AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 8/17 - 8/23

ROH Death Before Dishonor 8/21/26

Daniel Garcia vs Adam Priest

MD: Throughout the history of pro wrestling criticism, there has always been a premium on what was done: what (hot) moves, what spots, what popped the crowd, hot finishing stretches with a lot of kickouts. And of course, the execution of those things. Did things hit clean? Were there botches? More often than not, it wasn’t about the impact those things had on the crowd, but instead a sort of “Russian Judge” approach like the reviewer was scoring Olympics Gymnastics. How much action did the match contain? How well did the wrestlers hit their floor routine? And maybe, just maybe, how much innovation/variation existed in that action? 

Rarely, if ever, was the actual narrative of the match discussed. How that action fit into an overall story was considered almost beyond the point and even sometimes something that got in the way. I’ve seen reviews that mentioned either the overarching story being told by the wrestlers or specific character beats and flourishes in their reactions as things that got in the way of the match, as opposed to being the heart of the match itself. In the eyes of these reviewers, they disrupted the possibilities for action within the match.

I’m not sure what drove this approach, whether it was a need to feel superior, a need to cope with inferiority complexes about wrestling, resentment towards wrestlers who leaned harder on story or character beats over action as if they were somehow lazier for doing so, or just personal preference, but it would be looking at a movie review and having them focus only on the special effects and stuntwork (or maybe just the cinematography if we’re being kind) instead of the writing, acting, or overall direction, let alone things like the art design or sound.

That is to say that you could watch this match and focus just on the action and big spots. In this match, it’d be Garcia shrugging Priest off the top when he went for a superplex, and Priest’s stalling superplex later. It would be the gimmicky figure-four leglock that went out of the ring and rolled up the ramp. It’d maybe be Priest’s pile driver. Or maybe you could hyper fixate on some of the technique, the scrambling early, some of the trading of holds down the stretch, some of the false finishes like the stretch where Garcia put his foot on Priest’s head or when Priest got the half crab on. And maybe you’d call it an ok match that couldn’t compare to the spotfests on the rest of the card.

But if you did this, you’d miss so much of what made this match stand out as special.

I care about that story. I care, maybe even more so, about the characters at play. Moves are great, but we’ve seen them all. Bumps. Spots. Sequences. Reversals. When something somehow manages to be innovative in 2026, it stands out because everything’s been done, but then it’s over and copied six times. It’s ephemeral. What’s timeless is the human aspect of pro wrestling. Who are these characters? What makes them interesting? How do we related to them? How does their character shape their actions and reactions? How do they interact with one another and the crowd?

Let’s map our way through this one a little. Work with me here a bit because I truly do believe this is a different way of tracking a pro wrestling match.

First, the setting. This is a ROH PPV, where they have time to breathe. No commercial breaks. No real time constraints. It’s in the midst of a very broad card with a tag team spotfest and a bomb-throwing title match, and two Pure Rules matches, and a Fight without Honor. It’s for an opportunity, an opportunity that neither man had, to enter the Continental Cup tournament in the Quarterfinals, face Claudio Castagnoli, and potentially go to Wembley. In both cases, it might be the only possible chance they’d have to get on the biggest card of the year. For Garcia, it’s a chance to prove himself against his fellow Death Riders, to show he belongs, to show he can hang, that he’s not just the most junior member. For Priest, it’s the best opportunity he’s had in his entire AEW/ROH TV run. Clear motivation driving both of them.

There is a way to watch wrestling where you focus on their creative emotional choices, their faces, their body language. Priest came down to the ring slapping hands. He shook Bryce’s hand. He shook Bobby Cruise’s hand. He moved with purpose, intensity, but played up the southern gentleman motif as well. Garcia was doing push ups with Marina, huddled with her, slunk down the ring with that chip on his shoulder, an undertone of mouthy petulance. The Code of Honor handshake is a wonderful way to immediately establish character and tone. Do they shake? Do they look their opponent in the eye? It sets the stage for the match. Here, the shake was clean, quick, brisk. It opened the door for the possibility of a clean Continental wrestling match, something which Mox always preached but never truly practiced. 

Of course, there is a third character at play in any wrestling match, the crowd. They began to chant for Priest. That’s something he’s still getting used to given that he menaces the indies, up and down, as one of the more hated men in America. On ROH TV, though, in front of this Philly crowd, he was the favorite, and he basked in it, hyping them up, maybe even pointing it out to Garcia. That poisoned already murky waters. They scrambled on the mat (the first lock up being another way to set the tone). Priest went for a snap suplex but couldn’t get it. Too close to the ropes. He maybe took a few seconds too long to break it and Garcia, boiling over already, maybe frustrated by the crowd, maybe frustrated by life itself and his lot in it, shoved Priest back angrily. 

Priest followed with a headlock. Garcia shrugged him off and ran through him, basking in the tiny triumph, the first in the match. They went running again and Garcia stopped before a Priest leapfrog and piefaced him with one hand. He continued to get in Priest’s face, shoving him back, taking up his air, asserting himself. So what did Priest do? He shrugged and kicked Garcia in the shin. Action. Reaction. Character.

The match was maybe two minutes in but the lines were clearly defined and compelling. Active, engaged characters acting with motivation and drive, reacting to one another and the crowd. This is what gives all of those spots and moves and innovation meaning and purpose. It underpins it all and makes it resonate. They were showing us exactly who they were and what made them interesting and worth caring about. They care so we care. 

From here, Garcia responded with aggravation, having an answer to every Priest shot. He overstretched though, wanting it too badly, already gotten to a bit, and found himself with his foot caught in the corner. That let Priest start to wear it down. The crowd went up for Priest again and that distracted him, allowing Garcia to fire back. Priest went low with a chop block to cut him off. 

Just like Priest was caught up with the crowd’s reaction, he was a bit ahead of himself overall. He went for the half crab too early then went for a superplex too early. Garcia shrugged him off to the mat, forcing his leg to jam on the way down. Now both men had damaged legs which would inform the rest of the match. Priest moved right in to reassert the advantage, but Garcia caught him in the ropes and dragon screwed the leg from the outside in. He then hopped to the floor to celebrate his small victory, jawing with the fans and getting right in their faces. Was it the smartest tactical move? No. Was it absolutely what Daniel Garcia would have done and part of what makes him so engaging? Absolutely. 

You can trace these trends through the rest of the match. Priest used the crowd to help him fire back up, refusing to quit or back down, Garcia resorting to a cheap throat shot to cut him off. Garcia got distracted mocking the crowd during his ten-count corner punch and Priest was able to take advantage of the space. Priest hit a series of nasty dragon screw leg whips which Garcia sold in a unique stalling way, but Adam got caught up as the crowd wanted just one more and that allowed Garcia to lock in a sleeper. Their mistakes are human mistakes. Their resilience is a very human resilience. The balance between the two is where the human interest in the match resides and the human interest is far better than any series of complex choreographed spots that exist for its own sake and to pop a crowd.

At one point, they found themselves at an impasse, each having grabbed the other’s leg, two men intertwined through fate and determination. That was even more true during that figure-four which rolled up the ramp. Part of it was spurred on by the shared legwork throughout the match, sure, but so much of it was sheer stubbornness, with neither wanting to be the first to find a way out, neither wanting to be the first to blink, to let the other see him blink, to let the crowd and the world see him blink.

Priest was infinitely resourceful. When Garcia (leaning hard into his Death Riders rearing) managed to beat him down, he always had one last trick to use. He’s not big to begin with. He’s used to fighting from underneath and he did so literally, tossing a knife-edged chop into Danny’s knee so he could hit the pile driver. Garcia survived it though, managed one last trip using a dropdown (the oldest trick in the book but one that almost never works, fitting that it did here), and locked in the Dragontamer for the win. Post-match, he limped through the crowd from whence he came, while Priest convalesced in pain and disappointment.

It was a hell of a match but it was a hell of a match as much (more so if you ask me, far moer so) for who they were and how they presented themselves as for any specific thing that they did. There’s not really been a critical tradition of us examining that in pro wrestling. If anything it’s been lumped into the category of “charisma,” but charisma, to me, is much more about a certain sort of over the top dynamism, and really, in a lot of ways, goes back to popping crowds instead of serving narratives. 

