had tons of blood and crazy weapons usage and really ended up ranking among the best of the crazy LU brawls. This would have been awesome without the weapons, just three big lugs working stiff and crashing into each other, but the weapons were crazy and the spots around them nuts. So you get Crane's great yakuza kicks, you get all three crashing to the floor like big Nitro cruisers (Crane with his great low-pe, Cage with a big flip dive, Muertes diving off the tope), Muertes slams Crane shoulders first on a chokeslam, Cage drops people with his awesome driver combos, all great stuff. Once Crane brings in a heavy trash can then all hell breaks loose. Everybody takes rough can shots, Crane starts gushing blood, Crane gets chokeslammed through a table on the floor, and back in the ring Cage keeps bouncing around like he's 100 lb. less, pulling off a big rana and a perfect Asai moonsault (and Muertes pulls off a flawless spinning headscissors on the floor, so these guys are all just the lightest heavyweights). Things get crazier and grosser when Crane slams a bunch of wooden stakes right into the top of Cage's head. I've never seen anything like that before. It's like two dozen chopsticks were just sticking stright out of Cage's head, with blood starting to leak out down the sides of his head. My god. He even takes a DDT to hammer the stakes DEEPER into his head. What the hell, you guy!? Muertes goes through a sheet of glass and comes up covered in blood, but they decide to go for ultimate crazy and we get Crane getting superplexed off the top THROUGH Muertes and a couple tables. Holy cow. The singles match portion (with Crane eliminated) between Muertes/Crane was a nice cooldown, with two big tiring dudes beating each other up. I dug their strike exchange, love that Muertes snap powerslam, and love Muertes getting the win to return to dominance. He really should be the top monster in the fed, but damn I really love Cage in LU. Awesome battle of the Kongs.

PAS: Lucha Underground has a lot of things about it I think are really stupid, but they do these kind of maximalist brawls really well. This match had a lot of stuff in it I normally hate, big guys flying around like crusierweights is often really irritating, I normally hate matches which require long set ups for car crash spots and that skewer spot (which Eric has never seen before? That thing is in a million dumb death matches) is usually geek show stuff which takes me out of a match, but in this case all of it worked. The flying worked because these guys are all weird comic book monsters, and it is impossible not to love the beauty of that headscissors is hard to deny. The three way aspect of the match allowed all the setting up of stuff to work, because we still got action when people were constructing, and the skewer spot felt less like some hipster side show spot and more like the kind of thing a psychotic murder would do in a fight with two movie monsters (like this match was Frankenstein vs. The Wolf Man vs. Ed Gein).  This calmed down a bit during the one on one section, and I really think we needed a more violent finish then a flatliner on a chair, but glad to see that LU can still break out the Mil Muertes classics.


2016 ONGOING MOTY LIST

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE MESIAS 

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2016 Ongoing MOTY List

84. Will Ospreay vs. Matt Riddle PROGRESS Wrestling 11/27

PAS: After seeing their awesome match at the WWN Supershow, I wanted to check out their early matchup. This was worked as a total sprint, with Riddle jumping Osprey at the bell with a big jumping knee, it pretty much stays on 10 for the whole 8 minutes, and really builds to an exciting finish. Riddle is really good at Hearns vs. Hagler style all out matches, and while this had some goofy Osprey stuff it moves at such a pace that it is easy to gloss over. Loved the out of nowhere wall flip by Osprey and the intense ground and pound leading to the twister was awesome by Riddle. Weird pair of guys to have such good chemistry, but they really do.

ER: It’s really fun seeing two hyper-athletic guys match up and go as hard as they can for 10 minutes. There are a few of these super athletes that I love watching in short bursts, and usually end up hating their matches that go 15+. Give me something like Low-Ki vs. John Morrison and all their weird landings and crazy body control for 10 minutes, all day. Give me a 20 minute John Morrison match? I’ma pass. Riddle and Ospreay are amazing athletes, who don’t always work a match structure that I’m going to enjoy. But I liked their bonkers WM weekend kickout-fest, and this was even shorter and sprintier. I couldn’t be more happy with the beginning of this match, as Riddle is introduced and opts to skip past much of Ospreay’s introduction, sprinting to center ring and pasting Ospreay with a leaping knee and dumps him with a deadlift German. I’m in. Riddle on the attack with Ospreay reeling is really fun, Ospreay is a very capable seller and can put over a beating, and Riddle is someone who is going to lace in the elbow shots and kicks. I thought Ospreay working his way back into the match was done well, especially liked him getting a drop toehold that sent Riddle flying face first into the turnbuckle. I was watching this match at the Phoenix airport and some stranger sneaking glances thought Riddle had just tripped and landed face first into the buckle. I tried to explain to him and show him that Ospreay tripped him, but the person was convinced that Riddle messed something up. I'm never getting that time back. But hats off to these two for convincing this man that the thing that was supposed to happen (Riddle hitting the buckles with his face), actually happened. These two did not save me from this man then sitting behind me on the plane and having a 2 hour one-way conversation with another man, who said perhaps 40 words the entire flight in response. Sample conversation from this casual observer: "I don't typically like Corona, and I never buy them. They're a little too...I don't know...cliche? I typically go for Bud Light with Lime. You try it and it's like beer with lemonade and you're going 'okay I can get used to this'." Fuck this guy so hard. At the end of the flight the victim of this one-way conversation got off the plane with only a paperback in his hand. I bet he was looking forward to getting two solid hours of reading time on his knew book, and Mr. "I once knew a girl from Boston. Never been there though. Always been curious, just haven't been" went and ruined that for him. Anyway, Ospreay gets a big flying comeback, runs up a freaking wall out of nowhere, big Space Flying Tiger Drop, and they do some stupid stuff that I don't care about: Riddle can kind of zombie in place waiting for moves to hit sometimes, the sequence ending with the Pele kick was too dance-y and ended with Riddle selling as much as Ospreay for some reason, and the strike exchange on the knees was horseshit. But a 10 minute sprint with guys like this (and there really aren't many "guys like this") should always tear, and this one tore.

