2018 Ongoing MOTY List: Ikeda vs. Keisuke Goto

147. Daisuke Ikeda vs. Keisuke Goto GPS Growth5 12/18/18

PAS: This is Ikeda against a young kid, and while that isn't what it would have been 10 years earlier, it is still going to be violent kicks to the ribs, punches to the jaw and gross headbutts. Goto has a nice second rope senton, but otherwise was pretty much there to be beaten violently. There is a great moment where Ikeda has a tight purpling rear naked choke with this sick grin on his face, looking like he is right where he needs to be. What a beautiful psycho. 

ER: This is a pretty baseline Ikeda beating, but those are the best, and it's always fun to see what his punching bags to do fight back. Goto really bends Ikeda's left calf over his knee, forcing it down at the ankle, and some of his elbow smashes actually pack more wallop than Ikeda's. This starts out actually competitive, and that changes complete when Ikeda stops Goto's assault by jamming his thumb up Goto's ass. I cannot think of a bigger insult to injury than Ikeda doing an Oil Check before delivering an asskicking. If I'm going to get kicked in the cheek several times, please just kick me in the face. Ikeda does some big body kicks, a hard headbutt, and a mean front kick to Goto's nose and mouth. Where guys like Finlay would stomp on your hands if you were to slow to get to your feet, Ikeda just kicks you in the ribs and face alternately until you make it back up. I liked Goto's running senton, and his middle rope senton wasn't pulled at all, but I would happily take both of those sentons rather than take Ikeda's vertical suplex, his sick high tilt sheer drop back suplex, and that collarbone crushing lariat. We can all identify with the man in the crowd who starts loudly laughing after that lariat. All Ikeda fans are That Man. 

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2018 Ongoing MOTY List: Doom Patrol vs. Kingston/Homicide

95. Eddie Kingston/Homicide vs. Chris Dickinson/Jaka Beyond Wrestling 11/25 - GREAT

PAS: Really fun old school vs. new school NYC indie battle. I really liked the trash talking, with Dickinson calling Homicide grampa and daring Kingston to try his bullshit jujitsu. It felt a little good natured at first, but it started to get a little sharper, the way a pick up game can all of a sudden turn into a fist fight. This really did turn into that fist fight with Kingston tagging in and rag dolling Dickinson in a really disrespectful way. Those two especially brought it right to the edge in ways that I always love from both guys: a lot of chops to unsafe parts of the neck and sharp looking kicks. There is a great spot near the end of the match where Kingston is in the corner eating kicks, chops and punches from all angles by both guys while throwing his own shots back. It's one of the cooler strike exchanges I can remember seeing. We get a 2010s tag near fall run, which is what it is, but the big moves were appropriately big and it ended when it should. I am a big fan of all four of these guys and this really delivered. 

ER: I think we've had this sitting in drafts for over a couple years, waiting on me to force myself to watch some of my favorite guys. Obviously it's filled with things I love, and I knew that it would, but wrestling fans are weirdos and we can't always predict which direction our wrestling viewing hours will be spent. The match built well within the framework they established, veering into directions I didn't always like but always kept my interest. It starts with some cool dickhead kneebars from Dickinson with Homicide offering little defense, leading to Dickinson asking for Eddie Kingston's "fake jujitsu ass". Homicide having little ground answer for Dickinson and Dickinson being a loudmouth quickly leads to Homicide going after eyes and fighting the way we love to see Homicide fight. Dickinson and Jaka were great at getting Homicide away from Kingston and it felt like the whole match could have kept that formula, with Dickinson wrapping his arm around Homicide's neck from the apron while Jaka kicked and chopped away, and Eddie's insults grew less eloquent as his anger level rose. 

Jaka got a little too cute on an outside in suplex, choosing to do a ropes balance course with Homicide that is a bit too complicated, but it throws Homicide all the way across the ring, with Kingston tagging in as Homicide rolled to the floor. There was a little undercurrent of Kingston and Homicide disrespecting Jaka, and it was made a bit more obvious by Jaka looking a step behind skill-wise from the others. I was a big Jaka fan (weird to think he's only had like 10 matches since this one) and liked his commitment to using Islander strikes in Catch Point matches. Those strikes throw off the rhythm of this match a bit, with the best moments happening when King and Homicide throw bombs and chops. Jaka's strikes looked a little lighter, so when the OGs would hit him back it read as great old man disrespect. Homicide and Kingston even both SPIT at Jaka! Watching this three years later and that feels even more insulting, now that it's not just the biggest sign of disrespect but also potentially deadly. Kingston's flurries were the best, like dropping Dickinson with a mean Saito suplex and a stiff arm standing lariat. The ending got a bit bombastic and I think every single one of them got their own 1999 Kings Road fighting spirit moment. Pulling from 1999 All Japan is kind of like pulling live material from 1995 Grateful Dead shows, an era with less worthwhile stuff to steal from than the other 25+ years. Kingston takes one of the most scarily accurate backdrop drivers to that 1999 AJ style, and it's mostly glossed over to make way for both members of Doom Patrol to walk through backfists. It was a bit much, but it was in a match that also gave us Dickinson and Jaka teeing the absolute fuck off on Kingston in the corner while Kingston somehow screamed his way through it to chop them both in the neck, and it's the kind of high that many attempt but rarely make look this good. 

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New Footage Friday: TANK ~! BOSS MAN~! DEVIL'S REJECTS~! NWA ELITE~! FUGO FUGO~! ISHIKAWA~!

Big Boss Man/Tank vs. Pomp and Circumstances NAWA 2004

MD: This was a fun local match with a big star, though it was definitely much more of a Tank match than a Bossman one. That said, this was a younger, spry dominant clapping babyface Tank and no one's going to complain about watching him crush Rockwell and Tempers. The few times where Tank and Bossman did some stuff together were a hit, obviously. I thought Rockwell was more the stand out in bumping and feeding here, really flying around the ring. The transition, fairly deep into the match, was a low blow and the heat mainly about working Tank's leg and that was fine. When they swarmed him or cheated, they controlled things. When they let Tank create some distance, he got hope spots in. There was a fakeout hot tag that the ref didn't see. Because of that, I didn't like the lead in to the hot tag where Tank walked over to the corner and hit a superplex despite the bad leg. He could have just walked over to his own corner instead. It would have worked better with just a basic toss off the top. The finish was pretty much what you'd expect in a situation where they didn't want Rockwell and Tempers to lose clean. Overall, this was fun stuff though.

PAS: This was a fun Southern tag, with some big babyfaces mostly bumping around weaselly heels, MX vs. JYD and Bill Watts with Bossman in the role of Watts. Not sure of the date of this match, but Bossman would be dead in August 2004, so this was one of his last matches. He still came off like a star, but was clearly diminished. We have Devil's Rejects Tempers this week too, and it is fun to see him as a pretty boy heel as opposed to a face painted psychotic. It is a different role for Tank too, and one he does well. Nothing that will blow your mind, but something that delivered for sure.

Devil's Rejects(Tank/Iceberg/Shawn Tempers/Azreal) vs. NWA Elite (Kory Chavis/Jeff Lewis.Michael Judas/Onyx) NWA Anarchy 12/30/06

MD: This felt like the first chapter of the next book of the saga, a transitioning from the Rejects vs NWA Anarchy to the Rejects vs NWA Elite, something to whet people's appetites for the escalating violence to come. They always do an amazing job of making everything feel like it has gravitas and lore. There's just a lot of weight and inertia behind what was going on in the promotion. Everyone involved had a history with one another, with Bailey, to a degree with Wilson since he'd been the voice of the company for years. They were all former champions in Wildside or Anarchy or both. This expanded, extended Elite was made up of former allies and enemies, and they always seemed to work surprises in. In this case it was Mikael Adryan returning from Puerto Rico as Mikael Judas and Kory Chavis returning for the Elite even though they'd been enemies in his last appearances. It did hammer the notion that the Elite was elite which was necessary given the sheer force and dominance of the Rejects. 

And I know all this because they spent the first five or six minutes of the match not actually calling anything but just laying it all out. I'm not sure how much use that was to people closely following along in 2006 but I appreciated it fifteen years later. If I spent most of this review just setting the stage, it's because it was a stage worth setting. This feels like the most important thing in the world for the residents of Cornelia, Georgia. Past that atmosphere, the most impressive thing about the match was the restraint. While there was some interference from the outside, some foreign object use, Wilson involving himself a little, it was primarily kept to standard tag rules, with believable and fairly even momentum shifts and transitions, for an astounding amount of time. When it broke down and got violent, they built to a few big, memorable spots (primarily the massive, seemingly impossible razor's edge out of the corner by the returning Judas) and the arrival of Dominus who was best used as a tease anyway. It moved things along, gave the crowd a taste of what would come, decided nothing, reintroduced some players, and fit well on a card that also had a couple of title matches and AJ Styles. Maybe not the over the top spectacle we're always hoping for looking back, but a good piece of business overall.

PAS: This was the first match in this feud, we have the Wargames blowoff and are anxiously awaiting footage to drop of their fans bring the weapons match. This feud got covered in great detail on the Way of the Blade pod I did with Jeff G. Bailey and Rev. Dan Wilson which is a great listen. This wasn't one of the wild brawls that would follow, but a more traditionally worked tag that built to a pretty big crescendo. I liked the early Onyx stuff with Iceberg and Tank, he came off like a total horse throwing those huge guys around. We get some violent interference from both Bailey and Wilson behind the ref's back. It breaks down at the end with Judas hitting a razor's edge on Iceberg which was wild, and we had a lurk in by Dominus and the Rejects lay out Judas with two huge Iceberg splashes, and a sick top rope double stomp where Judas was being lifted off the ground. Totally did the job of making folks wanting to see the Elite get back their win.

Yuki Ishikawa/Joeta vs. Fugofugo Yumeji/Buki WUW 7/14/18

PAS: This is in what looks like the back of a comic shop in Tokyo somewhere. There is a tiny ring with chains instead of ring ropes and Japanese indy legends Yuki Ishikawa and Fugofugo Yumeji bringing along two guys I hadn't heard of to have a violent punch out. They couldn't run the ropes or do any complicated sequences in that ring so it was all punishing grappling and hard shots. Buki and Joeta were in the spirit of things, and their exchanges were nearly as violent as Fugofugo and Ishikawa. Buki especially was a nasty little prick yanking at Joeta's face and stomping on limbs. Ishikawa and Fugo is as great as that match up promises on paper, Ishikawa is a more skilled grappler working out of the guard, but Fugofugo throws some gross headbutts and uses his strength to move into positions. Really nice mix of FUTEN/BattlArts style stuff and backroom violent indy sleaze.