A narrative was served here, driven by character, by actions and reactions, and the prideful, tempestuous, driven, and all too human souls underneath. That’s what makes this one of the best AEW/ROH matches of the year and a quiet triumph. Interesting people doing interesting things in interesting ways to interesting effect. Motivation, character, consequence, where the action serves and is shaped by the narrative instead of forcing it, kicking and screaming, to drag breathlessly behind. That’s the ideal and they absolutely nailed it here. 

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 7/13 - 7/19

ROH TV 7/16/26

Eddie Kingston/Ortiz/Adam Priest/Tommy Billington vs Shane Taylor Promotions (Shane Taylor/Lee Moriarty/Shawn Dean/Carlie Bravo)

MD: I can hear it in your head.

Ospreay VS Brooks Was 8 Minutes Long With Will Working From Underneath When He's The Title Contender? What's The Ticket Sales For All In? How About Summerslam? Did The Dynamite Rating Hold Up? What Did Collision Do Against SNME? Danhausen Brought Out Karl-Anthony Towns? WWE Is Booking New York? Does That Mean There'll Be A Grand Slam To Counter SaudiMania? Someone Posted A Hogan VS Michaels Clip. Got To Post A Take On That. Dave Didn't Post The Mercedes/Maya Star Rating Yet? But He's In Arena Mexico. What's Going On With Sammy? What's Aminata's Contract Status? What About Bayley? Alvarez Says We Should Criticize AEW. Some Fans Say We Just  Should Focus On The Positives. Why Am I Typing This Like Ric Flair Tweets? What Did Styles Say This time? It's G1 Season. Big TJPW Show To Catch Up On. The TNT Champion Is Challenging at the PPV Again? Liv Morgan Supports Conversion Therapy? Tony Khan Is Playing 5 Star Booker? The Triangle of Madness Have Stardom Titles Now? 

Stop

Just stop.

Breathe. Take a breath.

None of that is going anywhere. 

Or it is, but you don't need to go with it for a few minutes.

It'll be there when you get back. Or the next thing will. Or the next. Or the next.

And you won't miss much of anything. It's fine. It'll be fine. There's something better for you out there.

A match.

A professional wrestling match.

It's full of story but not part of any storylines. 

It didn't go viral. Haven't seen a single clip from it. 

But it has eight practitioners of their craft, artists. Guys who have been around the block, guys who are on the rise, different sizes, shapes, styles. 

Twelve and a half minutes of freedom from everything above. It's on Honor Club. You have to want it to watch it. You're going to be surrounded by people who want it. It's in front of a studio audience there to see hours of wrestling. Small, intimate crowd. People who care. People who love it. People who are passionate enough to love it that much for what it is and not for all the noise around it. 

Where's Eddie Kingston been? 

Here. He's been here. Teaming with Ortiz. Wrestling with the younger guys. Wrestling the younger guys. Staring off against Shane Taylor. And yeah, you've missed him, but you don't need to miss him. He's right here waiting for you. 

Just get off the never-ending train to nowhere. Take a breath. Relax. Watch some pro wrestling that exists for the sake of pro wrestling. To entertain a crowd. To make Honor Club worth the price. To get guys reps. To create something out of nothing.

What does it look like when Eddie and Ortiz team with Priest and Billington? What does it look like when Shane Taylor Promotions come out at full strength? What does the clash of the two look like?

Aren't you curious? Even though it's not going to score you any points in any online argument. Even though it probably won't even get a look from the Observer. Even though this episode of ROH only has ONE vote on Cagematch. 

Doesn't that still sound interesting? Doesn't it sound more interesting than a lot of things that you feel far more obliged to watch and follow and post about?

Trust me when I tell you that it's better for your soul.

It was sure better for mine.

And yes, there were stories galore here, because characters drive stories and look at these characters. Ortiz and Bravo to start. Does Bravo respect the Code of Honor? No. He's tells the crowd to shut up and has a single finger on each hand for Ortiz instead. Mood set.

They trade rolling leg picks. Bravo goes under and around the leg. Ortiz gets behind him with a hammerlock. They burst into rope running. Ortiz drops down, gets a leap frog, hits an armdrag. Great way to start a match.

More stories. Eddie comes in and hits a Japanese arm drag on Dean. Dean yelps that it's an illegal move in the United States. Small crowd theatrics, maybe the best kind? Billington tagged in intending to chop down Taylor. Fearless bulldog mentality but up against a tank. Contrast makes things interesting. Styles make fights. It took Billington, Priest, and Ortiz working together to take him down. Things (like Taylor's size) mean something, have significance. 

Sometimes you want to see like vs like too. Adam Priest is any style. Lee Moriarty is the pure champ. They face off and Moriarty goes for a rolling leg pick of his own, but Priest had seen it twice so far in the match and jams it with a nasty back elbow to the jaw.

But then, Priest gets swept under. Transitions are structural, as important as any part of the match. Moriarty distracts the ref as Priest hits the ropes. Dean trips him and hits a stunner onto the apron, Bravo hits a knee drop off the apron, Taylor hits a legdrop on it. It takes mere seconds and changes everything.

Adam Priest, maybe the best heel of the 2020s, is out there playing face-in-peril, constantly reaching for his corner, constantly dragging himself across the mat, looking for any sign of hope and trying to create his own when there's none to be found. But STP stretch and do their thing. They toss him to the floor and swarm him. Bravo works small, little flourishes full of confidence. Dean has that same confidence, but he works bigger and more over the top with it. Moriarty is precise, contorting body parts, hitting suplexes, holding bridges (just as confident). Taylor is a wrecking ball. Priest tries to fire back on him. It doesn't go well for poor Adam. 

Nevertheless, Priest doesn't quit. He doesn't give up. He keeps on running, keeps on fighting, and manages to double down with Bravo after simultaneous clotheslines. He gets the hot tag. Eddie comes in like the (beloved) maniac he is. The Kobashi chops in the corner. He directs traffic. His team unloads and then toss Bravo in for an exploder. STP comes back and do the same to Eddie, tossing him in to a Taylor uranage. Things have broken down but even in chaos, there's a beautiful undercurrent of symmetry and order.

It's an 8-man tag. Plenty of people to break up pins. Plenty of offense to feature as well. Things waterfall. One guy rushes in to hit a bit of signature offense, then the next, but it all happens so quickly, and here in the finishing stretch after the meat of the match has already been consumed, that you can relax and enjoy it. The subsequent dives cleared the ring and the finish had Priest's half crab, a missile dropkick out of nowhere by Billington and dueling roll ups leading to the pin.

The progression was just right. Opening exchanges. Shine. Heat. Comeback. Chaos. Completion. All underpinned by contrast and character.

Sometimes a match can "just" be a match. That's not an insult. It can be wonderful. That doesn't mean it lacks story. It doesn't mean it doesn't draw you in. In some ways, it helps you let go and can draw you in all the more. It cuts out the distractions and lets you focus on the passion and the craft.

That doesn't mean there aren't things coming out of this I'd want to see too. We got a taste of Priest vs Moriarty. What does a Pure Title match between the two look like. We've seen Infantry vs Ortiz/Kingston once, but there's way more left on the bone. And yeah, Billington wanted to challenge himself against Shane Taylor. If he wants it that badly, I'd want to see him have the chance.

In a world without house shows, where the analytics of every quarter hour of TV is carefully examined, where fans are pushed by the algorithm to care most about lore, divisive arguments, and what's trending, a match like this can be a breath of fresh air.

I got the train for twelve minutes and just enjoyed myself. You can too. You'll be better off for it. A match like this is a gift, an increasingly rare gift. Log off for a bit and go open the present. 

You can be present. It's okay. The noise will be waiting for you whether you want it to be or not.

Enjoy the gift while you can. We don't get enough of them anymore.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 4/20 - 4/26 Part 1

AEW Collision 4/25/26

RUSH vs Adam Priest 

MD: Adam Priest knows the score. He might be Any Style. He might be the heir to Alabama wrestling. Some days that means he's a Dirty White Boy. Some days it means he's virtually an Armstrong, a modern day Bullet. He might be in his own lane when it comes to getting under people's skin or even getting them to back him when it matters most. Hell, he might even be in his own lane when it comes to finding a way to scrape out even the most unlikeliest of wins.

But he's smaller. Lower on in the rankings. An underdog. Not the biggest fish in a new pond that's a hell of a lot bigger.

Adam Priest knows the score. He knows it as well as anyone.

And he doesn't give a damn about it.