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2016 Ongoing MOTY List: Muertes v. Crane

11. Jeremiah Crane vs. Mil Muertes Lucha Underground 5/15 (Aired 8/9/17)

ER: YES! This was the match I was waiting for. After hearing all season from people who attended the tapings that "this season was the craziest yet" I have now spent 29 episodes being mostly disappointed. And it wasn't due to high expectations, the action just seems nowhere near as good as the first season. This match felt like the closest we've come to the best brawls of the series. I just love Mil in these crowd brawls. He's bigger than the guys we typically see moving through the crowds, so these shots from above feel more like helicopter shots of Godzilla wrecking everything in his path. The match starts at the top of the temple steps and there might not be anybody better than Crane at violently flying through rubble. He can bring violence, but he's best at inviting violence onto his own person. Muertes throws him through the bleachers, brutally through the chairs, in a fun moment he flapjacks Crane on the stairs' handrail and Crane slides all the way down to the floor bent at the waist. Muertes is a beast, and as he beat Crane with meaty fists I actually liked Stryker pointing out "this is why middleweights typically don't fight heavyweights". Crane goes for his bottom ropes tope and Muertes literally doesn't budge, Crane just bounces off of him. We get a bunch of chairs involved including hard shots to the side of the head and nasty spills into them. In an absolutely nuts spot Crane sets up a table on the floor and takes too long leering at Catrina, allowing Mil to come crashing to the floor with a spear. And the spear doesn't actually break the table! Crane goes flying and Muertes just bulls grossly into the table, later slamming Crane through the bent up table. Crane doesn't go down easy and I wouldn't expect him to and didn't want him to, and we get an appropriate amount of violence. This was everything I wanted out of it.

PAS: This was great stuff, Crane is so good at pushing pace, he is like Thomas Hearns, he absorbs punishment and keeps moving forward. I agree with Eric he is great at flying through stuff, just seems to have no regard for landing safely, and it looks awesome. Muertes is the best monster in wrestling, he knows how to lay in huge shots, menace just with movement and bump and sell just enough to seem like he might lose. That table spot was gross, what a loon Callihan is.


2016 MOTY MASTER LIST

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AIW Double Dare Tournament Night 1 11/4/16

After really loving AIW Absolution show this year, I got pretty excited that Powerbomb.tv was going to start putting up AIW shows. They didn't have anything from 2017 up yet, but this was a super intriguing set of shows from 2016 a big tag tourney full of fun teams.

Space Justice (Space Monkey/Supercop Dick Justice) v. To Infinity and Beyond (Cheech/Colin Delaney

PAS: Space Justice had their Chikara shit they had to shoehorn in, and it was pretty groan worthy. When this wasn't half assed junior college improv troupe stuff, the wrestling was pretty good. Justice is a really fat dude, he looks like a less athletic Ron Jeremy, but he looked pretty good doing some lucha exchanges with Colin Delaney, he also took a great looking bump on a Delaney dive. The finishing run had some nice fancy stuff, and ended with a double team Kudo driver on Space Monkey which seemed like way too mean of a finish for a comedy guy to have to take.

ER: I showed up to this party mostly to watch my boy Weird Body, but caught the end of this one, and Phil is right, that Kudo driver is WAY too nasty to use against freaking Space Monkey. They practically dropped him vertically, seconds after he was doing comedy Baba chops (and some surprisingly nice headbutts to the midsection). Dick Justice is fat enough that I probably need to seek out more of him.

Jollyville Fuck-Its (T-Money/Dirty Russ) v. Weird World (Worldwide Alex Kellar/ Weird Body Evan Adams)

PAS: One of the reasons I was most excited to dig into this show was to see more Fuck-Its, and they didn't disappoint. Weird Body is one of the oddest looking wrestlers in the world, he has this hesher hair and a famine victim physique, but being such a tiny guy he takes a huge impressive beating. Worldwide is a big dude who kind of looks and wrestles like a young Bugsy McGraw, and he basically uses Weird Body as a weapon. Meat of the match is the Fuck-Its laying a beating on Weird Body which is exactly what I want. T-Money does multiple violent bodyslams that feel like they might break him in half, at one point T-Money hits the pounce and Weird Body flies violently into the ropes. Really fun beating, great first round match from the Boys from Jollyville.