MD: Phil covered this well, but I'd like to double down on the sense of confinement. This ring was tiny. It was surrounded by chains. While they never came into play, all it took was one hard shot to knock you back to your own corner. When Ishikawa and Fugofugo tested each other with early grappling, there was a sense of extra care to it. Movement was limited and they were very much aware of it and working all the harder not to allow for openings or make mistakes. Buki came off like a real bastard throughout most of this, just a guy with a huge chip on his shoulder. Joeta held his own, just solid throughout, especially when going strike for strike against Fugofugo. As this escalated and became more and more violent, you lost sight of what was on the walls behind them and only focused on the cage and the tiny box which it enclosed. It gave everything almost a pitfighter atmosphere that really encapsulated the underground feel they were going for and that I imagine most of the rest of the card couldn't begin to manage in the same visceral way.

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2018 Ongoing MOTY List: Gringo Loco vs. Bandolero in a Cage!

145. Gringo Loco vs. Bandolero GALLI Lucha 9/9/18 

PAS: We get a bit of a black swan here, with an actual good lucha cage match. With the return of Gringo Loco to the spotlight in recent years, he has been mostly working as a base in spotfests or as a tag worker, but this was main event brawling Loco which is what he made his name on in that amazing IWRG run. It wasn't at that level (Bandolero isn't Black Terry or Chico Che) but it had some good moments. Loco jumped Bandolero in the aisle and worked him over with chair shots and tossed him around ringside, and it's the kind of wild brawling I love and my favorite part of the match. When they got into the cage it turned into more of a 21st century cage match with the cage being used for big spots. And there were some big spots, with Bandolero doing a bunch of cool Spider Man climbing on the cage to fly off and a crazy huge top of the cage rana.

ER: For a match type neither of us like, Phil and I have weirdly written up several lucha cage matches over the past couple years. Is the format getting better, or are Phil and I getting dumber? You know, I take that back as I'm still scarred from that All Cage Match IWRG show and that weird ass Negro Navarro show that took place in an MMA cage. So...no, lucha cage matches are still terrible, but still capable of being fun, and this was plenty fun. It manages to combine two things I dislike - lucha cage matches, and lucha main event big move 2 fall lay around structure - into something palatable, so give these two credit. They managed to sequence nicely overall and build to the big stuff appropriately (even though I did think Gringo hitting a powerbomb, rolled into a piledriver, rolled into a tiger driver.....well that feels pretty "finisher" combo to me), and we got some pretty great big stuff. Gringo is a master at basing, that magical combo of taking moves gracefully while landing heavily. It's the latter thing that most wrestlers don't have. Sure, CrossFit guys can take a reverse rana, but there's never any heft to it. It's like a movie with bad CGI, just 2002 Incredible Hulk bounding around light as a feather. Bandolero does some big flying off the top of the cage, and OFF the cage, like in a cool spot where he leaps off the chain link with a moonsault (not off the top mind you, off the side of the cage itself!). A lucha cage match hinges on cool spots and big bumps and blood; this didn't have blood, but 2 out of 3 ain't bad. Gringo is still a guy with a couple cool bumps into a cage, and when chairs get involved at least the violence is going to have a high floor.

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2018 Ongoing MOTY List: Kotaro Suzuki vs. Tajiri

68. Kotaro Suzuki vs. Tajiri AJPW 1/2

ER: I really liked this. Makes sense that a modern Japan match I really like is going to be between two guys I watched 15-20 years ago. But it felt like more of a modern Japan match, just done really well. Suzuki has really grown into a cooler large junior, the added muscle since his earlier NOAH years making him more interesting. Here they work a simple story around Suzuki battering Tajiri's ribs and body, in a match dominated by Suzuki, but they integrate Tajiri's comebacks as effectively as possible. Tajiri is a game old guy, but this is also a smart way to craft a match around a less game old guy, real smart way to showcase Tajiri (both guys are in their 40s, but at opposite ends). They open with some cool standing grappling that feels more like something from a Regal match, wrist control and Tajiri crossing Suzuki's arms in attempts to control his torso.

Suzuki goes after Tajiri's torso in retaliation, starting with a hard body shot and graduating up to gutbusters and hard knees and more punches and elbows to the gut; he even breaks out a 619 right to the ribcage and a sensible frog splash off the middle buckle. Tajiri uses his kicks to max effectiveness, going right at the collar bones with a running dropkick in the corner and having great aim on all of them, and he's one of the only guys still tossing out a classic Memphis piledriver. Suzuki shoves his hands over Tajiri's mouth when he wisely suspects mist, but Tajiri eventually took advantage of the distracted ref to nail the mist and a great spin kick to the face to finish. I thought these two complemented each other really well, their similarities play well off each other, and this managed to have a lot of movement, but a lot of effective movement.

PAS: Yeah if I am going to watch a Japanese juniors match, I want them to be Senior Juniors. Suzuki isn't great (he wasn't great 20 years ago either), but he did some effective things, although his elbows to the head were so-so, those body shot elbows were nasty, and I liked how he kept Tajiri off of his game with them. The opening matwork section was really cool and something which doesn't exist in major fed Japanese wrestling. Much of the match was Suzuki bottling up Tajiri, including blocking the mist with his hand to set up some very cool magistral roll ups. Tajiri is still a heck of a one shot wrestler, and when he finally hits the mist/buzzsaw kick combo it looks as great as it did in ECW in the 90s. I think I would have rated this higher if Tajiri was unleashed a little more, but this was entertaining well executed stuff, which isn't super common in Japan these days.




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LUCHA UNDERGROUND ~FINAL~ EPISODE: Ultima Lucha Cuatro - Part 2

ER: When I started Lucha Underground season 4 TWO YEARS AGO, who could have possibly predicted it would take two years to complete? It was that magical combination of near total disinterest in the product after seeing the show's quality decline each season to the next, with a stupid completionist attitude of "you've already written up the rest of the show, might as well finish this race". I loved the first and second season, found some bright spots in the third season, and have just not really enjoyed a lot of this final season. Replacing Dario with Antonio was a brutal decision, most storyline payoffs were weak or poorly constructed, and the roster wasn't anywhere close to as interesting as it was in the first couple seasons. But I like finishing projects, and this one was more of an attainable goal just because it was actually finite. And so, six years after the show began and just over two years after the show's finale aired, we come to the conclusion of Lucha Underground on Segunda Caida.

TL: LU is one of the weirdest entities in recent wrestling history: A pro wrestling outlet with genuine backing and a fresh take that became this supernova of a favorite within not only the wrestling community, but with actual, honest-to-God mainstream buzz. We're talking about a show that was featured at SXSW after its first season, for crying out loud! And then they predictably gave it all away, going away from what made it so appealing in the first place and making some questionable decisions both with personnel and booking that it could never really recover from. What was found out by the time Season 4 came around was that, just as a show can earn tons of goodwill basically overnight, it can lose it just as fast, if not faster. Talent predictably lost faith in the direction of the company when predatory contracts were handed out like a death sentence, and on top of that, outsiders brought in never really elevated the organically grown original roster member to the heights necessary to thrive. That may have been the most crucial aspect of the company: It was COMPLETELY organic and self-sustaining, and the pro wrestling trope of guys with name value on the outside looking in at the hot new show on the block trying to get involved because they're "veterans" essentially killed a lot of what made it work. So here we are, seeing how high the dead cat can bounce.

ER: I liked our opening Mundo/Taya segment. Mundo has good Meathead Han Solo energy, and Taya's braid shaking sell of the doll possessing her was hilarious. They seem like fun.


2/3 Falls: Dragon Azteca Jr. vs. Fenix

ER: This match was good enough, and they tried some big things, but I cannot get interested in the Melissa Santos/Fenix angle. She doesn't have the acting chops to pull it off, and it was far more interesting when they were just fawning over each other like they were in a 2000s Morrissey video. Her having to act through ring announcements is ruffff. The first two falls are a little dry, felt like they were holding back for the third fall, which makes sense. Rudo Fenix isn't really any different than Tecnico Fenix, other than occasionally glowering at Melissa, and a lot of his offense looks like it's focusing more on a soft landing, which makes some of their exchanges look tentative. The tercera gets changed to Falls Count Anywhere by Antonio, and we get some violent callbacks to the earlier falls, but they also don't make a ton of sense. Fenix hit a nice German in the ring on Azteca early in the match, and it's weird when he hits one on the floor that is sold basically the same as the one in the ring. Similarly, Azteca won the segunda with his big tornado DDT, yet when he does the same on the floor Fenix is up wandering into place seconds later. It's weird to do callback spots when you're only calling attention to the newer painful versions being somehow less effective. We get some nice big spots around a table that refuses to break (nice rana off the upper level seating, big Fenix senton off the top to the floor), before it finally gets pulverized by an Azteca cradle driver off the top. The big spots didn't really lead to any big pinfall moments though, and it all felt like it was just building up to be the background to Melissa's involvement, which leads to no justice or interesting storyline wrap. It does lead to Shaul Guerrero as our guest ring announcer for the final hour of the promotion's history, so that's a weird footnote.

TL: A bit too cooperative at the start for this one, and the rapid cuts on the strike exchanges make me beg for a wide shot to see how bad it looked in full. Azteca had a nice dive, and the Fenix Driver to finish the first fall was definitely nasty. Azteca's crispness on offense is always fun, shows out a bit in fall two with the absolutely wild swinging DDT to even it up. The restart to make the final fall Falls Count Anywhere was a bit on the nose, but at the same time, it'll give Fenix an excuse to do something mighty dumb. I liked the German basically out of nowhere on the floor, as suddenness in a stip match based on the ruleset always pops me. The swinging DDT on the floor was even more wild than the one that evened up the match, but I wish there was at least a pin opportunity off it. And then Fenix kicks out at two off the rana through the table, rendering that point moot, I guess. The Fenix Swanton to the floor where he basically wipes out on the table is some Great Sasuke shit, and then Fenix takes the Cassadora through the table for a near fall and I guess you have to actually kill him? And then one time through the table and another Fenix Driver finishes? So Azteca never really had a shot? Just a strange layout for the match, doesn't really give Azteca a rub as the Azteca/Melissa stuff made him look dumb, and then Antonio says, "Love makes you do strange things," which is the cherry on top of this. Shaul Guerrero is fine? This company mystifies to the very end.