RUSH isn't a wrestler. He's not a luchador. He's someone whose name is in all caps. He didn't ask for that. He didn't demand it. He earned it. It's undeniable. He's an out of control bull. He's violence and volatility. He's two fists, two feet, one head, no mercy, coming right at your face at all times.

He's the embodiment of seething fury mixed with smug assurance. He wears a bull mask out from the back and somehow seems more dangerous when he takes it off. He slaps his chest and the fans chant his name. He rolls back and makes the center of the ring his home, calm as can be, fist outstretched into the air, potential energy just waiting to explode.

So what does Adam Priest do? He takes a few steps out and punts that mask down the ramp. He puts his life in his hands and then outstretches that selfsame hand for a shake. When RUSH kicks it, he shrugs it off like it was nothing. "Now why did that guy go and do that? I'm a sportsman." He knows the score. Don't let him fool you about that.

They start wrestling. It's inconclusive. Priest ducks away and puts his fingers on his forehead, bull horns, bucks a bit for good measure. RUSH sees red. 

Was Priest trying to throw him off? Make him make a mistake? No, I don't think so. Priest knows the score. You can't fight the tide. Priest knows all about the tide. You can't beat it, but maybe you can make it work ten times harder than it ought to along the way. You can't kill the bull but you can leave your mark on it, and give the people a hell of a show in the process. 

Because what's a man without his pride?

They get scrapping. RUSH gets the better of it. And Priest? He just asks for some more. The commentators take note. The crowd takes note. RUSH takes note. If you can't win, then lose as big and bold and bright as possible.

RUSH controls through the break. The feed goes for a minute and we come back and somehow, miraculously, Priest has fought his way back. No idea how. We're almost better off not knowing. He's Any Style Adam Priest after all. Could have been anything. All that matters is that he's taking his pound of flesh, and that Tony Schiavone calls him hitting an Alabama Jam. Living the dream. 

It turns to a nightmare quickly enough. RUSH sidesteps, hits a German off the ropes, takes Priest outside to thrash him against the guardrails a bit, pulls him back inside. Priest  absolutely messed with the bull. So he got the horns. 

But no one's going to remember the horns. For once, all anyone's going to remember is that this bastard was brave and daring and sharp and good enough to mess with the bull. 

And what about us? The people viewing this. Why do we watch wrestling in the first place? It's not to count kickouts and give out star ratings. It's not. Some people have lost sight of that, but it's not. 

It's to feel something. You know what made me feel something? Priest kicking that mask down the ramp. It wasn't a 450. It wasn't some tricked out counter. It wasn't barbed wire or light tubes. It was just one absolute bastard drawing a line in the sand because he could. He knew the score. We knew the score. He just didn't care. He REALLY didn't care. He didn't care so much that we couldn't do anything but care for him.

There's a magic to that. There really is. And wrestlers like RUSH and Priest help us remember it when the rest of the world has worked so hard to make us forget.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 1/19 - 1/25

ROH TV 1/22/26

Adam Priest/Tommy Billington vs Premier Athletes (Tony Nese/Ariya Daivari) 

MD: Wrestling isn't math.

Sometimes, though, it can be a book report.

Everyone rushes to make things quantitative, to bestow star ratings, to rate things next to each other. 

I care a lot more about understanding, about categorizing, about yeah, analyzing. That's not about scoring on points having to do with excitement, execution, innovation so much as breaking down the narrative and try to figure out how it ticks. These things can go hand-in-hand. You can use this to judge a match but that's not usually my intent. 

So we're going to do something a little different this week. We're going to look at a match through a narrative framework.

I'm not saying you can do this with every match exactly this way. I'm not saying I do it with every match automatically, though my brain is wired now to be thinking about some of these things as I watch, sure. 

This works well for a southern tag (the most beautiful form of pro wrestling there is) but for other things, be it face vs face matches or matches from cultures that structure things differently, the hinge points that still should exist are transitions or momentum shifts. Not everything will fit neatly into a three act structure but there still should be act breaks if you can figure out where to find them. Otherwise, it's just all noise and the match is probably not going to be very satisfying even if it might be sensational.

Pre-Match: This covers entrances, talking on the way to the ring, inset (insert?) promos. There's a lot to see here. It matters how people come down to the ring. It sets the stage, creates a mood. We're going to cover a 1981 joshi babyface vs babyface match later this week and to see Jackie Sato grasp people's hands on the way to the ring and understand the connection she had with the crowd relative to her opinions gave some insight into the match itself and to how the crowd reacted. We're the blind man touching the elephant and every data point helps.

Lots of data points here. Athletes are out first with Sterling putting over their relatively new heater, Stori Denali as she towers over everyone. He gets some cheap heat talking about local sports, hypes everyone up to shout Athletes Rule so that they can shout Athletes Suck instead. These guys were getting booed anyway but there's no question now. They look like a unit with matching red boots even if everyone's stylistically different in other ways with their own flourishes.

Priest/Billington are out to Billington's music, reddish matching tights, a tron that just focuses on Billington. We get an inset promo with Swirl and Lethal, Lethal having turned on Bandido, and Billington/Priest by proxy a few weeks ago. Lethal says they're done. Christian says they're not. A little wonky. As that's happening, they're moving down to the ring with haste and energy, Priest hyping up the crowd.

Code of Honor: Here's a bonus element just for ROH matches. I love the Code of Honor. It's a mandatory handshake before a match but it forces an extra character moment to set the stage right at the start of the match. Athena always puts a dainty left hand out to insult opponents for instance. Sometimes she clocks someone as they shake, sometimes she doesn't, but that tension is always there. It's an opportunity and while you need a baseline of straight up shakes, it's to a wrestler's detriment if he or she doesn't make the most of it.

Adam Priest absolutely makes the most of it. He tells you almost everything you need to know about him in the span of fifteen seconds. He gets right in Daivari's face, putting his hand out. When Daivari just stares him down he shoves him and puts the hand back out. He's got a chip in his shoulder, full of babyface fire. He's hungry and won't be denied. Daivari on the other hand is a vet's vet, just like Nese, and he has his own pride, and in the face of that challenge, he doesn't back down, but does show a modicum of respect, slapping Priest's hand to complete the Code. Again, fifteen seconds, but they set the stage immediately, making the most of it.

Feeling Out/Shine: They're still fleshing out the stage. It's Act 1 of a play, introducing the characters, setting, and the "normal world." Who are these people? What makes them different from each other? Why do you root for the babyface? Why do you boo the heel? If the match was going to play out with everything fair, everything normal, what might it look like? There may be a "false heat" of sort where it seems like the heel is getting an advantage, but then they get comeuppance. 

Priest and Daivari start with chain wrestling focused around the arm. Daivari is the early aggressor but Priest is ultimately able to turn things around and win the exchange, pumping his arm as the fans chant "Athletes Suck." Daivari presses him into the corner (since he couldn't get an advantage cleanly) and he and Nese double clubber before calling for an Athletes chant (they get "Suck" for their trouble). Billington manages a blind tag off the ropes and they hit a slick drop toe hold/elbow drop combo before controlling with the arm and quick tags for another couple of minutes, until Nese is able to get back in and has a nice rope running exchange with Billington leading to the...

Transition to Heel Offense/Heat: Transitions are everything. They're the act breaks, the change that we see in the world. They're the shocks to the system that grasp you as a viewer and change the course of history. They should be clever but definitive, not mushy and unclear, but also earned and believable. A kick to the gut out of nowhere doesn't generally cut it. That's not enough to change history. Something too far the other way is going to feel more like a process than an exclamation point. Sometimes that can be okay but it means you're telling a different sort of story and need to insert more nuance. 

They did an excellent job here. Nese and Daivari are very good at layering these things. Here Nese succeeds on a dropdown, throwing Billington off balance. Is a dropdown a trip? Is it just getting out of the way of someone running? It's pro wrestling. It can be either or both. It doesn't necessarily matter what the original intent was. Here it does throw Billington off and Nese charges right in behind him to clip the legs in the ropes. He goes to drive Billington into the barricade. Billington fights him off. Daivari comes to help. Billington fights him off too. Thus distracted, Nese is able to toss Billington into the hard ring apron shoulder first and then, as Nese rolls in to distract the ref, Daivari and Sterling are able to stomp on him. It's a great transition because it caught everyone by surprise, because it clearly leaned hard into character: Nese was opportunistic and underhanded, Billington valiant, and it led to a bit of cheating to show the difference all the more clearly. 