ER: This was really fun, Weird Body is just totally entertaining to me, for reasons I can't explain. Maybe it's because his body looks like the David Cross acid bath character in the Mr. Show Titannica sketch, probably more because I've always been drawn to the weirdos and the chubsters and the freaks in my pro wrestling. Now that Ellsworth is out of WWE, I can't think of anybody more worthy of a strange Gowen/Delaney/Ellsworth contract. I guarantee you Weird Body would get over in WWE. Bring him in, sell a few t-shirts, send him to 205 Live, quietly release him. Then someday Chikara will bring in Delaney/Weird Body/Ellsworth for their trios tourney. And yes, this match is what I wanted it to be. I have absolutely no clue how long Adam's weird body will actually be able to hold up to pro wrestling bumps. He has absolutely nothing except his skeleton to absorb the shock. I imagine there is a finite amount of brutal T-Money bodyslams he'll be able to take before his skeleton just shatters apart, ruining the lives of everyone in attendance. But until then, we get to see him getting pounced violently into the ropes and getting suplexed while atop another man's shoulders. Alex Kellar has preposterously small "over trunks", as if he stole them from Adams. He borrows his boy's trunks, he needs to do a better job of protecting him from savages like T-Money! T-Money really did look awesome, and I don't think it was because he mostly matched up with a guy smaller than any female wrestler. Money has a Chris Dickinson aggressive jerk vibe, smashing headbutts and full force. Weird Body has some fun offense, most of it ineffective due to his size, so you see him hit a crossbody with his opponent draped over the ropes and instinctively go OH! and then immediately realize oh wait he's 85 pounds. But no matter, this was a blast. Finish is great as Russ drops a huge elbow/senton off the top (like Izu's old falling meteor)on Kellar, and Weird Body bursts in with the save!! Which is a huge mistake, as T-Money then wastes him, and Kellar gets pinned anyway.

Massage NV (Dorian Graves/VSK) v. Twerk Time (Marti Belle/Ray Lynn)

PAS: Ick. Massage NV's gimmick is that they give unwanted massages to their opponents to unnerve them, so watching them work a team of women was basically Harvey Weinstein the wrestling match. Even worse, Twerk Time are part of Gregory Iron and Alex Daniels crew, so team inappropriate touch were the baby faces. No one in this match seemed particularly good at straight wrestling (Marti Belle was famously the worst part of the MYC) so the parts of this that were a standard match weren't good either. This was gross and I wish the OCD completist part of my brain allowed me to tap out after the first minute or so.

FBI (Tracy Smothers/Little Guido) v. Team IOU (Nick Iggy/Kerry Awful)

PAS: Lots of pre-match horseshit with Smothers coming out with a Cubs shirt and Cubs flag to taunt the Cleveland audience. Smothers is a master of cheap heat, and it feels like he is beneath baseball team cheap heat, he wasn't bringing his best. Smothers is clearly in the no bumps portion of his career, which is fine his chops and karate thrusts still looked good. Not sure why Guido isn't booked all over the place, he still looked really good and the initial takedown and grappling section with Iggy was the highlight of the match for sure. Match itself was about half as long as the pre game stuff, and was a fine but unmemorable use of all four guys. Looking forward to seeing what IOU/Carnies did for the rest of the tourney.

Tracy Williams/Matt Riddle v. EYFBO (Mike Draztik/Angel Ortiz)

PAS: This was an enjoyable tag. I was really impressed how good EYFBO looked when they were doing some grappling early, you would expect them to get smoked, but they both looked good. There was a longish beatdown section on Riddle with a bunch of fun double teams, including an insanely high cannonball by Draztik. There was some SAT memorial silly double teams, including a goofus looking romero special on one guy, camel clutch another guy which definitely was the result of some stoned late night brainstorming. Finish run was exciting including a brutal tombstone right into a German finish by the Catch point team. Didn't out stay it's welcome and had some real exciting moments. Good stuff.

ER: I really liked this, and liked how it kind of evolved out of a semi-joking around atmosphere (fitting in with the rest of the card) into violence, big risks and some big nearfalls. I thought the early wrestling was really good, haven't seen anything close to this interesting from them during their entire Impact run. And during the opening half we get a nice look at what a solid underdog babyface Riddle is. He's an amazing athlete but his athleticism can cause him to go overboard on offense sometimes. Here we get to see his athleticism putting over the attacks from EYFBO and it makes them look like credible threats. The (brief) comedy moments are kept during the moments where EYFBO is cutting off the ring, so the match never stopped for everybody to work a bit, it was instead worked in as heel taunting: Ortiz posing while throwing weak mocking stomps to Riddle, or breaking out several backrakes while isolating him in their corner (though on a show where Weird Body already did an electric chair backrake, we had already reached peak backrake). It all lead to a super hot tag to Williams (perhaps Fiery Hot Sauce?) that sees him sprint across the ring to boot Draztik in the face, then kicking at him until he's off the apron, and hitting a nasty back elbow on Ortiz. We get hot nearfalls, some awesome BroSauce double teams, a dope Ortiz tope con giro through the ropes that smashes Williams into the guardrail, Riddle's big splat senton, just a super hot finish. The match built nice and really exploded.

Crime Tyme (JTG/Shad Gaspard) v. Brian Carson/Dr. Daniel C. Rockingham

PAS: I am too old to get any nostalgic thrill out of semi-crappy early 2000s racist WWE gimmicks. This was fine, but if you are going to book the Gangstas, book the Gangstas not some ripoff team aimed squarely at the Trump voter inside of Vince. This had some amusing shtick from the student team who cheated a bunch, until Crime Tyme got pissed and smacked Carson with the hoverboard in front of the ref. I did like the part where they blew a leapfrog and JTG started potatoing Dr. Dan, outside of that it was very skippable.