The Mack vs. Mil Muertes

ER: This had the same kind of unhinged first season cartoon violence that made that season so damn enjoyable. Two heavyweights work a fast sprint that has hard punches and kicks, big dives, hard bumps, big nearfalls, and an axe getting swung at Mack's head. It is a death match, after all. This felt like the entire match was really made for absolute Temple Fan Enjoyment, as each section was worked the way the Temple seems to respond to. Muertes is my favorite brawler in the fed and I could watch him knock Mack in the head with those big right hands all day. Both guys hit crazy topes, and Muertes has an awesome one that knocks Mack backwards into the ringside casket. But I also really liked the big nearfalls section where both guys had titanic finishers spammed to death, like a sick Mack powerslam and an even sicker flatliner that Mack takes crooked on his head. The finish stretch is classic LU, with Mack hitting a few stunners and then breaking a damn brick over Mil's head, putting him down with one last big stunner. Great all action match that felt like them getting an opportunity to work the match I knew they could work together. They had a singles match earlier this season that was incredibly dumb, a Haunted House match that included a "serious" section where Muertes got out a knife. This showed they had much better ways of integrating weapons into a match that was actually interesting. I'm happy they got a second singles match on the books as it's a singles pairing I always wanted from LU. It took until the literal final episode to deliver, but we made it.

TL: The pre-match was cute, Shaul not finding her footing yet is a bit odd given she's only 30, only an AEW ring announcing credit to her name? I'm extremely happy this matchup is happening, as Mil and Mack were two of the bright spots in the promotion's history, and the casket to start has me stoked. Mack is nuts, hitting his fat guy tope con giro and braining himself on a DDT on the apron. And then things pick up from there and these are two guys that know how to turn it up a few notches. The weapons in the casket is an awesome touch, and then the Muertes tope sending both into the casket was gnarly. We have an axe and a sickle involved, so I guess someone's been watching Mr. Pogo matches. I mean, a couple of weeks ago, someone actually got shot during a wedding angle on IMPACT so an axe doesn't surprise me. An ICE PICK, goddamn. I just rewatched Basic Instinct a couple weeks ago and yeah, the ice pick shots led to grimacing. A spinning heel kick that looked nasty AND Mack saying "KUNTA KINTE 3000" before laying in a shot, Mack rules, man. Muertes also hits his nasty chokeslam, so I feel like I'm getting everything I wanted out of this match and then some. Mack getting to kick out of the Flatliner is a great sign of respect considering how protected that finish is, AND THEN MACK HITS HIM WITH A BRICK AND A THIRD STUNNER FOR THE WIN. Mack's run in LU was an absolute blast, and Muertes was without a doubt the most consistent person in the entire run; to see them go out with one last banger against each other is incredibly satisfying. Highly doubt anything will touch this for me the rest of the night.

PAS: This was good stuff, a classic Mil Muertes garbage brawl with blood, dumb bumps and stupid weapons. Nothing in this felt space alieny or spooky ghosts, just two big dudes escalating violently until the ending. The spin out of the chokeslam into a stunner was really cool, I wonder if Austin and the Undertaker ever did that spot? I liked the Icepick as Kevin Sullivan's spike and the blood looked really cool in Mack Afro's like red soul glow activator.  LU eventually killed me, and I stopped caring about any of this stuff, but this match is the kind of thing that initially drew me to the fed. 

Johnny Mundo vs. Matanza

ER: I am genuinely excited for this one. I don't think I'm being hyperbolic or nostalgic to say that this episode has captured a real Season 1 vibe so far, the obvious best season of the series run. Is this like how March 2001 WCW was actually feeling like things were changing for the better, just a few episodes before it was all over? The power glove thing is soooo stupid but also soooo perfectly Lucha Underground. Mundo has a super power glove and it gives us a sign of Matanza we've never seen before, because now Matanza actually fears something. So we get a fun mixture of invincible Matanza as he kicks out of an early Moonlight Drive and other Mundo attacks, and tosses him with a few hard landing suplexes. The Gift to the Gods looks great, and Matanza really chucks him off the top with an overhead belly to belly. They brawl up to the top of some Temple structures, and we get fun Mundo parkour leap into a far wall, but he still gets caught by Matanza and tossed into a different wall. We get a big stunt fall where Mundo gets tossed through a roof ("You can see the asbestos falling from the walls," says Striker, a poor thing to have on tape when it comes to future class action lawsuits) and we get the big LU moment of power glove Mundo emerging through a door in the wreckage. Scared Matanza is a fun sight and something we might as well get to see in the final episode, love how weird begging off Matanza felt. We still got a couple of Matanza last gasps and this never felt like Mundo was going to dominantly come back, and it still felt like a big deal when Mundo put the monster away.

TL: Matanza's entrance gear is absolutely outrageous, some shit that he should have worn every week. Big time Vader mastodon helmet vibes with it. And yeah, I'm with Eric, the Power Glove is one of the great kitschy pro wrestling gimmicks of our time, and Mundo has the range to do fun stuff with it. And that happens in the start where he shows it could actually take down Matanza, a great bit of psychology to start, and then Matanza catches him and starts absolutely mauling him with sick power moves, including an impressive vaulting belly-to-belly. Mundo had a nice little comeback, too, and then just an insane Super German Suplex from Matanza with Mundo vaulting off the top of the post for maximum height. If you're gonna have a bombfest and aren't going to crush each other like Mack and Muertes, at least go big and with style, you know? The parkour stuff was great, too, which is a rarity in a Mundo match for me, so these guys are doing a great job with this match style, something that has genuinely impressed me. It's wild that LU missed so much in Season 4 only to have a match that encapsulates everything about it in basically one match, and the Johnny rising from the dead to use the gauntlet's power to kick out of the Wrath of the Gods and BIG PUNCH his way to victory, just a boatload of entertaining pro wrestling bullshit. Eric and I have watched a ton of cheesy horror movies lately so all those tropes rang true here, and both guys played the roles to perfection. Wild that he'd give up the glove like that, though, better man than me.

ER: I disagree with Tim's statement that there are such a thing as "cheesy horror movies". 

Pentagon Dark vs. Marty The Moth Martinez

ER: The Moth has basically retired from wrestling post LU (he has had less than 10 matches since this one, and this one aired two years ago), and he goes out with an all time LU performance. This whole match is the Moth show. He hits a true gusher, no blood packets for the Moth, just that thick kind of blood that soaks your entire head and thins your hair. Marty throws himself around ringside with abandon, going through several sets of chairs and hard into the ringpost (which is when the blood starts flowing). LU is a fed where basically everyone (especially heels) was required to take sprawling bumps through ringside chairs, in the same way everyone in NOAH had to learn how to get thrown into a guardrail. Guys getting tossed into chairs is always something that lands with me, with so many moving parts that it always looks painful and chaotic. Now considering guys go through chairs at least once per LU episode, it's pretty awesome that Moth's chair bumps actually stood out as crazy. He hip tosses Pentagon through a table, rips at his mask, stabs him with a fork, eats what appears to be a piece of bacon, and gets Pentagon bleeding. The match needed more blood, so this is obviously a good thing. That's about all Moth got out of this, busting Pentagon open and eventually hitting him while stuck in a trashcan, because the bulk of this was Moth making Pentagon look like (Antonio Cueto voice) A GOD. Moth bumps around for Pentagon and makes Penta come off like the top guy, eats a flipping piledriver off the floor, flies out of the ring through a table, gets a barbed wire board bounced off his head, gets thrown through glass (!), and eats a sick package piledriver through a bunch of chairs. Pentagon was essentially working as Hogan during the last couple LU seasons, all catchphrases and relying on others to violently bump for him, but with enough charisma it is a tecnico formula that clearly works.

TL: Perhaps the most telling thing about LU is that Marty Martinez, who has essentially disappeared from pro wrestling since this finale, is in the main event of a show in the last episode of the series, and is in a match that really has little doubt going into it of who will win. Just an absolutely weird run for him, too, as the whole psychopath gimmick was so hit-and-miss outside the ring, only to see him overperform inside the ring, including with Fenix at Ultima Lucha Tres. But we know it's Penta Dark's night to end it on top, and the only thing to consider going in is if he'll actually go for it or hold off knowing that sweet Tony Khan money is coming. Marty is going for it early on, though, taking wild bumps and hitting an absolute gusher two minutes in, and if you're gonna go out, you might as well go out bleeding all over the place. Penta is bringing it, so I'm happy about that, at least. These two really do just go all out, chair shots, the garbage can shots, and then the bat shots to the garbage can Penta is stuck in, just really violent shit. I mean, Marty does lesser stuff like the table bump to the outside and then goes through the pane of glass full on, takes the Fear Factor through chairs...look, this is absolutely the Triple H at Royal Rumble 2000 performance from Marty, a very good way to go out, and Penta did enough here to make it worth watching. I don't think I liked it as much as Muertes/Mack, but I'm a big fan.

ER: Hilariously, a barely mobile Vampiro brings in his MASTER, who is actually honestly seriously called Hexagon Dark (because why would you follow a master who has one less side?) and Vampiro's master is the tiniest little man! I thought it was Darby Allin, but apparently it is Australian Suicide, who is the same size as AAA era Rey. They couldn't have found anyone with decent size? Bring back Ezekiel Jackson from the grave and put him under a Penta mask? I'm pretty sure the only guy in LU smaller than Hexagon would be Mascarita Sagrada, but I'd have to see them standing side by side to be certain. And then Jake Strong comes out and cashes in Gift of the Gods to be the final champion in LU history!! The whole episode felt designed to give the LU fans nothing but matches they wanted and finishes they wanted to see, and then the entire series ends with the fans bummed out and quiet about Jake Strong.