Heat/Hope Spots/Cutoffs: Again, wrestling isn't math and there can be differences in ratios here. Some of the best tags of the 80s have long, long shines where the heels get their comeuppance again and again and relatively short heats. To me, it's just basic narrative logic to have a longer heat where you're building up pressure more and more for a hot tag and getting the fans wanting it more and more.

It's good to have a singular narrative focus and they make use of the arm here. Billington's arm was thrashed on the apron. It gives Nese and Daivari a target to attack and gives an "out" for why Billington can't come back even though he's trying his best. He goes for punches or forearms but the arm gives way. He reverses Nese and puts him into tombstone position. The arm doesn't let him hit it. Hope snatched away. The Athletes get showy and cocky building to Nese missing a moonsault, but he's able to make the tag and Daivari cuts a crawling Billington off with an elbow drop. All of this builds up the pressure.

Transition to Hot Tag: again, transitions are inflection points, shocks, the world changing, act breaks, the most important part of a match past maybe the finish. This is the moment the crowd has been waiting for, what they had been hoping for. The inversions have already come with the hope spots and cutoffs, but this is one last chance to either be definitive with it or string a last series together.

Here it's basically just a double down after Daivari and Priest both go for clotheslines. Important is that Nese is still reeling from that missed moonsault (though that's just an extra detail for why he can't disrupt things, but the Athletes are so good with details). Simple, straightforward, as Daivari crawls towards his corner to find no one there and Billington finds exactly what he was looking for in Adam Priest. But it's art so it's subjective, right? You could say that even though Daivari had a clear moment of control (ball possession?) after the elbow drop cut off, that the key inflection point was the missed moonsault and everything after that was the Athletes losing control. It's interesting to think about either way. Again, not math.

Comeback/Finishing Stretch: Another place where you can separate more or combine if you want to, however you'd like to think about it. In modern wrestling, they're so stuck together that it's hard to differentiate. The comeback generally leads to pin attempts and break-ups and things ebbing and flowing towards a finish. In modern matches, you often get a really extended finishing stretch that can be as long as half the match where everything breaks down and you get constant spots/action for long minutes and I am not a huge fan of that. But yes, the babyface who got the hot tag comes in a house afire (of fire?) and releases all that pent up pressure and they start laying down false finishes to build to however the match is going to end, ideally raising that pressure back up for the finish.

This was a particularly great stretch because it was less about big moves and kickouts (or break-ups) and more about playing with conventions and expectations. We're all trained to know the various ways a match logically tends to end and this didn't just give us big moves but narrative beats where endings could happen only to snatch them away and build to the next one.

Priest led off with what would be the comeback phase. He had some great signature offense, mowing down Daivari as he fed for him but then catching a foot and turning it into a German Suplex and leaping off the turnbuckles with a tornado DDT after he shoved off Nese who was trying to stop him. This was disrupted by a Daivari small package attempt, which you can note, if you want, where things shifted from comeback to finishing stretch (though again, it all blurs).

What followed was a series of false finishes, a double submission by the babyfaces, Sterling causing a distraction on the apron, heel miscommunication, Nese pulling the rope down, a kickout after a heel double-team, more heel miscommunication and Priest locking in his half crab, Denali using Billington cutting off Sterling's second attempt at distraction to chokeslam Priest (pin broken up by Billington), and then finally, after Billington cleared Daivari out to hit a dive and make it one-on-one, Priest reversing Nese's pumphandle driver finisher into a roll up for the win. Just a very clever and self-aware sequence of not just finishers or moves, but coded moments that we have fans have been conditioned can understand could possibly lead to the end of a match. It had me on the edge of my seat at least as after the double submission, almost anything that happened could plausibly lead to a finish given our understanding of pro wrestling.

Post-match: This is where the finish sets in and resonates. Maybe the heels get their heat back. Maybe the babyfaces run them off. Maybe they celebrate with the crowd. Maybe the commentary just takes things through the replay and cements the message of the match.

Here the Swirl came out to ambush and the Athletes joined in. The babyfaces won the battle but lost a bit more in the war, giving them plenty of places to take things moving forward.

Pre-Match, Feeling Out/Shine, Transition to Heel Offense, Heat/Hope Spots/Cutoffs, Transition to Hot Tag, Comeback/Finishing Stretch, Post-Match. In this case there was the Code of Honor as well, which fits in between Pre-Match and Feeling Out/Shine, and could probably be part of the latter. It's a useful framework to think about how matches are put together and how they work narratively. Not every tag match is going to follow it. A tag may have double heat. You may get a "Things Break Down" period after the hot tag that's so lengthy with so many momentum shifts that you may want to try to organize it some other way. If you're watching an All Japan tag from the early 90s, it's much more about specific match-ups and hierarchy. Lucha manages ebbs and flows differently and I wrote more about that here years ago. But in all of these cases, you're generally looking for transitions. Those are your anchors to breaking down a match.

And of course, you don't have to do any of this. You don't have to think about matches this way. You don't have to engage with wrestling this way. It's art. You can just sit back and consume it. But I know that I personally enjoyed this tag, which was very good, all the more for engaging with it and thinking about it through this lens. 

Did I give it a star rating? No. But by breaking it down this way, I pulled out a lot of what made it stand out and pop for me, at least from a storytelling perspective. There are lots of different ways to engage with wrestling (and art in general). Try to explore and figure out what works for you, even if it doesn't necessarily fit into some of the quantitative boxes others have traditionally used.

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2025 Ongoing MOTY List: Priest vs. Bosby

 

Adam Priest vs. Tim Bosby ACTION Wrestling 10/17/25

ER: Adam Priest is no secret anymore, but Tim Bosby might still be. I don't think his secret will be kept for much longer. He does too many things well, too many things that show how well he understands pro wrestling. This was a great match, pitting the normally despicable Priest into the role of Georgia Super Babyface vs. the hateable Bosby. Bosby is the big Tennessee heel bringing his title into Georgia and Priest is the scrappy local face taking it to him, and the whole thing rocked. I love heel Priest, but it's great seeing him fired up in the crowd throwing punches at this much larger beast, knocking the heavyweight into fans, throwing uppercuts into him that forces Bosby to use the fans to brace against the impact. Priest is just as great at being a fired up babyface as he is at being a despicable heel, as if there were two different Priests. 

Bosby is a real monster, but a monster who is really smart about how he wrestles. He does so many things in one match - big and small - that make him stand apart from other monsters who are merely men, and other men who are merely wrestlers. When he throws himself into the mat as he whips Priest into the buckles, that's one of those things a wrestler can do every other match or so that will make me like that wrestler a lot more. It's a flashier version of a guy holding onto a headlock when pushed off, in terms of things a wrestler can do to make me tell others they're a really great wrestler. Bosby matches are full of such things, and I can say the same thing about Adam Priest matches. When Bosby takes a back body drop on the floor, Priest walks off hunched holding his back, because Priest understood he needed to fight to get Bosby over, to his own detriment, and it made the bump look and feel even bigger.  

That's key, because they understood exactly what the size dynamic was and they stayed within it the entire match. It looked like a struggle for Priest to back drop Bosby, because look at the two of them! That size difference led to some incredible moments. When Bosby sinks in a smothering sleeperhold, it takes Priest several jawbreakers to break out of it, because they understand the physics of their battle. It's also how they create such a realistic nearfall out of a Bret/Austin Survivor Series finish. Bosby catching Priest's suicide dive roughly over his shoulders then screaming his way through an F5, hurtling Priest at the apron, is one of those things that should make everyone a fan of Bosby (and Priest) and showed how hard Priest would have to work to overcome this beast. I had no idea just how much this match was going to continue peaking. 

Once Priest almost pinned Bosby, it's like Bosby knew he had to Terminator his way through. He keeps utilizing heavy back elbows to break holds and set up sequences, and Priest runs into a back elbow better than anyone going. He also gets powerbombed over Bosby's damn knee for a two count, which is a pretty crazy two count on an ACTION show. ACTION has conditioned me well to understand that big moves finish matches, and overkill will not be tolerated. Priest kicking out of that powerbomb told me things were about to change. I do not think this ever drifted into overkill, I just think both men are 2 Stubborn 2 B Put Down. Priest's tenacity as a hell works just as well as a babyface, and I bit at every nearfall down the stretch, where Priest was at his wrestling physics best. Both men kept making me lean forward in my chair, made me want to skip back to see what I had just seen. 