Crazy Pain (Steve Pain/Gringo Loco) v. NES (Facade/Flip Kendrick)

PAS: Always happy to see Segunda Caida favorite Flip Kendrick, having two great rudo bases like Pain and Loco is a perfect fit for all of Kendricks fancy shit. Liked the early lucha rope running section, both Pain and Loco are crazy agile for portly dudes. We had a rudo beatdown, which including Loco hurling Kendrick in the air into a Loco cutter. Cool dive section with a nutso multi spin dive by Flip and a fun finish run, with the rudos really winning convincingly with Pain hitting the painkiller and slamming Facade hard on Kendrick. This probably maxed out as a fun IWRG opening tag, but I really like IWRG opening tags.

ER: This was a perfect vehicle for the super impressive lucha stylings of Loco and Pain. Both have big bellies and seem like they have only grown since buying their ring gear, but damn are they just as quick as any tiny flier out there. The rope running and armdragging to start was maybe my favorite I've seen all year, just gorgeous stuff and the kind of flippery I love. Facade is a guy I always forget that I like, as I see him on sight and immediately go "ugh look at this guy" but he brings big strkes from weird angles, really feels more complete than a lot of juniors. Also, tagging people's signs during his ring entrance is a genuinely cool touch. The flying in this had a nice dangerous feel to it, as after we get past the super fast armdrags and quick exchanges, we get into some daredevil flying, quick ranas (Pain and Loco take fast ranas perfectly) big power moves (that alley oop into the cutter Phil mentioned was insane), the whole thing was tons of fun.

Headhunters v. Lucky 13/Eric Ryan

PAS: Pretty shocked that the Headhunters have all four of their feet at this point, much less actually moving around pretty good. Lucky 13 and Ryan are deathmatch guys brought in to eat the bumps for the Headhunters and both guys get killed and bleed all over the place. Headhunters really weren't taking bumps, but they were getting hit hard with chairs, and one of them even takes a Van Daminator from 13. Hunters are still flying, with each Hunter hitting a tope rope splash and one of them hitting a splash off the ring apron crushing a plastic table. I have no idea where the Headhunters had been for the last 20 or so years, but for nostalgia guys they looked pretty good.

PAS: Nothing blow away from the first night, but all of the right teams advanced for the most part, and I dug the Fuck-Its beating of Weird World, lucha tag, Catch Point and the Headhunters. Very excited for night 2.

ER: I greatly enjoyed the matches I watched , and we decided that the BroSauce and Pain/Loco AND the Weird World tags deserved a spot on our 2016 Ongoing MOTY List. AIW delivers the goods, again.

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Lucha Underground Season 3 Episode 20: All Night Long...Again

1. The Mack vs. Johnny Mundo

ER: This match was recorded on 4/24/16 and didn't air until over a year later on 5/31/17. It's a true crime that something this wonderful was sat on for over a year. How many bad episodes of Airwolf (though I do love Michael Coldsmith Briggs III) or repeat airings of The Class of 1999 II: The Substitute did they air while this match collected dust?? This is Johnny Mundo painting his masterpiece. This was him using all his physical attributes to do some crazy things, while tightening up his strikes (and not just tightening up, but laying in shots), landing his flying moves that he typically overshoots, and came up with an impressive structure to a damn long match. The interference came at perfect times, both men hit their comebacks at great times, and little things like expensive studio production only enhanced this whole thing (this may have been their best use of sound sweetening yet). It was all a tremendous spectacle, and I cannot remember a match where Mundo looked better. Fairly early you can see him actually landing on mounted punches, throwing hard kicks, and then he hits a sliding knee that looked fatal and, taunts Mack by latching onto the ringpost out of reach, and actually whips his whole body into his twisting press. He looked like he was trying to damage his opponent, not make the arc of his body look the prettiest. Mundo is going for cheap advantages like feet on the ropes, and the whole match felt like he kept falling near the ropes, either to grab them to escape pin, or use them to aid in his pins.  Mundo keeps taking little advantages and builds up a 2-0 lead, and Mack flips out and nails Mundo with a big dive.

From there we go into a pretty big moves sequence, which felt like it was certainly peaking things early, but I did not know about the eventual knee injury. Mack catches Mundo on a springboard and turns it into a big powerbomb. We get a nice fight up top and Mundo continues going cheap and eye rakes Mack. Mundo hits a huge crossbody and comes up limping. We go into a full match stop, trainers come out with a stretcher. Mundo fully milks it, and this may have actually been Striker's best moment as I thought he was really good putting over what terrible luck this is for Mack, how injuries are unpredictable and it was a shame it came down to this, but what can you do? Mack is pissed but still awesomely comes over to shake Mundo's hand, being an awesome sport all things considered. And beautifully, once Mack walks away Mundo does a kip up and kicks Mack right in the taint, then drops him with a savage DDT. Mack looked like he compressed all of the vertebrae on that one. Mundo proceeds to some glorious taunting, jumping jacks, high knees, running in place, really dancing all around the ring. With a sizable lead he opts to run, takes that stretcher with him...but Mack gets him, ties him to that stretcher and then in some inspired lunacy sends him sliding down the stairs, likely giving Mundo the worst ever wedgie upon reaching bottom. Then Mack picks up that stretcher and throws it up and over, face down, with Mundo only able to watch the ground approach his face, rapidly.