TL: The Australian Suicide Hexagon Dark master bullshit was hilarious to me, and leading to the obvious Strong cash-in bullshit was even more hilarious. Marty goes out like that knowing he's done, and then you get about as impactful a Strong cash-in as when he won his MITB cash-in. This means that LU absolutely was thinking a Season 5 was going to happen, when everything about the show said otherwise, and the postscripts, with Matanza getting his heart ripped out (?!?), Strong getting the glove, Taya being possessed by a damn doll, I think I would have loved to see Lucha Underground Season 5: Temple of the Gods. AND THE WADE BARRETT REVEAL. GODFREY IN THE LIMO. Why is Lucha Underground deciding to become interesting right when I lose interest? AND LITTLE CUETO IS BACK? Okay, I take back everything I said, bring it back, man.

ER: And we get a long, wistful series of vignettes, segments designed to set up the storylines for a season 5 that was assuredly never going to happen. Black Lotus murders Matanza with the gauntlet, Strong steals the gauntlet from series punching bag and perpetual loser Dragon Azteca Jr. (breaking his ankle just to remind him that he's a loser), Taya is possessed, and Wade Barrett is revealed as a higher power (in 2018 we would have had no clue how true a higher power he was, as taking Mauro Ranallo's voice off of television is a real god tier move). And to really hammer home the cruelty, we get one final glimpse of Dario being resurrected, and as much of a drag parts of this last season was, I would have obviously been back for season 5 and WARRING CUETOS!! But they went out with a very strong last episode, and that will leave a lot of goodwill for a promotion that I watched in its entirety.

TL: This is still pretty obviously the death knell for the promotion given most of the guys on top are with other promotions, namely AEW, but you have to give them credit for at least making it look like they had a plan going forward. Dueling Cuetos, leaning in completely to the Gods motif, I mean, gimme 22 episodes of that, please. Someone is going to want to watch this the entire way through years from now because it'll be readily available on something other than Tubi and be flabbergasted by what happened here: a promotion that got a ton of talent, most of them at exactly the right time, but only went forward with specific guys due to a number of factors that seem so incredibly dubious in retrospect, only to stumble sideways into greatness multiple weeks due to that multitude of talent. LU was odd until the very end, and perhaps the only thing that would be more odd and more fitting is if somehow they got everyone back together for Season 5, even with all odds stacked against them. We'll be ready when it happens.

COMPLETE, SOMEHOW, EPISODE GUIDE TO LUCHA UNDERGROUND

2018 MOTY MASTER LIST

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New Footage Friday: YAMAMOTO!! ISHIKAWA!! CASAS!! DANDY!! SHOCKER!! GARZA!! FELINO!!

Negro Casas vs. Shocker CMLL 1/27/96

MD: Relatively short match to get Shocker over and set up future matches between them. As such, however, it was pretty effective. Shocker occasionally looked a little aimless when he had to carry the offense over multiple moves. About two-thirds of the time, he was aggressive as he should have been though, especially at the start when he took it to Casas before he even got his jacket off and in the post-match. This didn't have enough Casas control, but what we got was pretty brutal with running stomps and a moment of mask pulling on the second rope that ended with Casas stomping on his head before jumping over him and stomping again. While the end of the primera was just ok, they did a great bit of rope running to give Shocker the win in two falls. No one can run into a hold like the Reinera quite like Casas. It got the job done.

PAS: This was a sprint which had some great little Casas moments, an awesome Shocker tope which knocked Casas basically to the locker room, and a cool quick submission to the end the segunda. Casas was awesome as always, but Shocker seemed a little lost sometimes. He kept trying to go to the top rope, only to decide to hit Casas some more before finally knocking him to the floor to hit the tope, felt like he lost the script a bit. Nothing mindblowing for sure, but any new Casas is welcome Casas.

ER: I'm with Phil that Shocker felt a little lost throughout this one, but I love seeing young fast Shocker and I love seeing any era of Casas. Leather jacket Casas is particularly special, and I always  love how he acts like a dirtbag but will also immediately appeal to the ref for help. Shocker's tope was really fantastic (this is a guy who has an all time great tope, just watch any Shocker match from '96-'99) and the rest of the joy was all from smaller Casas strikes. I love the energy Casas uses to run into a stomp, the theatricality of his movements reminds me of the way Bill Dundee kind of slides into his right hands, rushing up on an opponent and swinging in with a punch. Casas kicks and stomps Shocker around the ring, rips at his mask, and really makes Shocker's reinera look like pro wrestling art. 

El Dandy/Hector Garza/Lizmark vs. Dr Wagner Jr/Emilio Charles Jr/Felino CMLL 1/27/96

MD: Really good trios here. The underlying hatred was between Charles and Dandy, but Wagner and Dandy were the captains, which is actually a very elegant way to keep them apart until later in the match and one that you don't see all that often. Dandy actually worked in and out of headlocks in the primera (paired with Wagner in a lengthy and very good exchange) which is not something you see a ton in random trios matches either. In fact, we got so much Dandy that none of the other pairings really stood out, including the beautiful bridging butterfly suplex he took the primera with. In general, I thought Garza looked good here. He might be the best wrestler in history for people to beat on because of how he was packaged and presented himself both as a tecnico and a rudo. Here he had a fiery comeback too to set up the finishing pairings. When Emilio and Dandy really got going in the tecera it was the usual magic between them. Good stuff all around.

PAS: This was really nifty. We got a long primera caida, with Dandy and Wagner given a long time to stretch out and work mat exchanges with each other. That isn't a matchup I remember seeing very much of, so it was neat to see it get so much time. Sleazebag heel Hector Garza is always going to be the Garza closest to my heart, but he was quite good as a fired up babyface here. He really gets after Wagner in the third fall, ripping his mask and really working intensely. I also loved how Dandy and Charles kept going after each other with Charles constantly running in to to stomp guys and Dandy finally cutting him off with that great Dandy right hand. Felino and Lizmark had smaller roles in the match, but it is always worth seeing Felino's trademark speed in action.

Yuki Ishikawa vs. Yujiro Yamamoto 10/28/18

PAS: Yamamoto was the best of the late 00s BattlArts young guys, and he seemingly vanished when BattlArts folded, but he clearly kept working in tiny Japanese indies which don't make tape or Cagematch. I found his YouTube page and he is apparently running a fed called BAP (Battle and Arts Promotion) and this might be from that fed (hopefully we will be getting their DVDs soon). This was as good as it was 10 years before, with both guys landing super slick mat counters and Yamamoto especially throwing some heat. He hits a great body kick which rearranges Ishikawa's internal organs and lands a big knee to the jaw. After some nasty forearm and headbutt exchanges, Yamamoto makes the mistake of dragging Ishikawa to the ground and unsurprisingly the trap was set and Ishikawa was able to get a leglock for the tap. Great stuff. Yamamoto is still really good, and Ishikawa is ageless. 

MD: Great ambience here with a high angle camera shot. It's tricky to see some of the nuance in the holds maybe but you always have a clear view. I wonder about 2018 Yamamoto starting this with a slap. He's a little old for that but they pay it off later with some of the strike exchanges. Yamamoto spends a lot of the match subtly selling his leg, and is excellent at launching his kicks and knees from a position of weakness. Lots of position jockeying as the match rotated with strikes and selling. What you'd expect and a lot of what you'd want out of these two in 2018.

ER: This had a nice low key kind of exhibition feeling to it, and exhibition Ishikawa is someone who I think is still really engaging. Yamamoto's slap at the bell felt like it came from a different match than the one they wound up working. Someone slaps a guy when the ref is running down the rules (with a big shocked reaction from the ref) and I expect someone to make a murder attempt. The match that happened felt a little too good natured, but good natured from guys with these strikes is not something I'd want to be in the middle of. Yamamoto hits a nice kick that knocks Ishikawa off balance into the ropes, and maybe I'm starting to like the idea of Yamamoto slapping Ishikawa to try to get him to do something stupid. I liked the clear high angle view of our camera, but it does feel like we needed more of a ringside angle to see what was happening with the matwork. Ishikawa is someone who does a lot of cool work within a kneebar or single leg struggle, and I really couldn't get a strong feel of that. But Yamamoto's channel will definitely be something to watch, as any weird gymnasium shoot style that exists will need to be documented. 

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2018 Ongoing MOTY List: 205 Live Street Fight

52. Drew Gulak/Jack Gallagher vs. Akira Tozawa/Brian Kendrick 205 Live 12/18 (Aired 12/19/18)

PAS: No idea why it took us early two years to watch this match, these are the four best 205 Live guys, and they get a long time to work a street fight.  Gulak and Gallagher look awesome coming in with their fists taped wearing suits. It takes a bit to get going, the first couple of minutes have a lot of WWE street fight spots with brooms and garbage cans, but as soon as Gulak breaks out the bungee cords it gets really great. Gulak fishooks Kendrick with the bungee cord hook which is super nasty looking, and we get a really great finish run with a bunch of cool near falls and big spots. Tozawa ends up hitting his awesome tope right into a garbage can, Gallagher locks in some cool submissions and he ends up leaving himself open to getting smashed. I really dug the battle on the top rope between Gallagher and Kendrick, a lot of times punches on the top rope look bad, but they were really cracking each other including Gallagher punching Kendrick right in the back of the head.

ER: 205 Live loved having good (or bad, I guess) 18 minute matches that could have been fire 10 minute matches. They also never quite mastered blowoff matches or big stipulation matches. Even though this would have been tighter with a shorter runtime, this is one of the best stips matches in the brand's history. It's easier to have a good long match when you send the best 4 in the division (at the time) out there and let them fill the time. Part of the long match era felt like one of those weird WWE self-serving deals where they let guys they don't care about go out and hang themselves, and crowds weren't typically too jazzed to sit through PPV main event length cruiser matches with minimal story build. The better ones found ways to get the crowd into it, and this crowd wakes up about midway and stays with it. I appreciated them starting with hard fists and cranked necks, but we're 20 years removed from ECW and I don't need Singapore cane shots to trash cans. Gulak uses the old Mick Foley trick of clonking Tozawa a few times with a live mic, and the crowds get involved just from the perfectly silly mic shots (makes you wonder why any guys go through the trouble of bumping hard on the apron and floor and taking stiff punches to the head).