When Priest chopped Bosby across the thighs and pounced on him with a short piledriver, I flipped out. When he broke out his small package reversal out of a full speed Bosby F5, I bought it as a fully credible title change finish. His crucifix after was a nice follow up jump scare nearfall, because Priest knows exactly what kind of surprise element to utilize here. Their skill in peaking this match from start to finish was so impressive. The F5 kickout was done so well. Bosby played his anger perfectly with some realistically expressionless jock anger rather than bug eyed Performance Center shock, and Bosby does yet another one of those things he does that show how well he understands wrestling: he knows he has the time to slowly pull both straps down before pulling Priest off the mat. Had the match ended right there, I would have loved it. F5, kickout, straps come down, one more F5, no chance of a kickout. 

But this is Adam Priest! We get more, and it gets better. Bosby doesn't just do another F5, he wants to do thee F5. He takes things to the top rope, and Priest gets wise to that while on the top rope. The visual of Priest standing on the top, punching and elbowing at King Kong, eventually winning the battle over a crazy frankensteiner, looked like we were seeing the most insane version of Misterio vs. Nash. The finish is pretty ridiculously overdone but it was truly well done bullshit. After getting another believable nearfall, we go through Priest blindly DDTing the referee to Bosby hitting Priest with a loaded backpack. It wouldn't have hurt Priest's credibility to just take the biggest spinning F5 anyone has thrown, as that's a reasonable way to lose a match to the champ. That Bosby knew that and still went through all the bullshit to win is kind of the point. 

Bosby leaves to Leonard Cohen's "Everybody Knows" and if people don't, they sure will before long.  

2025 MOTY MASTER LIST

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DEAN~!!! 2 Day 7: Mad Dog Connelly vs Adam Priest

DEAN~!!! 2 5/24/25

Mad Dog Connelly vs Adam Priest (Dog Collar Match)

MD: Work with me for a minute here. If you ever got a tape from Dean over the years, there was a real good chance that it'd just be something he had watched recently and enjoyed. You never knew what you were going to get. That was, in many ways, the spirit of the Death Valley Driver Video Reviews. The wrestling came to them. Maybe they had a good idea of what to seek after repeat viewings, but it was the footage that ended up in their hands. It was very much the opposite of the Observer. That was at the center, the keeper of the canon. These ruled the periphery, full of strange energy where anything counted and everything was a possibility. 

Now remember, this show was put together in part by Phil Schneider and to get a Schneider Comp was a very different experience. You were already in through the door. You knew the password. You were choosing from a numbered list. If the DVDVRs took the footage as it came, Phil took the best of that footage: the weirdest, the wildest, the bloodiest, the hardest hitting, the absolute must-see distilled from every corner of the world and put it all in one place. 

For those of us who watched the show at 7 PM last Tuesday having looked forward to it for a month+, it was a Schneider Comp. But I imagine for those who walked up not quite sure what they were getting into, that took their kids, that saw the social media posts and clicked, thousands and thousands of people, it was instead the cool tape that you got from Dean which might have anything in the world on it. 

The DVDVRs helped to expose people to the possibilities of pro wrestling, to push people out of either one box or another, the culture or the counter-culture, and realize there was so much more under the sun. And that's what this match was meant to do as well. It wasn't Connelly vs Demus II, and that's okay. It was a bit more of the touring version of a Connelly dog collar match. You could see them run this around the horn in 1985 in Memphis, Nashville, Louisville, and Jackson. It was a gateway drug for a Connelly dog collar match. Here's a taste. Intense? Sure. Not what you're used to? Not at all. Unsanitized? No Dunn Cuts and corporate speak here. Want more? You absolutely do. 

But it was one that leaned into contrast. Adam Priest can, of course, wrestle any style, and this is a style he can wrestle, but the strength here was in the differences. He was canny, savvy, underhanded, and backed into a corner and fighting for his life. That meant getting some cheapshots in early. It meant having the corrective collar in his back pocket, a real equalizer that might, might have put Connelly down if he could get it on him through hook or crook. 

The problem was, connected by the chain as they were, every bit of violence Priest could bring to the table, Connelly could return threefold. He could whip Connelly into the guardrail, bruise and batter up his side, but Connelly would burst forth and drive his own head into Priest without abandon, a living breathing guardrail coming straight at you at high, reckless speed. You aren't going to outchoke Connelly. You aren't going to outmangle Connelly. You might outsmart him, but if that buys you one opportunity, you better damn well put him down with it, because otherwise, he will get up and you will have hell to pay. In this case, hell came in the form of Priest's own corrective collar clamped around his neck as Connelly pulled and pulled until it seemed Priest's eyes might bug out. 

This was a free show. It was on YouTube. For those of us who knew what we were getting into, it scratched the itch but left us wanting more. Of course it did. There was always another issue, always another post, always another road report, always another match to be found in the crates or the distant corners. For those new to this world, however? Well, the first one's always free, isn't it? There's so much truth still left to be lived.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 1/13 - 1/19

AEW Collision 1/18/25

Dustin Rhodes vs. Adam Priest

MD: Priest is one of the best unsigned guys in the country. He's able to wrestle with anyone, any shape, any size, completely consistent and compelling in presenting a character, an idea, a vision for pro wrestling, for making everything matter, for expressing how he feels (and that he cares) at every point, always on, always interacting with the world around him. He's very good. 

When Trevor Lee ended up back on the indies last year, part of me wanted to see a sort of southern strategy to ROH, where Lee, Priest, and the Workhorsemen (and maybe Kiera Hogan if that wasn't crazy) carried things with a geographic focus where they could be faces for part of the country and heels for the others. It's hard to think through any such strategy to ROH because unlike AEW proper, it's really hard to figure out what the business (or even creative) plan even is. I enjoy ROH as wrestling for the sake of wrestling building to hybrid PPVs made up half of matches with the normal roster and weeks of TV setup and half of fly-ins for the sickos. But I have no idea what the plan is or what a metric for success is past ending up in a TV station, maybe. It's more important than ever in a post Elevation, Post Dark, Post Rampage world though. That's for sure. Anyway, southern strategy. Lee/Priest/Workhorsemen (and some associated southern female). It's a vision.

And this was a match. We're in a post-Rampage world, like I said, so the usual booking formula of building someone on Rampage with a TV win over a ROH-level or local talent in order to heat them up so that they can wrestle someone who needs to be heated up for an actual feud is disrupted. We're in unsure territory, but if I had to guess, they're heating up Dustin to lose to MJF as part of the MJF vs Jarrett build. And since I want to see MJF vs. Dustin, I am a-ok with that. That they brought in Adam Priest to do it is all the better.

I said Priest could face anyone, and he can, and the size difference was interesting here. It played out the most when he went over nasty for the power slam (drawing the dreaded "oof" call from Nigel), and especially with the very cool entry point to the Cross Rhodes, as Dustin just kind of draped his arm over Priest's face. Smooth as silk in a way you never see. Dustin, like Windham before him, is able to work big when he's on offense and small when he's selling, and the few points where Priest did get some stuff in here worked so well because Dustin was working small and Priest was working confident. Just two guys who really knew what they were doing.

Obviously this only went a few minutes but I'd love to see Priest against most of the roster, especially on ROH where he'd have time (and less hierarchy issues). Here, though, they came in and accomplished exactly what they set out to do, and whenever that happens, it's beautiful pro wrestling in my eyes.

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DEAN~!!!

ACTION presents DEAN~!!! 4/4/24

MD: A year ago today, we lost DEAN. Eleven months later Phil, Eric, and Matt Griffin (being Jacey North Matt, not me Matt) did something amazing. In true DVDVR fashion, Eric has a road report in the works. Were I to give you a report, it would be why I wasn't there and would involve in-law family wedding drama, conciliatory water parks with the kids, and a bunch of other excuses. I missed being there, being part of that atmosphere, meeting a bunch of people who I respect and admire (and Johnny Sorrow too; I would have liked to meet Johnny). That said, it means I can come in with a slightly different perspective here, and hey, there's also this: DEAN the human was so important to me in expanding how someone could think about wrestling and Phil and Eric are my "people" in everything we do creatively, but because I watched from home (in part in the DVDVR discord, yes, but a lot on my own), I got to watch it with Dylan Hales in my ear, and there was no one I conspired with more closely between 2010 and 2015 about wrestling than Dylan, so while I couldn't be there with you guys, you were all with me as I watched.    