From here we get PJ Black appearing as a Mundo doppelganger, with both picking apart Mack and Mack leaning face first into kendo stick shots. Son of Havoc comes out to even the score but it's not enough, and before long Mundo is playing along with the band and mocking Mack. And then in maybe the best ever use of Sexy Star, she - disguised as a band member - literally drops onto Mundo from off the stage, and she and Havoc beat up PJ to leave things back at Mundo/Mack and a ridiculous piledriver off the apron through a table to even things at 3-3. The final minutes are crazy. A ladder gets involved, Mundo does a weird Jackie Chan moves into and around the ladder, eventually lays himself out by doing his twisting press and eating ladder, and then we get the EPIC journey to Mack frog splashing from off the VERY tall ladder. He is slowed, but he is focused, and with 20 seconds left he hits one of the more epic splashes in wrestling history. But it was too late, and the match ends on count 2 of a sure 3 count. Dario announces the match will continue next week...and for the first time in Lucha Underground history, I immediately start the next episode, eager to find out how this whole thing ends. But that's for another review...

I thought this whole show worked tremendously well, as a wrestling match and as an episode of television. I think all the interference played well and the match did a great job of integrating everybody involved with the story. They took their time to get the crowd into it, but the story they told had me hooked, and I loved being along for the ride.

PAS: Eric brought me out of LU retirement to watch this match, and despite my skepticism of an hour long Johnny Mundo match, this was really good stuff. Mundo was always a really good athlete with some interesting ideas on how to use that athleticism, but his basics never looked great, nice looking parkour style escape from a Royal Rumble, shitty looking kick to the stomach. Here he seemed to bring it all together. The really great bit of avoidance hanging on the ringpost, and a nasty forearm to the back, an insane sled ride bump down the stairs and great ground and pound right hands. I enjoyed Mack in this, he has a lot of charisma and some big moves, but this felt like Mundo as Flair, which is a shocking thing for me to say.

I liked the mishigas at the end of the match less the Eric did, individually the interference spots were clever, but one after another it felt a little ECW overbooked, as did all of the table spots. It reminded me of  the old Coco Chanel maxim about fashion "Before a lady leaves the house she should look in the mirror and take one accessory off", it felt like Chavo or whoever road agented this match should have looked in the mirror and taken one booking gimmick away.

Still no reason that a match this long, with these guys in should have been as good as it was, good stuff.

ER: I'm happy Phil took a shot on this one, and it's an easy land on our 2016 MOTY list. Even though the match technically finished on the next episode, it was taped on a different date so didn't feel right to include it.

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2016 Ongoing MOTY List: Cuerno v. Muertes Death Match

King Cuerno v. Mil Muertes Lucha Underground 1/30 (Aired 7/13/16)

ER: Yeah this was awesome. As it started I actually thought it was going to be Mil just steamrolling Cuerno, and that would kind of make sense considering how Cuerno has been treated this season. He really hasn't been booked as a guy who should be able to hang with Muertes. All season he's been booked as the least important man in 6 man tags, and losing almost all of his singles matches. So when Muertes came out and just plowed through him the first few minutes I thought "yep this seems right" and figured I would just sit back and enjoy Cuerno getting knocked upside down by lariats and tossed through stacks of chairs. But then Cuerno hits his awesome tope and a big crossbody off the railing and suddenly Cuerno is punching Muertes in the face all the way up the Temple steps, and Muertes goes face first through a window. Cuerno tumbles all the way back down the Temple steps and man we've got a fight. I loved Cuerno shoving Catrina outs of the way, which sets off a wild mama bear instinct in Muertes, with him violently plastering Cuerno through all of the tables that had been set up earlier. Out of control brawls seem to be LU's specialty, and this was a good one.

PAS: I thought this was a step below the all time Muerte street fight classics, but was still good violent fun. Muertes dominates most of this with big shots, he has some of the better meaty punches in wrestling history, reminds me of peak Jim Duggan. I liked all of the big Cuerno spots, awesome tope and the wall walk DDT was fun too. The crowbar shots at the end of the match felt like watching a murder, and that martinete was crushing. I would have liked to see the smashes through the windows mean a little more, but I still enjoyed this a lot. Big match Muertes is one of the best guys in the world.


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2016 Ongoing MOTY List: Ki/Cide (and Joker) v. Da Hit Squad in a Cage!

4. Low-Ki/Homicide/Joker v. Da Hit Squad JAPW 11/12

PAS: Wild bloody brawl with the Boricua Four Horsemen trying to murder each other. The match starts with Cide (in old school Natural Born Killaz jumpsuit) and Ki (in his Hitman suit) coming out and getting jumped in the aisle by the Hit Squad. We have a bit of really great crowd brawling, including Homicide busting open Maff with Harley Race style knuckle punches (the camera really focused on Maff and Cide, but in the corner of your eye you could see Ki and Mack brutalizing each other, I really wish I had the alternate view as well). Homicide takes a big bump into the stairs and stays down, while Hit Squad throws Ki into the cage and double teams him. Joker comes out from the back and takes Cide's place in the cage match (not sure if this was an improv, or a planned spot to work around a previous injury). The in the cage parts of the match were really great too, with Ki taking a huge thrown belly to belly bump into the side of the cage and doing some crazy Kung Fu avoidance spots. Finish of this was nutso Maff spears Joker through the cage door nearly killing them both, Cide runs back out to start brawling with Kyle the Beast and they bump the cage causing Ki to crotch himself on the top. Then Maff climbs back into the cage and DHS hits a double splash off the top rope smushing Ki like a wine grape. Best match I have seen these two teams have, and a total under the radar MOTY candidate.