We do get a mix of violence added to the sillier spots, like Kendrick suplexing Gallagher into an announcer's chair that Gulak was already seated in, or Gallagher in that same chair getting rolled into a hard Tozawa dropkick. I loved Tozawa working in his big spots on partner saves, crushing Gallagher with his senton to break up an Indian deathlock, or spinning around Gallagher with an octopus hold to get him away from Kendrick. He also gets a great reaction hitting his surprise right hand on Drew and later hitting an insane tope into a trashcan (swung by Drew). Kendrick is really great staggering around ringside taking punches, and Gulak fishhooking Kendrick with a bungee cord hook was one of the greatest things I've seen during a WWE (or anywhere, really) street fight. Gulak really looked like he was tearing at Kendrick's face (strong selling from Kendrick too) and I loved how Tozawa broke it up by jamming his hand into Gulak's mouth to let him know how a fishhook feels. This kind of bummed me out when it was over, as 2 years later we have Gulak mostly doing commentary, Kendrick disappearing for months at a time, Tozawa being a ninja who rarely wrestles, and Gallagher the only sex pest who they didn't attempt to make excuses for. Shit has changed in two years, shit has changed in two months.


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2018 Ongoing MOTY List: PARK vs. PCO

75. LA Park vs. PCO MLW 10/4 (Aired 10/26/18) - GREAT

ER: I saw reports saying these two "under delivered" and I guess...I would have no idea what actual match people would have been expecting to see out of two 50 year olds, to then view the match as underwhelming. This had everything I expected and more, a compact hard hitting match relying on the charisma and craziness of both men. Both guys slam with hard shoulderblocks, Park eats some big shots including a stiff kick to the stomach, PCO hits his old guy moonsault and a big dive that crashes Park into the guardrail and sends the guardrail crashing into fans. That right there would have left me satisfied with the match. But we get the expected Park belt whipping, a big Park dive to give PCO his own chance to crash into the guardrail, and a great spot where Park catches a PCO kick and smashes him with a headbutt, then a lariat. I don't think I've seen Park use a headbutt that often, and it looked awesome here. They work Park's missed bump in the corner nicely, with Park doing his great upside down turnbuckle bump, allowing PCO to go back on control and hit a powerbomb and running knee strike. But as Park rolls to the apron, PCO - and this is part of why I have no idea what any actual reasonable person could have expected from this match - crashes and burns as he whiffs on a cannonball off the top, banking off the edge of the apron. Crazy bump for anyone to take, definitely a bump that shouldn't be taken by a 50 year old. Park's spear is a good finish, because Park has a fantastic spear. This delivered what I wanted it to deliver.

PAS: I think this could have used blood, and maybe a slightly quicker pace, but otherwise this was pretty rad. There are a lot of dives in wrestling now, but these are two guys who now how to make a dive look like it hurts. The PCO dive to the apron is a psychotic bump for a 180 pound 25 year old, much less a 300 pound 51 year old, and that PARK plancha which followed it up looked like it broke PCO's neck. PCO is a guy who sometimes suffers in between the big spots, but PARK is a guy who is great at filling space. Fun stuff well worth checking out if MLW fell through the cracks for you.


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2018 Ongoing MOTY List: Kassius vs. Darby

36. Darby Allin vs. Kassius Ohno EVOLVE 117 12/15

PAS: The year of Darby Allin continues, as he has put forth one of the best singles match runs in US Indy history over the last year. This follows the classic Allin structure of taking a 1993 level Kikuchi beating while mixing in 1993 level Rey Mysterio Jr. lucha highflying. Hero is really great at basing for lucha moves, which is even more impressive as he approaches Kraneo level fatness. It is one thing to watch skinny fat Hero take Quackenbush ranas in 2002, quite another level of impressive to watch him eat Allin armdrags at Buddy Rose size in 2019. I really like how Hero used his girth in this match, he broke out a legdrop that looked like it flattened Allin's head and a senton on the apron which felt like it powdered his ribs. Allin had some fun comebacks, but the end of the match was Hero brutalizing Allin with elbows while Allin refused to lay down. Ohno is the Ricky Jay of the leg slap, one of the few guys to make that trick look great, and he really seems to be concussing Allin with every shot. Good use of the one count here, as Allin wasn't no selling, he was more like a gutter punk who wouldn't give up his lucky guitar pick no matter how many times you stabbed him.

ER: I've been on an Ohno kick lately (for the last 20 years or so), and scrolling through some recent matches I realized I had forgotten that he and Allin had crossed paths one time, about a year ago. Phil wrote this up around the time it happened and I forgot about it, but the two of them haven't matched up since so it still feels fresh to me! And while I do think we got a few too many kickouts down the stretch, this lived up to the on paper potential for me. It's hard to work a compelling 20 minute match where the offense is split 90/10, but most 90s aren't as great as Ohno, and most underdog 10s aren't as great as Allin. The first half of this felt like a Yokozuna/1-2-3 Kid match that might have popped up on Coliseum Video, Ohno just using his weight and size to brick wall Allin and then topple those bricks onto all parts of Allin's body. Ohno tossed out big sentons, a heavy legdrop, his flawless full extension kicks, elbows to the jaw, and far too many elbows to the back of the head. Ohno is super punishing and he only looks more punishing against wrestling's best ragdoll. Ohno boots Darby into the crowd, catches a dive and chucks him into the apron, yanks him around by the wrist, really lays down the kind of beating that Ohno and few others can lay down. Allin made the most of his comebacks: his early armdrags got breathtaking height on his early armdrags, makes the code red look credible with the size difference, and is always so quick to hit his low rope dive and springboard tornillo pin that it really does seem plausible that Ohno could get beaten by speed. I did think we went a couple kickouts too far, as there were a couple of shots that felt too big to kick out of, namely the elbow shot that saw Ohno King Kong Darby's airplane out of the sky. But I do like that the kickouts weren't actually leading to some big comeback, and that jumps out as a positive. Darby was only hurting himself by kicking out so much, as Ohno can be both incredulous at the kickouts and still have no problem throwing another elbow at Darby's cerebellum. And isn't elbows hitting cerebellums all we really wanted?


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2018 Ongoing MOTY List: Missing AIW Match 1/19/18

PAS: While putting together the AIW Complete and Accurate I realized that Eric reviewed every match on the Death Rowe show except for this multi man tag, which is of course our favorite thing in AIW. And guess what? It ruled.

ER: I have no clue why I wouldn't have reviewed this tag match. As Phil said, I reviewed EVERY OTHER MATCH on that show, EXCEPT this one. And that makes no sense, because AIW tag scrambles are one of my absolute favorite match types in wrestling. Usually I just cherry pick 2-3 matches I want to watch on any given indy show, and this would have been one of those 2-3! For some reason I did the opposite and wrote up everything but the match that excites me most on paper. I can only assume there was something wrong with the video and the match was glitchy or missed. I got nothing.


43. To Infinity and Beyond (Cheech/Colin Delaney) vs. Philly Marino Experience (Philly Collins/Marino Tenaglia) vs. Young Studs (Bobby Beverly/Eric Ryan) vs. Excellence Personified (Dr. Daniel C. Rockingham/Brian Carson)

PAS: AIW has mastered these multi man tag matches, and I really think To Infinity and Beyond are the glue that holds them together. This is really early PME, they have really developed in a great team, but this match was 18 months ago and they are still pretty seamlessly integrated into the match. This is the most I have enjoyed Dr. Dan, as he cuts out the comedy and just takes bumps. I think TIAB are just conducting a complex amount of traffic. Philly Collins's fat boy moonsault to the floor is one of the more impressive highspots around, he gets great height and lands with tubby force. Brian Carson has a crazy bump to the floor where he cracks his head on the top of the metal post, we get a bunch of cool double teams, and some really well timed cut offs. Just such an enjoyable bit of craziness.

ER: Yep, this ruled, easily my favorite match of the show. I'm never going to know/remember why I didn't watch this match with the rest of the show. AIW has my favorite tag scene in wrestling, and they do these wild action multi mans SO much better than anyone else, and Delaney/Cheech really do seem to be the consistent denominator in all of them. But this match was filled with star performances. Yes, Cheech and Delaney are constantly a part of that, and seem to trigger each new momentum change, while looking explosive as hell. Delaney runs into guys faster and with harder elbows than anyone in this thing, he has gotten so good in the past couple years. PME looked great too, with Marino dropping a great underdog babyface performance. Every time he would come in it lead to something exciting. Philly built to his big moments nicely, and that moonsault to the floor was like a strike that sends every single pin exploding backwards. But my favorite thing he did might have been when he got accidentally tied up in the ropes, to set up Delaney's sliding German. I'm a big fan of guys finding cool ways to set up someone else's trademark offense, anything other than just standing there and waiting. Brian Carson takes the bump of the match, missing an avalanche and hitting the ringpost, and then continuing to tumble over the top and off the ring steps to the floor. Young Studs looked good as ever, Beverly delivers his slams super fast and Ryan threw the best punches of the match, and threw them often. This whole thing was 8 guys running hard and running into each other, taking big bumps, finding fun ways to break up pins, just the best, most thoroughly mapped out tag. These matches are the best versions of those Dragons Gate scrambles that got acclaim over a decade ago.


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2018 Ongoing MOTY List: Hungarian Shootstyle!!

66. Norbert Novenyi vs. Renato Makai HCW 5/26

PAS: Novenyi is a 60 year old Olympic Greco Roman Gold Medalist (in 1980!!) and Kickboxing champion, while Makai is a super jacked Heavyweight MMA fighter. This had a huge main event feel, sort of like Vader vs. Ric Flair if neither guy had a ton of wrestling experience, but it felt like Novenyi had that same sort of connection to the crowd. Really wild feel with Makai sending Novenyi into the crowd as Hungarians scatter. Novenyi took a pretty big beating for a guy in his sixties, but he was pretty barrel chested and looked like an old man who could kick your ass. I loved how he kept slipping into that choke and Makai did a good job of putting over all of his stuff. There was a bit of jaggedness which you might expect from guys without a ton of ring time, but that almost added to the match. Big props to our friend Jetlag for finding this, it is a treat.