Alex Kane vs Colby Corino

MD: When I say "my people", I do mean a lot of this crowd too and that made it the perfect crowd for this specific match, one that knew how to act, how to buy in, how to give in, how to be wry but not ironic, clever but still earnest, just like the match itself. The wrestlers committed. The crowd committed. The match committed. It's probably sacrilege on a card with the back half that this one has to even consider this as potentially my favorite match of the night, but maybe it was!

Colby came in exhausted (six matches in six days). He had a size disadvantage. The match was always one suplex away from being over. So he embraced the headlock. It was a way to control distance, to control leverage, to frustrate Kane, to make Kane exert himself because Colby couldn't. It was wry, like I said, but it also made sense within the context of the match. Even at the beginning, there were multiple differentials for Colby to overcome and the headlock was a means for him to chip away at them. That's important. The headlock was never an end unto itself. It was the means to even the odds.

As the match went on, it went from being a way to contain Kane to a way to open him up for escalating offense. It went from being a survival mechanism to the entry point for all of Colby's title hopes and dreams. It opened up the bulldog, or an air raid crash, or the front DDT that he was likely going for to maybe finish things off. The problem with such a close contact strategy, however, is that all it took was one mistake, one wrong breath, one chance for Kane to plant his feet, and it was up and over, metaphorically and literally. Colby did valiantly for a man at the end of his rope, but that rope was just long enough for him to hang himself. Honestly in contention for my favorite match of the night (It's up there with Slim J vs Adam Priest as the most "Matt D" match on the card), as wild as that sounds.

O’Shay Edwards/Amboss (Laurance Roman/Robert Dreissker) vs The Good Hand (Kevin Ryan/Suge D/Tyler Stevens)

MD: I think that in some ways this match had the most to work against on the card. For the traveling crowd, there was probably less familiarity with the wrestlers here. It had a sort of similar theme to the "flippy guys vs strong guys" six-man later on the card but couldn't lean too hard into that without taking away from the match higher on the card. What it did have going for it was the ability to lean into the set units here to play with all of the tools you'd get in a southern or mPro style tag.

The Good Hand played their part perfectly, just annoying, arrogant, scuzzy heels, but maybe not carrying with them the sort of madcap delusion that the Sucklings were about to bring to the ring in the next match. These were three guys who were more than the sum of their parts both in style and in substance. They controlled the ring, cut off Roman, threw out a bunch of quick offense and double and triple teams. And then, when it was time, they got their comeuppance, only to take back over with something slick or underhanded or opportunistic. Basically, they used all the tricks of the trade, both in how they presented themselves and in how a match like this could be structured, to overcome some of the disadvantages they were facing. And the babyfaces were the straight men, constantly trying to work their way back into the match and then, when it came time, raining down justice and punishment. Like I said on the night, if you embrace wrestling, it will embrace you, and that's exactly what they did here.

Violence is Forever (Kevin Ku/Dominic Garrini) vs The Ugly Sucklings (Rob Killjoy/White Mike)

MD: I loved how tight and compact this was. That allowed for the Sucklings to do their pre-match promo, which made a lot of sense actually It was driven not just by ego and mania (though there was that as well) but by the relatable idea that if they had a good showing against a top team, they'd get more bookings and put food on the table. Scuzzy but relatable, a fine line to walk. Then, they went right into heat. That worked because ViF even just coming out as the surprise team with the Road Warriors pop... that was the shine. There was a sense of glorious inevitability here in the best way. The Sucklings were organized and effective and persistent but doom was heading their way from the moment Zombie hit, maybe even from the moment they signed an open challenge.

So this went right to the ambush-dirven heat then into the comeback and the finishing stretch and it was all just a wonderful celebratory bonus from guys with big presence. For people not at all familiar with the indy scene, obviously guys like Priest and Connolly stood out but I heard from a few people who only had a working knowledge that they immediately wanted to track down more Sucklings footage, so the mission from the pre-match promo was accomplished. Overall, this match set up a sort of party atmosphere to prepare people's appetites for the chaos and violence to come.   

Gypsy Joe Rules Match: Coven of the Goat (Jaden Newman/Tank) vs 1 Called Manders/"Filthy" Tom Lawlor

MD: This was the match where, on live viewing, I realized I couldn't just turn a write-up out for the show and that I needed some time to process. I'm still struggling a bit with this one. One thing will stick with me, and I mean forever stick with me, like Owen kicking Bret's leg out of his leg or whatever other super iconic wrestling moment is seared into my brain: That's the sequence of Lawlor getting Newman onto a chair and running around the entire ringside area to attack him while Tank and Manders were simultaneously sharing a beer right by the DEAN chair. The contrast was just this serene moment of pro wrestling wonder. It devolved quickly into Tank spraying Manders and Lawlor smashing Tank and Manders getting the revenge spray and of course then revisited it a few minutes later with the headbutt war. What am I going to say critically about this? It was madness and chaos and action with some stuff that was smartly put together but that didn't feel put together at all, that just felt wild and spontaneous and that, along with, you know, punches (and this had a few good ones) is what I could use so much more of in wrestling today. You weren't going to see the strings here, just the flailing limbs and crazy abandon. (EDIT one year later: I was later informed that nothing was put together and it all felt wild and insane because it was wild and insane; any coherency was my pro wrestling watching addled brain magic eying and the natural logic of pressing iron up against iron and watching the sparks fly).

3 Flippy Guys (Bobby Flaco/Brayden Toon/Rico Gonzalez) vs 3 Strong Motherf*ckers (Danny Demanto/Hoodfoot/Isaiah Broner)

MD: Hey, the WAR six man. This was fun. You didn't really get to see Rico do too much. In fact, most of the match was everyone just beating on Flaco, which is kind of what you want in a match like this really, just flipping guys bumping big and getting crushed. Brayden didn't do a ton (really this was mainly Bob getting destroyed) but everything he did looked great. Finish worked ok because the Strong folk were obviously goofing around and taking their opponents lightly; sometimes you live by the door, sometimes you die by it. This was a nice mix of levity and roadkill to give everyone a breather given what was to come.

Dr. Cerebro vs Gringo Loco

MD: This could have absolutely just been a "traveling match" sort of exhibition and it wasn't at all. It was a weird and surreal inversion full of a sort of emotion that isn't neat or clean or crisp. This match wasn't a straight line. It felt a little like a therapy session unveiling in real time through the back drop of gritty, gripping, beautiful lucha libre. It just wasn't a redo of 2010. Gringo Loco has evolved and in some ways, in this match, Cerebro devolved. He sure as hell wasn't wearing his mask against the Gringos VIP. Moreover, even though Gringo worked rudo, he was a pretty clear babyface for a lot of this. That happens! Usually it happens with a guy like Casas or Satanico up against an unfortunately reviled tecnico or an even more deplorable rudo, but it happens. Here it was because Gringo had something of the homefield advantage and because both of them had a chip on their shoulder.

While I loved some of the early matwork (Cerebro scooting around into an amazing contorting bit of torture was likely the hold of the night), and of course the Cerebro dive that almost took out Marty's wife in the third row was electric, it was that underlying snag of emotion that really put this over the top. Gringo's paid his dues, has traveled the world, has been on TV in big arenas and has wrestled in the dingiest, dirtiest venues imaginable; he's grown into a true base god, and yet Cerebro, maybe empowered in all the wrong ways by the mask he was donning once again, refused to forgive the sins of the past. When Gringo wanted a shake, Cerebro made like a matador. When Gringo escalated things, Cerebro was all to happy to call and raise. He raised all the way to bringing in a chair and tearing apart Gringo's shoulder. Watching it, you can't help but wonder if it was because instead of finding a 25 year old that would likely bend under the pressure, he found a man pushing forty who had no give in him at all. Maybe it was because even though he had traveled north and presented himself in all of his glory, the crowd still leaned towards Gringo instead.

Regardless, he crossed a line that both men had crossed many times years before. It wasn't the end, however. The match restarted. Despite the damage to the shoulder, Gringo fought his way back. When the opportunity arose to cross that line himself, he took it. He couldn't transcend past it. Cerebro wouldn't be the bigger man but Gringo couldn't either, not after what had transpired. Cerebro ducked the chair, kicked it into Gringo's face, and honed in on the damaged shoulder for a submission. They wrestled a gripping match, one with a resolution in the record books, but you couldn't help feeling like nothing was truly resolved.