ER: Fully agree with Phil, this is the best match with this combination of guys. This was a full on violence spectacle, and it was glorious. The way it was going, this would have easily made list if they had never made it into the cage, as we get some inspired ringside brawling. Ki immediately gets plastered hard into the barricade, Maff gets busted up, Mack takes a nice running shot into the ringpost, Homicide gets tossed into the barricade, it's all great (and yes, an alternate view would be great in any Low-Ki multiman). Mack tosses Ki into the side of the cage, but since he's basically Spider-Man he just grabs the side of the cage and scrambles up to the top in about 2 seconds. Sometimes Ki moves so freakishly that he feels like an alien in a sci-fi movie trying to blend in with humans. Eventually a detective figures it out, and there's always that scene where they go "There he is! Grab him!" And that's when Low-Ki the alien just leaps up the side of a building leaving all the authorities looking like idiots. After wrestling Low-Ki just needs to start getting motion capture movie gigs that Andy Serkis doesn't have time to do. Ki gets into the cage (again, impossibly quick), but Homicide gets laid out with a nasty bump into the stairs, and DHS get in the ring and corner Ki. But then Ki breaks out some insane moves, including sliding over Maff's back like Luke Duke sliding over the hood of the General Lee (Maff not *quite* the size of the General) to deliver a sliding kick to Mack. The announcers scream that it's like a freaking action movie, and they're not wrong. Joker runs in, and he and Ki have a contest to see who can take nastier in ring bumps, with Ki getting lawn darted into the cage, Joker taking a flipping backpack cannonball into the buckles (!), Ki getting belly to belly suplexed upside down grossly into the cage...and then Joker officially winning their contest by get speared to his certain death out the cage door. Spot of the year? It's up there. The whole thing is chaos. Ki gets crotched on the top of the cage, Mack ends up perched dangerously on the top, Maff climbs over impressively fast, and the double splash from those two is a certain finisher. Crazy, great match from four indy legends.


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2016 Ongoing MOTY List: Park Familia v. Rush Familia

77. LA Park/Super Parka/ Hijo de LA Park v. Rush/Pierroth/Toscano Liga Elite 4/27

ER: This was great. It was worked at Arena Mexico, but worked as if they were playing a county fair to people who had never seen lucha before. It was great. Everybody brawls into the crowd in the primera and the crowd gets suitably riled. Park Jr. gets whooped around ringside, taking a great post bump, Pierroth walks up to the skeleton crew and throws a full beer in their face; Park and Rush are always the stars in this kind of act, they're larger than life and it's impossible to look away as they stiff the hell out of each other among the fans. Park and Jr. get run into the metal announcer nest, and soon Park disappears and comes back with a box of beer bottle empties and banks it off Rush's head. Broken glass flies onto the announcers desk. Park hits one of his huge dives onto Rush, and Park Jr. hits a huge plancha on Toscano into the front row, crashing Toscano painfully into the seats. We then settle into more county fair work, with Park working comedy chop sequences with all the rudos, starting with he and Rush chopping each other (and Rush winning the battle with nasty knife edges to the throat), but soon Park was chopping them all. The ones between he and Rush felt sinister. This felt like Super Parka's best performance since returning to Arena Mexico. He's 60, which only made those armdrags on Toscano more impressive. Rush also has a primo dickhead performance, my favorite moment being where he pins Park, but Park kicks out, rolling Rush right onto and over the referee. As they both stand up, Rush shoves the ref in the back of the head. I love how these teams match up, and any time Rush/Park are on opposite sides it's must watch.

PAS: I am not sure whether anyone in this match besides PARK and Rush was any good, but those guys are so great it really didn't matter. PARK has gotten so fat, I have no idea how his tope is still as graceful as it is, how does an obese man in his 50s fly like that. There was a great spot which Eric didn't mention in the beginning of the first fall where Rush and Toscano were using a midget as a weapon, it was sort of an awkward camera angle and it really looked like they were using a 10 year old as a bludgeon, before chucking him into the seats. This kind of Tijuana style match is still a total anomaly in Arena Mexico and it was really fun to watch someone get brained with a case of beer in the temple of Lucha Libre once again.


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2016 Ongoing MOTY List: Young Bucks v. Cobb/Riddle

18. Young Bucks v. Matt Riddle/Jeff Cobb PWG 12/16

PAS: Young Bucks matches have some problems baked in, you are going to get winking goofiness, some contrived spots and way too many superkicks, however both guys are big bumpers, have some nice looking offense and good timing. This was a match where the good outweighed the bad, Riddle and Cobb are a fun Steiner brother tag team, and really chucked around the Jacksons. I loved Cobb just throwing them both like sacks of wheat into a truck bed. Meanwhile the Bucks did a nice job timing their superkicks, I especially loved the superkick on Riddle's bare foot, which is a really nifty way to work a bodypart. I really should dislike the Young Bucks, but man are they in some good matches.