ER: Bless the weirdos that we choose to run with in our online circles, for finding the readily available Hungarian shootstyle YouTube. I have a feeling there is excellent untapped YouTube wrestling out there, lurking in the unsearchable titles that don't get picked up by search engine algorithms. Novenyi won an Olympic gold medal before I was born, and I'm old enough that there are only 5 guys playing in Major League Baseball who are older than I am. This felt like the best possible version of current Kurt Angle vs. current Goldberg (though who are we kidding, both would do something crazy and get seriously hurt), but this was even more exciting due to the home connection to and maybe even pride the crowd had for Novenyi. Makai played a goon real well, and he had a stable of horror mask wearing MMA cannon fodder back-up that came off like skeleton costume Cobra Kai backing up Billy Zabka. If there had been a huge fight in the ring with Novenyi's boys scrapping with Makai's jacked MMA dudes, this could have been bumped up to early FMW Onita status. Makai knows his role as big lug well, and throws a bunch of hard knees to Novenyi's gut while Novenyi throws a bunch of low kicks to Makai's gut. Makai even takes a few big (unexpected) bumps, going over really fast on a dragon screw and then throwing himself backward over the ropes to the floor off a Novenyi kick. I liked the rough edges approach of these two; there were seams that wouldn't likely be there with more experienced guys, but that roughness made things feel more dangerous and added to the atmosphere. Makai was a good bully - I dug him getting a double leg on the floor and dumping Novenyi on the apron - who generously set up big moments for Novenyi even while burying knees in his stomach. I love these kind of surprises, two guys you've never heard of and likely won't hear of again, dipping their toe creatively and violently into pro wrestling.


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Monday AIW - Escape From Cleveland 9/14/18

The Production (Frankie Flynn/Magnum CK) vs. Twins (PB Smooth/Swoggle)

PAS: One of the downsides of deciding to review entire AIW shows is that I am watching a lot of Swoggle matches. I can totally see how one might appreciate his shtick in a live setting, and he does vary his material some, but you watch a dozen Swoggle matches and you can approach saturation. But Magnum CK is such a glorious ham that he can make Swoggle's stuff seem fresh and hilarious. CK is like watching Christopher Walken chew up scenery in a hacky Tarantino rip off, the material is still the material but you have to appreciate the craft. PB Smooth and the Production were married for two years (still are except with the face/heel alignment flipped), so they work well with each other. Worth watching for CK for sure, I just love that dude.

Flip Kendrick vs. Facade vs. AJ Gray vs. Space Monkey vs. Wheeler YUTA vs. Matt Cross

PAS: A lot of times these scramble matches are focused on guys hitting complicated head drops and combo moves, here this was all high flyers so most of the big spots were crazy dives which I am always going to prefer. No idea why Flip Kendrick got passed over during the big wave of ROH/AEW/205 Live highflyer signings. His in-ring and out of ring dives are always crazy impressive, and he is a better in ring wrestler then most of the guys who have his role in bigger feds. He hits like a standing 720 senton in this match! Facade and AJ Gray are also landing crazy looking stuff, Facade does an out of nowhere dive from the ramp to clear everyone out, and AJ Gray's Alabama Jam finish was really nasty. He is a thick dude and got crazy high before landing that tree trunk leg across Yuta's chest and throat. Fun match.

Dr. Daniel C. Rockingham vs. Joshua Bishop

PAS: This was a Bishop showcase with Dr. Dan replacing Ethan Page and Bishop pounding him out pretty quickly. I did really like Dr. Dan counter a bossman slam into an ab stretch, and there was a great spot where Bishop kept pulling Dr. Dan up by his tie only to forearm him back down. Tidy match which achieved its goal.

ER: Full damn Worldwide point for this one, the best thing I've seen involving Dr. Dan and a cool throwback 4 minute non-squash that we rarely get on the indies. Bishop jumped him and Dr. Dan never responded with silliness, instead responding as a guy fighting hard to get out of the red, and occasionally finding himself in the black because of it. I found myself actually excited for Dr. Dan when he ran off the ropes with a great back elbow and then starts his first of several pushing, mocking little push kicks to Bishop's face. Dr. Dan had 1998 Chris Jericho's attitude with 2019 Chris Jericho's body. I really dug the aggression and fight from Dr. Dan, but also loved how Bishop didn't revert to stooging "I fucked up" heel mode when Dan fought back maybe more than expected. He jumped him, then when it turned on him he just kept up his same aggression. I liked Dan reversing the Bossman Slam into the abdominal stretch, loved how they worked strike exchanges with Dan throwing his whole body into landing one big shot while Bishop would overwhelm him. This was simple, hard fought, competitive wrestling that made Dr. Dan look like more of a threat than ever in only 4 minutes, while also showing Bishop as an efficient asskicker. Loved this. 

Ultimo Dragon vs. Louis Lyndon

PAS: Clearly a thrill for Lyndon and he does a great job working a longish WCW Thunder match with Dragon. Dragon looked pretty great, outside of one slightly blown spot he hit all of his complicated stuff well, and had an awesome looking hammerlock takedown and spinning Indian deathlock. Lyndon toned down some of the more elaborate stuff which can irritate me, and was there to make Ultimo shine, which he did.

50. The Production (Derek Director/Eddy Only) vs. To Infinity And Beyond (Cheech/Colin Delaney) vs. No Consequences (Chase Oliver/Tre Lamar) vs. The Philly Marino Experience (Marino Tenaglia/Philly Collins)

PAS: There are few things in wrestling as guaranteed as a an AIW four way tag. This was great as one might expect. No Consequences were a fun addition to this match formula, both Oliver and Lamar are great athletes and they get crazy bounce on all of their highflying spots. TIAB are masters of this kind of match and seem to be conducting, I loved Colin Delany intercepting Marino mid air during PME's springboard dive attempt. Production were total offense machines, their big run of combos near the end of the match (sunset bombing one Consequencer into another, running corner knees by Director, and a coast to coast flip dropkick) was insane and had the crowd standing. PME getting the win works great, they are one of my favorite babyface tag teams in years, they pretty much have it all.

ER: Big shock, another tremendous AIW tag scramble. This is a big No Consequences nostalgia fest for us, Chase Oliver needs to know we are dying for him to come back. But I love everyone here, every team brought something great to this match, 10 minutes of condensed gold. I could make a case for every tag team in this one being clearly the best in the match. Derek Director and Eddy Only had a couple of incredible runs, starting with Only knocking Delaney out of camera sight down the ramp, then hitting a way above his weight Philly with a lariat that crushes him fast over the top. Later they sunset flip bomb Oliver's head into Lamar's balls in a way that felt like Buster Keaton doing pro wrestling, and follow it up with a great Director cannonball and Only post to post flipping dropkick. Delaney and Cheech are just masters of this style, probably my favorite non-Jollyville team in modern wrestling. They orchestrate some really complicated Rube Goldberg spots and always throw in some unexpected twists. But again, everyone shone. Lamar hits a fantastic tope, we get guys chucked from the ring into the others, No Consequences pull off some perfect timing on some double teams, syncing up so well on strikes and big flying displays. One of my absolute favorite moments of the match is No Consequences sandwiching Delaney's head in between perfectly timed elbows, then setting up something assuredly worse before being interrupted, and a dropped to his knees Delaney taking the opportunity to roll to the floor. PME have a great babyface vibe, and I love how they're a new Rock n Roll Express for Phil to get excited for. There are too many cool moves and great double teams and innovative twists to mention, but this is just more evidence that the AIW tag scene is one of the very best guarantees in pro wrestling today.

Tim Donst vs. Colt Cabana

PAS: This was a Colt Cabana special, no real bumps, all shtick. Lots of comedy spots around Donst fucking with Cabana's merch. I admire Cabana being able to make a living without damaging his body, but I don't think he is particularly funny, so a long match with his jolly stuff isn't going to do it for me.

123. KTB vs. Nick Gage vs. Tom Lawlor vs. Matthew Justice

PAS: Big boy wrestling done really well. All bombs, with guys rolling to the floor after getting rocked. Gage takes some big bumps including getting backdropped into hard plastic chairs and gets piledriven on the apron. Pretty much everyone in this match is nuts, Justice flies through the ropes with little regard for himself or who he was landing on. I loved the finish with KTB going for an Asai moonsault and lands right into a Lawlor triangle choke. KTB does the Matt Hughes lift right into a flying knee by Justice who gets the pin.

ER: This was awesome, these guys are all lunatics and this was a pretty breathless run through some big boy bumps and a lot of body damage. I'm really starting to look forward to Matt Justice matches; you know there will always be a crazy dive that either hits into the 2nd row or misses entirely and crashes him to the floor, uses his body as a weapon, dies on at least one bump per match, and I love that big leaping knee. KTB is another guy who takes risks, throws boots to faces, will take a big bump to the floor, and break out a heavy flying move. Now, taking bumps to the floor is a good skill to have, and this match was filled with guys taking bigger and bigger bumps to the hard floor, sometimes while doing offense and sometimes while just crashing to the floor. Nick Gage gets thrown into a crowd of hard ass empty chairs and eats a sick apron piledriver, but also crashes to the floor with a prison fight tope con giro and rakes his boot across faces. Lawlor brings a cool vibe to things, does crazy dives with the crazy divers, hits hard with the hard hitters, and brings a great finish to a big time match: KTB goes for a big man Asai moonsault and Lawlor catches him lengthwise in a triangle in a very nicely prepped for trap, KTB lifts him up and out of it, and then gets pasted by that Justice flying knee. Another big AIW match stuffed with action and cool moments. 

94. Tracy Williams vs. Dominic Garrini

PAS: I have talked a lot about how under the radar great Williams AIW Title/Powerbomb Title run was and this was another banger. Really felt like a Catch Point EVOLVE match, built mainly around grappling and limb control. Garrini was really jujitsu in the first part of this match, and the more jujitsu Garrini is the more I dig him. Lots of very cool lifts and hard throws to the mat. They do the triangle choke counter to a dive which they did in the previous match, and probably should have had an agent tell someone to excise it out. Otherwise this was pretty flawless, Williams does slightly flub the counter finish, but makes up for it with two disgusting stuffed piledrivers for the win. I like having the tile matches on AIW show be these more slow burn grappling matches, it contrasts nicely with the wild brawling on much of the rest of the card.