Krule vs “Warhorse” Jake Parnell

MD: On some level, on top of being a tribute to DEAN and on top of being something cooked up by the mad geniuses I write with here on Segunda Caida and powered by the ACTION engines, this whole show was a tribute to the Indies in general, to all eras and all regions. As such, this felt like it could have been the main event of a NWA New Jersey Coralluzzo show from the late 90s or an early 00s ECW successor promotion and I liked it along those lines. They worked hard. They hit hard. They flew hard. It had all the overworked bs you'd expect for the finish. As such, I almost think they did too much; maybe Parnell shouldn't have flipped out of a chokeslam attempt, maybe that dive shouldn't have been a flip, maybe some of the more complex Krule offense should have been straighter and to the point. They did a pretty good job keeping up with parts of the rest of the show but maybe they didn't need to. Maybe they should have leaned harder into the contrast instead. That's a lot to ask of them though, especially with the title on the line, and they did an admirable enough job all things considered.

Matt Makowski vs Arez

MD: I was going to call this a sprint and explain how instead of just spots it was layered with all that and more, but that's not what it actually is. It's a lucha lightning match and it's one of the best I've ever seen. It's cheating a little because it has the patina of a "different styles" fight but it's close enough to a lightning match in my eyes. A lot of it also speaks for itself, with Arez bounding around, hitting from every angle, and Makowski keeping up while trying to ground and stop him. For them to go that fast it for everything, no matter how unlikely, to still come off as plausible in this strange shared reality where Manders and Tank can sit in chairs headbutting each other as hard as possible takes incredible talent and commitment. I loved the transition where Makowski was able to jam the Casita and snap the arm. Arez wasn't exactly selling down the stretch but Makowski was so single minded in getting the cross arm-breaker in that you knew he felt like he was on to something and if he felt that way, you, as the audience, felt that way as well, even if Arez wasn't exactly putting out signals. Then it was all about working three moves ahead while dealing with the world's most unpredictable wrestler, to plant him in the center with the chaos theory cross-armbreaker. Thrilling stuff and a testament to knowing that they'd pack so much coolness into every second that they could let this go relatively short for the sake of the overall card but still feel fulfilling. Trust was the name of the game here, trust in the wrestlers, trust in the fans, trust in the mission

Slim J vs Adam Priest

MD: Yeah, ok, sorry to the first match, which I did thoroughly enjoy, but this is definitely my favorite match on the card. It couldn't be more down my alley. Two guys so good at doing the small things well hitting the fundamentals of what makes pro wrestling work perfectly and then adding just that added bit of creativity to put it over the top. Slim J's been positioned as a heel on TV for the last year or two but he's one of the best babyfaces of the 21st century and it was so great to see him on this stage, in front of this crowd, against this opponent, in this role. Talk about trust. They let this simmer and build so that when they hit bombs down the stretch they meant as much as possible.

Priest came in early with the trash talk and the early posturing and it was all about who would get the first shot in, and even more than that, who would be able to position the referee best to their advantage. Priest got Slim J into the corner behind him but couldn't follow up. Slim J, maybe a babyface here but a guy who knew every trick in the book and invented a good few of them, managed to snatch the ref's hand and use it (with just enough plausible deniability, of course) to smack Priest. Priest stalled just enough to rile the crowd without losing momentum. When he took over it wasn't just catching Slim on the way in with a knee, but then turning it into a neckbreaker over the second rope. It was never the easiest path but always a direct one with the extra little bit generally something additive that didn't distract from the key message.

Slim was always scrappy, always trying to fight back and his hope spots started small and close, an armbar or a chop back, but Priest cut him off definitely and then really added insult to injury as he grinded Slim down. It all built to the escape from the abdominal stretch where it seemed that Slim had come back, but Priest cut him off with a killer pile driver. That, in and of itself, set up the actual comeback as Slim reversed the second attempt at it on the apron. Even then, because the fans had just been fooled on a hope spot attempt, and because Slim was so good at staggering about in the ring selling his neck, the clotheslines he hit to really get back into it and launch the finishing stretch felt all the more striking and miraculous. Just amazing babyface work here.

That finishing stretch was the first time that they really launched bombs. Because they showed the restraint through the match, the big headdrops, which would have meant something just by their innate nature, ended up meaning all the more. Discipline creates opportunity, allows for the ability to build potential energy that can be turned kinetic. Then they paid it off with a finish that people probably didn't expect but that made the crowd happy. Just two architects building a castle of pro wrestling here.

Wasted Youth (Austin Luke/Marcus Mathers) vs Sinner & Saint (Judas Icarus/Travis Williams)

MD: This was as sprinty a juniors tag as you could get. Not entirely my thing but it had a place on a card that celebrated both the indies and DEAN. The first thing that comes to mind is hanging out on the DVDVR board the day that someone posted Brian XL/Divine Storm vs Red/SATs, probably in real media format, tiny file size, tiny video, and how all of us, the big guy included, reacted, like a whole new world opening up. Twenty+ years later, that wave has swept over all of wrestling a couple of times over, and it's led to a match like this. Icarus and Williams carried a lot of the middle of this with their more experienced and superior teamwork. They had a lot of clever tandem spots and sequences. I probably liked the Gory Running Punches the best though I would have liked to see a little more consequence to them. Mathers' connection to the crowd stood out more than anything else on the other side. This was breathless stuff. At times, the camera barely knew which way to focus next because things were going to come so quickly and explosively. This was candy before the steak to come but it was the expensive stuff and not some cheap knock off brand.

Dog Collar Match: Mad Dog Connelly vs Demus

MD: What am I am even going to say about this? How do you write about this? I thought about taking the coward's way out and just writing a paragraph about how Mad Dog Connelly has maybe the most amazing eyes that I've ever seen in pro wrestling, how you can track the entire match just focusing on them and in doing so, it's something different than you've ever experienced, how I'd never even thought about watching a wrestler's eyes a way to track emotion in this way because either the video quality isn't good enough or the quick cuts are too prevalent or whatever you're watching just doesn't rise to that level. How Connelly breaks a mold that you never even had reason to give a thought to before. I could go on about that but while totally accurate, it'd be both pretty weird and also a dodge. But seriously, rewatch this and just watch the guy's eyes. If you even can, because...

So let's try this instead. This match was a roller coaster ride. I hear you groaning. How dare I reduce this thing to some bullshit out of the can nonsense phrase. Just stop, ok? Stop and think. It wasn't like a roller coaster because it had ups and downs and it went fast. Nothing like that. Imagine actually being in a roller coaster. Imagine the first time maybe, when you were a kid, when you strained your neck to just be tall enough to hit the height marker and be allowed on. Imagine that it was one of those old wooden coasters, big and rickety, creaking, without some of the whirls and turns and technology and gimmicks of the last twenty years, just a looming monstrosity that might collapse at any moment because of one loose eighty year old screw. It's not the falling that gets you when you're on a coaster like that. It's not the speed. It's not even the anticipation as you're slowly going up. It's the fact that you're strapped in, you're helpless. If the thing fell apart, there'd be nothing you can do, nothing anyone could do to save you. You can't stop midway. You can't get off. No power in the world can stop it once it gets going. You're trapped.

That's what it feels like to watch this match. The second you hit play, it's like you're watching one of those videos from a Japanese horror movie. You're trapped. You can't shut it off. You can't look away. You can't even breathe. You can't even stop to think. You just have to watch one act of brutality seamlessly flow into the next. It's a river made of blood and you're adrift on it. I can't talk about specific moments of this. I can't break apart some sort of structure or go on about transitions. I've seen this two, three times. I remember the chain whip by Connelly to start. I remember people going into chairs. I remember biting and the smearing of blood. I remember the attempt at a hangman's choke and Dylan proclaiming it was that selfsame blood making things too slippery to hold it. Maybe there was a flying body press of some sort? Connelly choked him out to win. That's what I remember. I literally just watched this. Five minutes ago! It's all a violent blur. It's not a match. It's an experience. It's a sensation. You stare at the screen and your heart tries to leave your chest as you're buffeted by the violent, visceral gale. And like a roller coaster, the second you get off, you just want to get back on and go again. Look, I got nothing. Just strap back in and watch the thing again, ok?