ER: My god I loved this. Bucks are usually a no middle ground team with me. I think I'm overall higher on them than most people, but I also recognize pretty early in a match if a particular Bucks match is going to work for me. So I love peak Bucks, and bail early on the stuff I recognize as not working. But this worked. It was like a Steiners/PG-13 match that never happened (wait did the Steiners ever face PG-13!?!? No that's impossible...unless it happened like a year ago at a Gathering of the Juggalos or something). Riddle and Cobb dominate so convincingly (tossing both around as you'd expect) that you start wondering how the Bucks will convincingly go on offense...and then Matt gets the boots up in the corner, suckers Riddle into chasing him around the ring, right into a beautiful Nick blindside superkick from the apron, and shit is ON. The rest of the match is a wonderful off the rails sprint, with unexpected double teams, neat move set ups, and tons of superkicks. People are weirdly offended by the Bucks use of superkicks, but I like it. It's an adjustment of thinking, no longer treating them as a KO blow but more as a thousand tiny cuts. I think they're effective because while they use them constantly, they use them in different ways and to different degrees. Sometimes they use them the way Lawler uses a punch, other times they're more devastating (like when Cobb is going for Tour of the Islands and takes one to the back of the head, and crumples beautifully), or when they're used specifically as a blindside cut off, or when they're used specifically to set up an opponents offense (the several times they get caught by Riddle and get used against them). They take it to the next level once they start stomping Riddle's ankle and then hold it up on a platter to superkick it. Great, great spot. They also avoid the Bucks mugging while the opponents have to sit around and sell. All Bucks mugging leads directly to Riddle/Cobb getting the momentum back: Nick mugs to the camera while punching Riddle, leading to him getting popped in the eye; both doing cocky superkicks to kneeling Cobb/Riddle leading to them getting caught in ankle locks.

This match is just a great confluence of styles, within the tag structure. From there we get unique Bucks double teams (Matt powerbombing Riddle into the corner while Nick hits an enziguiri, Matt hitting a cannonball while Nick hits a sliding shotgun kick), neat subtle taunts (Matt Jackson hitting a more vicious version of Riddle's running corner knee than Riddle hit earlier in the match), clever quirks (Matt pulling the ref towards him to hide the fact Nick is tapping to an ankle lock), big bumps, great nearfalls, and a satisfying, logical finish. I would have flipped my wig had I been there live.


2016 MOTY MASTER LIST

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2016 Ongoing MOTY List: Herodes/Heddi v. Zumbi/Bandido

66. Herodes Jr./Heddi Karaoui v. Zumbi/El Bandido Liga Elite 9/14

ER: What a cool little match! Liga Elite is really starting to pull together a fabulous undercard. They got a bunch of young hungry guys all fighting to be noticed, and it's really starting to stand out. This card especially felt like the guy who had the craziest night in-ring got the hottest rat in Naucalpan or something. Herodes Jr. was unhinged, working like a young cross between Terrible and Rey Escorpion. He had nice timing and worked real stiff, and had facial expressions that read "yeah, I know how stiff that was." Heddi is like a lucha Chris Dickinson, a real unlikable mug and cocky presence, but also brings violent throws and holds. Heddi had all these cool subs with a twist: a neat Indian deathlock that saw him also wrenching the knee, a stretch muffler with him standing up to wrench that, always grabbing at something for a throw. Zumbi does a capoeira gimmick and is actually pretty entertaining with it, with crazy handstand based offense, and wrestling barefoot always makes me like a guy more. Bandido had a bunch of cool tough headlock throws, some complicated stuff on shoulders, several cool roll ups. All of it blended into a fun style clash, been awhile since I saw a good style clash. Everybody had their own unique stuff, but nobody got crossed on the others' stuff. Crazy spots, and a bunch of danger without veering into overkill.

PAS: I really enjoyed this, Heddi is a guy who has been around for a while and who I always thought stunk, he was pretty great in this, twisting knees, cracking people, having some really aggressive mat wrestling scrambles with Bandido. I also really liked Herodes Jr., again a guy who I hadn't had an opinion of, but felt like he was in the tradition of guys like Emilio Charles Jr. and Bestia Salvaje, which is a tradition I loved. There was a great spot where Zumbi goes for a plancha, Herodes catches him a bear hug and rag dolls him back and forth like a dog playing with a dead squirrel before chucking him kidneys first into the guard rail. Zumbi's capoeira stuff sometimes looked silly, but a couple of times really turned a breakdance into something violent, he did this headspin where he landed knees first into Heddi's windpipe. Overall a really entertaining undercard tag, and I really want to search out more of Herodes and Heddi.

2016 ONGOING MOTY LIST

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2016 Ongoing MOTY List: Janela v. Speedball v. 2 COLD!!

41. Joey Janela v. Speedball Mike Bailey v. 2 Cold Scorpio C4 5/27/16

PAS: Powerbomb.TV delivers with this barrel of fun 3 way dance. Janela gets a great heel reaction from me by turning a singles match into a 3-way, always my least favorite booking move, but bumps his way into my heart, with a missed top rope senton on the ring apron which looked chiropractic. The low celling was clearly fucking up his flying, but outside of that 2 Cold looked awesome, he is wrestling like an athletic Gypsy Joe at this point, as he mixes in shoot punches and chops with great looking flip kicks right into faces. I really enjoyed all of the karate sparring face offs with Bailey early, and Scorp isn't afraid to take a shooting star kneedrop right to his kidneys. This had some of the 3-way awkwardness, but man alive did I love watching it.