ER: Tracy Williams is one of those guys I really like, who I also consistently underrate. It's like I forget how much I like him every time, and he's never a guy I bring up when talking about current wrestlers I dig. He occupies that same brain space as Roderick Strong, who I think has been consistently great for at least a decade now, yet I still find myself saying "Man Roderick Strong is good." Maybe's it's just lean turkey eating white guys with short cropped Affleck hair. But of course I'm going to like Garrini vs. Hot Sauce, I'm a complete sucker for these years removed from the story and fed "Catch Point Explodes" matches. I love the way these two crack jaws, a full arm behind it forearm shiver from Garrini, a boot in the corner with extra pump from Williams, these guys go hard with every strike and really punish each other...in  away that seems all in good spirits. The early grappling was tough and snug, and then they kept building to kicking each other, or Williams locking on a nasty guillotine, or Garrini going after Williams' taped up arm, and this thing just kept burning more intensely. The ending was violent, but I think a bit much: Garrini hits an incredible spinning tombstone, something that really really looked like a damn finisher. But Williams stumbles on the reversal after the kickout, and it kind of just comes off like he ignored the nastiest move of the match to hit two piledrivers of his own. The piledrivers looked great, but the order of events seemed off. That said, this is the kind of back and forth that does it for me. How about this Tracy Williams guy? 

La Familia de Tijuana (Bestia 666/Damian 666) vs. The Young Studs (Bobby Beverly/Eric Ryan)

PAS: This was Eric Ryan's dream match, and FDT kind of just stayed out of the way as that lunatic flung himself through things. Ryan takes two crazy bumps through pains of glass and gets tied up in barbed wire. They kept talking about his "Ready to Die" tour and he was living up to that designation. I thought the rematch of this Wrestlemania weekend was had more stuff from all four guys, this was pretty much all Ryan dying, and while that was fun, it was less of a full match.


2019 MOTY MASTER LIST

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AIW Monday - Absolution 7/27/18

Louis Lyndon vs. Derek Director vs. KTB vs. Space Monkey vs. Wheeler Yuta vs. Rex Brody

PAS: One of the better "get everyone on the card" scrambles they have done. Even with Space Monkey and Brody we didn't have anyone grinding the match to a halt with their comedy spots, the action really kept moving. Derek Director had some cool moments, including a nasty running knee to the face and a spot where he monkey flipped Yuta into Brody's crotch. KTB had a couple of amazing moments including a spot where he had two guys fireman carried and caught a third in his arms. Yuta looks like he blew out his knee, but they worked around it OK. Fun all action match,

Mance Warner/Jock Samson/Twan Tucker/Parker Pierce vs. Weird World/Philly Marino Experience

PAS: This started in a very Crockett way, with multiple heels bumping for super over babyfaces. We get a good heel beatdown section on Marino, and a really fun Worldwide hot tag. Finish run is car crash wrestling done well. I really love Philly's fat boy Orihara, and Marino's assisted plancha, just an awesome pair of signature dives. Our boy Weird Body takes sick bumps on a tower of doom superplex, and a Steiner Square Driver from the Duke. Our heroes get screwed out of victory by the dastardly heels, and this was a wholly satisfying bit of business.

48. Young Studs vs. The Production (Danhausen/Eddy Only)

PAS: This was excellent, just awesome stiff 2019 tag wrestling. These are four guys who throw heat and will take huge nasty bumps, and they run a pretty great all action tag with those as a base. Eric Ryan is truly certifiable, he takes 90s Foley bumps in almost every match, here he gets backdropped off the ramp and lands spine first on concrete. These guys were wasting each other in the ring too, Bobby Beverly obliterates Danhausen by intercepting an in-ring plancha with a savate kick, Only threw really nasty elbows and punches, there were some big slams and throws, really a bomb fest. We are Production stans here at Segunda Caida, but this was the best they have looked. Loved this.

ER: Yeah this really delivered. I was excited for it anyway - always gonna be excited for The Production - but The Production jumped the Studs on the entrance ramp and asses got kicked for the next 15 minutes. These guys were all ringing bells, hard elbows all around, nasty throws, nasty bumps, no nonsense just asskicking. AIW always brings asskicking, The Studs always bring asskicking, and it was cool seeing Only and Danhausen ALSO as kickers, not just ass kickees. Everybody in this comes off nuts to a degree, but Ryan is probably the most nuts. He throws such violence behind all of his strikes, and then he's crushing Only and Danhausen into the guardrails over and over with topes through the bottom ropes, and then he's splatting off the entrance ramp with a lunatic backdrop bump. My god man. I think they did a really good job using saves and building the action, as tough strikes eventually turn into amped up risk and fun double teams. I loved all of the quick suplexes from the Studs, they would really snap them over and when they'd be hitting snap verticals and stacking The Production like cordwood. There were a couple hitches when they tried getting a little cute (a DDT your partner spot is much clunkier than it should have been, and an Only cutter to the floor looks like both guys realized what a bad idea it was halfway through), but the answer always came right after those spots when everyone would go back to hitting each other hard. Bless this tag division.

Matthew Justice/Scott Steiner vs. Ethan Page/Dr. Daniel C. Rockingham

PAS: Justice brings out Steiner to even the odds, and it is pretty much just the heels bumping for Steiner and Justice, which is exactly what you want from this match up. Dr. Dan takes a couple of big bumps, and Page eats a big overhead throw from Steiner. Not much to say about this match, it does what it set out to do.

96. No Consequences (Tre Lamar/Garrison King/Chase Oliver/Joshua Bishop/AJ Gray) vs. Josh Prohibition/Jollyville Fuck Its (T-Money/Nasty Russ)/To Infinity and Beyond (Cheech/Colin Delaney)

PAS: 2017 Absolution No Consequences 10 man tag was one of my favorite matches of the year, this didn't live up to that level but was still a bunch of fun and had some big highlight moments. Both Tre Lamar and Chase Oliver are nutty fliers, Oliver hit an incredible springboard moonsault at the same time Lamar hit a great ringpost Santo style tope. The structure of the previous years match had the Consequences take an extended beating before making a comeback, here the match was worked more even, it makes narrative sense, NC are all a year more experienced, but evenish is a less cool structure. We do get some solid asskicking though, especially by the Fuck-Its including an awesome Pounce by T-Money where he ran all the way down the ramp before sending Lamar into the stratosphere. The story of the match was Joshua Bishop trying to earn the respect of Josh Prohibition, which isn't a matchup I cared a ton about. Still I will pretty much enjoy any combos of these guys.

ER: So no, this is not quite as good as the 2017 10 man, but this ruled pretty hard on its own. Everybody got their moments and there were some good by god moments to get. Jollyville are my faves and lived up to that here. Russ comes off like a total badass WCW undercarder that I always hope is going to come out those fake air-powered doors through the Mothership's fog machine, throwing hard punches and elbowdrops with his own body, and an absolutely crunching cannonball off the top. T-Money pounces Tre Lamar from the entrance ramp into the ring, in a spot that was only slightly less impressive than some of Lamar's by-choice flying. Chase Oliver was a real standout here. He and Lamar work a hyped up indy style that I hate when it's worn by most guys, but they really pull it off. Oliver can land played out indy offense like standing shooting star presses and make them actually land, he and Lamar hit a bonkers tandem dive that looked like two prop planes that missed a fatal collision by mere feet, and then there's crazy stuff like his rope walk rana. I loved it all. There were a couple hinky moments (Lamar does land full weight on Oliver with a mistimed missile dropkick that they pretend didn't land like that, and the Bishop/Prohibition stuff wasn't my favorite), but TIAB were pro as hell throughout, AJ Gray had some nice flying into and out of the ring, the double Drunken Drivers by Prohibition were a definitive finish, and I'm just going to need them to keep running this back every year.

Tim Donst vs. Joey Janela

PAS: These are two guys I am normally a low voter on, but man it is hard to deny their willingness to absolutely crash and burn in hideous ways. This is a ladder match, and has some slow climbing and grasping which is endemic in all ladder matches, but it also has some truly holy fuck moments. They mention Donst recovering from kidney cancer and how his doctor told him to not wrestle in ladder matches, and then later have him fall directly off a ladder onto a pile of chairs with the legs sticking up. Janela gets chucked through a ladder on top of a table and the ladder just explodes with the impact. Totally gross stuff, but hard not to appreciate the hell these guys put their body through.

Dominic Garrini vs. Tom Lawlor

PAS: This was a dog collar match, and definitely very different from the other matches between these two. There was a lot I really loved about this: the stuff with the chain and collar was pretty awesome, Lawlor hit a superman punch with the chain, Garrini used the chain to headbutt Lawlor, there was a bunch of cool uses of the chain to make submissions look nastier. And this included an awesome ending where Garrini used a chain assisted Gargano escape to choke Lawlor out, with Lawlor refusing to tap and flipping off Garrini as we watched his finger fall down into unconsciousness.  I think if this had just been a dog collar match it would have ended up really high on the MOTY list, however, they used a bunch more props, like thumbtack bats and a board with bottle caps and a board with poppers. All of that stuff didn't add to the match. A dog collar is a great gimmick, you don't need more stuff. My wife's best friend will never just make chocolate chip cookies, she has to throw in gummy bears, and Twix pieces and candied almonds, until you are overwhelmed. This was a match with too many ingredients. I still liked it, but it kept me from loving it.

Franky Flynn/Magnum CK vs. Swoggle/PB Smooth

PAS: Swoggle isn't an act I really rate. Having him in a tag title match is bound to turn it into a yuks fest. Magnum CK is awesome at comedic matches, he has great facial expressions and if someone has to sell for Swoggle it might as well be him. He was also pretty great at the actual wrestling stuff, there was a spot where he goes for a blind leapfrog and gets caught in PB's arm, and he had an awesome look of terror before he was thrown. Some fun stuff, but I am glad the tag titles have moved back into actual great wrestling matches.

Tracey Williams vs. Nick Gage

PAS: This was Gage working a stiff title match, without any shortcuts. It was pretty entertaining, Gage works stiff and has some big over moves. He really dominated the match, and did it with wrestling. There was some pop ups which I didn't love, but I also really liked some of the big exchanges. The finish was pretty shocking, can't believe Gage would tap out, seems like something he wouldn't let his character do. Williams had some great matches during his title run, the start wasn't a great match, but it was nice example of what was to come.

ER: Another AIW show, another couple matches added to the ongoing MOTY List. The Young Studs/Production tag and the 10 man were the kind of things that keep these AIW loving hearts beating.

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Monday AIW - Ain't Nothing But a Gangster Party 4/20/18

43. Eddie Kingston vs. PCO

PAS: Another fun stop on the PCO indy tour. Kingston is a great opponent for PCO because he is going to bring the structure and selling to a match focused around a crazy old man being nuts. Kingston is great at selling frustration early as PCO outfoxes him, and when they start to lay in shots they really lay them in. This is basically like a Big Japan tubby guys slugfest, with Kingston adding in great selling to the fun of watching big guys hit each other. I liked how both guys mixed up their shots, with Kingston laying in the slaps and PCO hitting some nasty thrust punches to the ribs. I loved the PCO moonsault, really pretty and lands with a thud. I liked Kingston sneaking in a couple of big suplexes and a backfist to put him down. The match didn't need a bunch of near falls, and I dug it ending on a kill shot.