ER: What a ridiculous match, that I very much loved. Janela is an actual weirdo, and I like weirdos, and while I hate 3 ways, I like weirdos getting jammed into 3 ways. And 3 ways with 3 lunatics are probably the best kind of 3 ways. So we get three loons doing loony stuff and it's pretty wonderful. This is one of my absolute favorite Bailey performances, just goofy and nasty all at once, with moonsault kneedrops and dropkicks running from outside the building and on point spinkicks and kicks and kicks and kicks. Scorp had a minor flub that really didn't matter to the overall match quality, and was also wearing some absurdly aggressive dick pants. They may as well have had arrows on the front of them. He's in his 50s now and still really good, and gets tremendous power behind his chops and strikes. I loved all his kicks, his vaulting legdrop out of the corner, and his willingness to lean into both guys' attacks (jeez that shooting star kneedrop to his kidneys!!). Janela worked this smart in terms of the match structure, bringing big bumps and some nice saves instead of jamming himself into convoluted 3 way spots. That somersault senton off the top to the apron was just stupid times ten, and I loved seeing his arm get redder and redder as Bailey kept kicking it. This is a weird instance of the 3 way being possibly better than any combo of singles match between these guys. I'm sure all the possible singles matches would have been awesome, but I don't know if they would have upped the crazy to these levels. Hopefully they test this theory in 2017, because I'd still watch it.

2016 ONGOING MOTY LIST

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2016 Ongoing MOTY List: Dick Togo is Back in the GUTS

69. Dick Togo/Masao Orihara/Ryan Upin vs. Mr. Gannosuke//CHANGO/Michio Kageyama GUTS World 12/3/16

PAS: These Togo and Crew trios matches are quickly becoming one of my favorite under the radar things to watch. Gannosuke is old and fat, but still can turn it on when need be, he breaks out a superplex here and has a great spot where he is just throwing rabbit punches at the back of Orihara's head. This was more of an Orihara showcase for the championship team, but Togo did have a couple of awesome runs of offense. Really liked the finish run with Gannosuke's team hitting a bunch of cool double and triple teams only to be foiled by an Orihara kick to the nads.

ER: I am really digging GUTS. Guys are lumpy and the old guys can still go! I like how someone like CHANGO gets crowd chants, just this niche group of Tokyo wrestling fans, who sees CHANGO as their Bruno for whatever reason. Gannosuke was one of my favorite Japanese indy guys SO MANY years ago, and this was the first I've seen him in ages (didn't even know he still worked), and he's still clearly a guy that I dig. He has a great aura and still brings details, like that wrenching chinlock or a little extra pop on a wild superplex. Also amusing that he's teaming with his junior doppelganger Kageyama. But yes this was the Orihara show, and I love that late 40s Orihara has now become my favorite current wrestler in Japan. He looks like a thug, and wrestles like a thug. He doesn't hold back on the littlest things, his stomps and stomach kicks and missed shots always look tighter than anybody else in a match, and he has a surprisingly deep offense arsenal for someone who can come off like a kick/punch guy. I'd love to see this get to a Orihara/Gannosuke singles match, a real battle of scuzzy late 40s dudes. My favorite thing about the match was the waves the match went in and out of. It seemed like the tone shifted several times in the match, which is kind of cool. We start out wild, go into a Team Togo control period, let the legends hit their stuff, go through a long Team CHANGO double team period, just a bunch of shifts and little stories. Orihara hits a beastly chairshot and a straight boot to the balls, and to hammer home how great he is at the little things, look no further than his small package roll up to win. He already punted dude in the balls, and then he breaks out this gorgeous small package, grapevining the loose leg and everything. Beautiful attention to little things from such a dangerous man. What I would do for Finlay to come out of retirement against Orihara.


2016 MOTY MASTER LIST

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DICK TOGO

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2016 Ongoing MOTY List: Orihara Goes for GUTS

64. Masao Orihara v. Daisuke GUTS World 2/23/16

PAS: It feels like we need a deep dive into recent Orihara. Here he is going after the GUTS world title against genial Misawa cosplayer Daisuke and it is pretty boss. Orihara looks like he hasn't lost a step since his scumbag peak in the early 2000s. He still looks like a guy who runs one of those weird Tokyo bars where girls dressed like Teddy Bears jam their toes into businessmen's mouths, and he still has some super crisp and brutal offense, great looking punches, and elbows, awesome piledriver. Meanwhile Daisuke is pretty much all rolling elbows, but they look pretty good, and he has a great Sliding D. match was pretty great from jump street, and built to an exciting finish.  Orihara is a secret 2016 Puro superworker.

ER: It's weird that almost 30 years into his career, this is my favorite Orihara. It was fun seeing him die on bumps and crash and burn on missed flying moves, but now he's full on Yakuza button man Fit Finlay and it's the best. His style is relentless as he uses his whole body to constantly attack the mononymous Daisuke. Daisuke could never catch his breath as Orihara was always there with a punch, kick, elbow, boot toe, fat flipping senton, knee, or hip attack. He would start an attack standing, and keep attacking all the way down: punch Daisuke to his knees, knee him in the side of his head while he's on his knees, kick him in the head while he's on the mat. A wrinkle I loved about the match was Orihara being tempted to go back to his flyer roots, and that being the thing allowing Daisuke to make his way back. Orihara misses two big moonsaults at two different times of the match, and Daisuke is right there to hit his aforementioned Misawa elbows, and they were very nice elbows. At no point did Daisuke look on the level or Orihara, so I appreciated the ways they had Daisuke get back into things. But yeah, Orihara, man who has seen some shit I would not believe, has unexpectedly become one of my favorite workers in the world.

2016 MOTY MASTER LIST

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