ER: I thought this was great, 12 minutes of two big guys pasting each other with nothing but hard shots. I thought this was one of the tightest of the PCO return matches, kept snug and reigned in, focusing way more on beating your opponent down instead of setting up stunt spots. PCO is a tough as nails 90s WWF guy, so Kingston appropriately where a 90s WWF jobber singlet and matches up absolutely perfectly. Every strike exchange worked for me big time, with big chops from both guys, PCO hitting nasty running elbows, Kingston throwing digestion disrupting kneelifts, and a fantastic moment where PCO ran wild on the ropes before hitting the hardest lariat he possibly could. These guys established they were going to kick each other's asses, and this was all ass kicking for the duration. The big moves were all spaced out nicely, and King's suplexes all looked finisher worthy - big heavy back suplexes and a huge German that sends PCO all the way over - while the PCO dives we build to at the end looked huge. PCO sends Kingston into the aisle with a big tope, then flattens him with a big tope con hilo and moonsault. They fit so much into the runtime, and Kingston was fantastic playing off PCO, thought all the stuff around his backfist was awesome, and he would pepper in "non moves" things like throwing a table in frustration early in the match. This looked like a perfect pairing on paper, and delivered in full.

MJF vs. Louis Lyndon

PAS: This was a pretty entertaining short match. The kind of thing which would get a thumbs up if it appeared on an episode of the Pro. MJF toned down his horseshit a bit and actually worked a wrestling match. I liked all of the arm work by both guys, although MJF didn't seem to be able to bump fully for Lyndon's fancy stuff( awkward landing on a reverse rana). I liked the finish with MJF taking advantage of the no rules stip by kicking Lyndon in the nuts and slapping on an armbar.

KTB vs. Tim Donst

PAS: Pretty fun big man match with Donst using the no-DQ rules to do some nasty spots with the ropes. I really liked when he when he tied KTB up into the ropes and bounced off them to spring KTB ribs first onto a chair. He also hit a nasty suplex into the corner and finished by wrapping him up in the ropes to make him tap. It never really kicked into third gear despite the punishment both guys took, which seems to be the pattern with Donst matches, although I did enjoy it.

Space Monkey vs. Gary Jay vs. Danhausen vs. Facade

PAS: As a rule I don't like multi man matches it is hard to hit every complex thing and it is difficult to build a match with lots of guys. They tend to stay at the same level without dips and peaks. I normally DO like AIW multi man matches, as it seems like a fed which frequently can overcome those problems. This one had more of the bad than the good though. Space Monkey comedy spots were probably the highlight of this match, and I really liked the bump Danhausen took on the banana peel. The concept of doing the Jacobs/Whitmer spike battle with a spike and banana is amusing, but still a match with comedy spots as a highlight - if it isn't a Brazos match - is going to be tough sledding for me.

PB Smooth vs. Eddy Only

PAS: This didn't jump out at me on paper, but was really enjoyable. Smooth is legitimately gigantic and has great potential, and having him work basically a handicap match against the entire Production really made him stand out. Only goes above and beyond to make him look great too, he gets posted and bleeds a gusher, takes huge bumps on all of PB's chokeslams and bombs, makes him really look like a force. Loved the spot where Smooth countered a tope by leaping up and catching him mid move and hanging him on the top rope. Frankie Flynn, Danhausen, Derek Director and Magnum CK all come into to get pinballed, and they finish by overwhelming him and smashing him with a ring rope hook. Smooth does get Shelton holed a bit, as Papa Shango comes out to Voodoo curse the production. Magnum CK really goes over the top in an entertaining way selling the black goop, what a pro that guy was.

ER: This one actually DID jump out on paper for me. I like mismatches and this sounded like a good one. When I was a kid and my dad let me rent a wrestling tape when we were at the video store renting Air America or some shit, I would always look for the Coliseum Videos with the weirdest matches. I wasn't angling for who could possibly be a "good" match, because my concept of what made a match good was wildly different at age 10. If I saw something like Doink vs. Giant Gonzalez on a tape, I was definitely getting that tape. And this match felt like a killer Coliseum Video exclusive. I'd get that tape going "There's no way Doink could last 1 minute against Gonzalez!" Well, sure, in a fair fight. This match had the exact kind of bells and whistles and I loved it. Eddy worked overtime here - as did all of the Production, really doing their part to set up cool moments for Smooth - and the match starts with Eddy getting caught on a sneak attack dive, getting lawndarted into the ringpost, and coming up bloody as hell. Hell yeah. Derek Director gets pump kicked in the chest, Magnum CK takes a somersault Arn bump and eats a back elbow, and we get bananas spots like Smooth palming Eddy's bloody head like a basketball and chokeslamming him, or getting him even higher on a traditional chokeslam, or - and this was the best spot of the match - leaping from the floor as Eddy was running towards the ropes, essentially dunking Eddy's neck right over the top rope. When the hell else has anybody done THAT?! Finish is Eddy absolutely crushing Smooth with a ring hook, totally bitchin finish for a No DQ match. Papa Shango's appearance clearly makes the Coliseum Video connection complete! This thing was like 5 minutes and they were the exact 5 minutes I wanted.

Cheech/Colin Delaney/Josh Prohibition/Jollyville Fuck Its vs. No Consequences (AJ Gray/Tre Lamar/Chase Oliver/Gary "The King" Baller/Joshua Bishop)

PAS: No Consequences had one of my favorite matches of 2017 their 10 man against a veteran squad at Absolution, and this is a similar style. This is a no rules show, and it starts with the Fuck It's coming from the back and jumping No Consequences and it is basically a stiff brawl on the outside interspersed with some crazy dives. T-Money who is a big dude opens up the diving with a nutso superman plancha, and it just gets crazier. Cheech flies into the audience, and then gets the back of his head busted open when he misses a ring apron DDT. Chase Oliver hits a couple of crazy dives, Joshua Bishop gets pounced into a contraption of carpet tacks, and the vet team ends up destroying AJ Gray with a money maker on a chair and then a Russ Myer cannonball through a table. Gray did a great convulsion sell during this, which really put over the brutality. This whole show had a very ECW vibe, and this was that kind of craziness at its best.

ER: This doesn't quite reach the heights of their 2017 masterpiece, but there is so much damn greatness throughout that it doesn't matter a bit. This was a wild 10 man brawl, with insane dives happening every minute, hard punches, mean double teams, the kind of insanity you'd want from these nuts. Literally everything with Jollyville was perfection. Russ is a guy who may presently be my favorite wrestler to watch. He commits to everything, makes every punch count, doesn't skimp on kicks, and when the finish calls for an elbowdrop through a table this man is going to to fly in with that elbow like a satellite crashing to earth. T-Money is built solidly as hell, and hits like a freight train. His dive here is incredible, as he clears the top rope no hands style but stays horizontal. That's dangerous as hell as your body naturally wants to just torpedo you face first into the ground, but he keeps it level and crashes through everyone. They're my team, ride or die. There's some danger on some of the dives: Baller hangs on too long on a flip dive and almost brains himself on the apron, AJ Gray does an amazing tornillo but the catchers aren't quite there, but dives ARE dangerous so there's gonna be some danger! Oliver hits a bonkers moonsault to the floor and crushes Russ's esophagus with a cool chest breaker that saw him vault off the bottom rope, Delaney plants Lamar with a sick DDT on the apron (Cheech does the same and ends up getting a nasty cut on his head), Lamar hits an evil baseball slide dropkick through the ropes, Gray gets an awesome fired up babyface moment before his doom and throws a ton of great rapid fire punches to everyone that looked like he was trying to punch through their forehead. This one was a little more disjointed than their classic, a little messy, but these guys wear messy really well.

Mathew Justice vs. Ethan Page

PAS: This was sort of the Tommy Dreamer match for this ECW show. Lots of brawling in the crowd, and shots with water bottles and beer cans. Justice and Page both throw their bodies around a bunch in this match, landing weird on chairs and the floor, but I am not sure what it all means at the end. The match starts with Page insulting a fan on the mic and ends with a Dr. Dan run in, and this match is one of my only problems with AIW which is the punishment that guys take in matches that don't mean much. Really violent show, but too many matches built around punishing bumps minimizes each bump.

Weird World vs. Philly Marino Experience vs. Young Studs vs. #Duke Money

PAS: This was a comedy garbage match with some guys bleeding like pigs and taking huge bumps for what was basically for yuks. It's starts out with PME and Duke Money having a tag match, but a couple of minutes in the Studs come from the back and start brawling, and then a couple minutes after that Natural Born Killaz starts playing and Weird World comes out dressed like the Gangstas with a shopping cart full of weapons. It is pretty crazy throughout, with Eric Ryan legdropping a shopping cart, guys getting mauled with cheese graters and thumbtacks. It certainly had energy, and the spectacle of it made it memorable, but one after another with big violent spectacles, tends to burn me out.

Tracy Williams/Dominic Garrini vs. Nick Gage/Tom Lawlor

PAS: This was worked as a No DQ brawl like the rest of the show, but they distinguished themselves by really laying it in. Lawlor especially was just pasting people, huge superman punches, big kicks, as he was trying to take out Garrini who broke his arm earlier in the year. The coolest stuff in the match was when they mixed some shootstyle into the brawling, including Williams sinking in a tight choke, Garrini countering a Lawlor superman punch with a flying triangle, and Lawlor removing his armpad and beating Garrini bloody with his cast (Garrini did a pretty obvious blade job, which was a problem in his awesome Mania weekend match too, big Garrini fan but he has to work on his close up magic.) Gage hung well in that atmosphere, as he came off as a Tank Abbot style MMA brawler. I thought the stuff with the thumbtacks and tables was unnecessary, in a vacuum it was fine but on a show where nearly every match had props, they would have been better off just having a wild stiff Murakami brawl. Still dug this a bunch. 


ER: Another AIW show, another Kingston match on our 2018 Ongoing MOTY List, and it genuinely feels like every single AIW show is treated like a big deal. They're the best.

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