Daniel Makabe vs Timothy Thatcher

MD: Full disclosure. This is an important match to cover well and I think I know what I want to say, even if it opens me up to be a little vulnerable. It's sort of the absolute worst time to highlight personal inadequcies, but here we are. Be kind. Maybe in part because I've got that most recent viewing of Connelly/Demus rattling around in my head, I don't know exactly how to start it. Let's go with this. Late in the match, Dylan likens this to Battlarts, and of course part of the inspiration here was Ishikawa vs Ikeda; Makabe wore his heart on his sleeve there if you get what I mean. So while this had its hybrid elements, much like Battlarts did, I think you could fairly safely classify this as shoot style. Shoot style, to me, is impenetrable in a good way, because I don't entirely get how they do it (Here's the vulnerable part). I watch so much wrestling. I write about so much wrestling. I think so hard (too hard, I know) about structure and narratives and patterns and comparative mythology and symbolism and whatever else is at play. And shoot style done well takes me back to being ten years old in the Boston Garden watching Bret Hart wrestle the Barbarian and just trying to wrap my head around how they could possibly know what to do next. And I've never gone out of my way to change that. I get so much enjoyment out of wrestling in so many ways, but only with shoot style is there still that hint of magic and wonder.

As I understand it, shoot style is a game of opportunities and openings, of mastering technique so well that all the physical possibilities to counter and progress the match are open to you in any moment. A little bit of give leads to a lot of take and the process repeats itself. Whether you're watching Fujiwara and Super Tiger or Volk Han, a lot of the storytelling is entirely implicit, driven by physical advantages and chance and consequence in the moment and over time. The drive for realism leaves certain basic, contrived narrative possibilities out of reach, but when done as well as it can be done, it can pull you in as much as any other form of pro wrestling. That was absolutely at play here, with every touch representing struggle and every contortion, simple or outlandish, feeling earned instead of given. What took this to another level was the genius at play. Yes, the storytelling was by necessity implicit, but underpinning and giving it color it was the weight of all of their previous encounters, the impending Sword of Damocles that hangs over Makabe's head, the expectation of what this match could be and what we all knew it was not (that being Ishikawa vs Ikeda), the well of emotion of the night and what people had just witnessed. 

Genius really is the only word for the alchemy of all of these things coming together, in small ways and in big. That could be Thatcher refusing the initial handshake or his look of glee as he was bending Makabe's wrist. It could be Makabe making the first inroads on the taped-up knee and Thatcher escalating to strikes out of desperation in response and then Makabe working at the upper body in order to open up the lower body to stay on it. Or it could have just been both of them stomping out each other's arm in frustration at the European Uppercuts they were throwing at each other. History creates the personality. The personality defines the character. The character decides how opportunities are capitalized on, and somehow, out of all of it, you end up with the richest, most compelling wrestling match imaginable. When it came to wrestling (and music, and a few other things), DEAN was like a cool older cousin to me, half a generation older, having gotten there first but selflessly willing to share. To him, everything was about sensation in the moment. To me, it's about thought after the fact. A match like this lets me meet the memory of my friend midway, and I'm very grateful for that.

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Scenic City Invitational 2022 Night 1 8/5/22

Adam Priest vs. Cole Radrick

ER: This is probably worth seeing just for the woman in the front row who lunges hard at Priest as he casually walks to the ring, and Priest acts like he doesn't even see her, two feet in front of him, as she's being hauled away in a rear waistlock. Stunt Granny? Perhaps. I really liked Priest here. He acts like an asshole, and works like a modern Jamie Noble. He's really explosive when the move calls for it, putting a lot of snap on everything. I dug how he snuck in attacks around the ref's blindspot, sneaking in a punch past the ref's shoulder and a back elbow over his back, and I liked how he did bratty little things like lightly kicking a rolling trash can towards a kid after rolling to the floor. All of Priest's strikes looked good, he missed offense with intent, took all of Radrick's offense well, and made everyman moves like the DDT look like actual finishers. Radrick is a mix of some things that work and some that don't. I thought he had some really nice fired up babyface punches (with Priest doing an excellent job feeding into them), like  Robert Gibson coming in on a hot tag. He had a nice diving elbow to the back of Priest's head, and hit a cool Hitman elbow off the top rope. He really didn't do anything at all with the "bad knee" part of the match, but Dylan Hales on commentary did a good job covering for that, adding to an awkward botched cutter by pointing out the bad knee couldn't adjust to the loose bottom rope. 

Hoodfoot vs. Orion Bishop 

ER: I'm kind of surprised by how much I disliked this. Scanning the card, this was one of the SCI matches I was most excited for, but hardly anything about this worked. They started with some unnecessary quick rope running stuff and then both seemed to hit a gas tank wall 10 seconds in. Hoodfoot looked like he was on tranquilizers through a lot of it, like he could barely lift his arm to throw strikes. Now, I love in a hermetically sealed bubble and miss a ton of what is happening in pro wrestling, but I did hear that Hoodfoot lost an absurd amount of blood in a deathmatch against Slade. There's a chance he isn't fully recovered, and if that's the case then I'm impressed by the grind. Also, if that's the case, I would rather him fully recover. His missed standing swings to set up Bishop's offense were some of the most quarter assed swings I've seen, and every shot of his that landed was telegraphed a mile away and thrown at half speed. At one point they both trudged passed each other and ducked offense that neither man threw. Hoodfoot took a nasty suplex bump and hit a nice cannonball in the corner, but this felt like a match where no exchange came off properly. Even the finish looked bad, as Bishop hit a spear ("hit" doing a lot of work there) and Hoodfoot flinched on the 3 count, making it look like he was supposed to kick out but couldn't lift his limbs. The ref made the bizarre choice to not verbalize a single thing, merely holding up two fingers and a thumb that didn't clear anything up. Instead of just saying "ring the bell", she kept alternating between holding up an index finger those other three digits. Shockingly little about this worked. Did both guys put in a couple hours on the bike before this match? 

Myron Reed vs. Eli Knight

ER: Now this, I liked, even though it had a finish that I sincerely did not understand. The ideas and some of the execution dipped in the latter half, but there was more than enough to make this a really good 8 minute match. I'm not super familiar with Eli Knight but came away a fan. The man has springs in his legs and has amazing form on his moonsault, and I loved how he jumped Reed before the bell with a super high and impactful running dropkick and then a gorgeous moonsault press to the floor. Reed is a clever wrestler who is good at setting up some complicated sequences, and Knight is a guy who can execute some complicated stuff and make it look effortless. Knight had a really cool dropkick from the top rope to the apron, and then kipped up on the apron and grinned right into the hard cam. Both guys hit strikes with some nice jolt, and on the couple occasions where something didn't quite work they just quickly moved along into something more spectacular. Reed had a big flip dive over the ringpost, and I liked how Knight was able to use his moonsault as both a feint and as a strong nearfall. The finish might have sounded better on paper, but I don't think it worked in reality at all. Knight hit a moonsault, but Reed slightly lifted his head and neck off the mat as it hit, and apparently this meant that Reed hit a kind of grounded cutter on Knight? It just looked like Reed was sitting up to take some of the impact and I don't think anyone would have thought it was supposed to be Reed catching Knight with a reversal. Nonetheless, even with the dodgy finish this was probably my favorite match of the first three. 

11. Daniel Makabe vs. Damyan Tangra 

MD: I've bumped my head against this review a couple of times, but it was my favorite match from SCI this year and it's worth writing about so I'm going to power through. Phil talked about the great Makabe vs Garrini matched from Night 2 on the Ringer, but this was pure, unbridled move chaining and gamesmanship, build and payoff, total engagement.

How about some examples? Makabe previously beat Tangra with a seated triangle. One of Tangra's big moves is a swing into a gutbuster from a Saito Suplex position. Early on, Tangra went for it, Makabe turned it into the triangle, Tangra had an answer and could escape. When Tangra finally hit it, it was out of Makabe escaping a Fujiwara Armbar, which Tangra had put on through cleverly countering something else. The match had high points that were built to like that, that were teased earlier, countered, worked for later, but they're more a microcosm of the endless struggle. Makabe laid traps, Tangra was ready for them, and it became about which wrestler could take advantage of where they ended up after the counter to the counter.

It should have been exhausting, a endless cacophony of noise and counters of counters of counters of counters, of limbs provided and capitalizing technique, but it wasn't. These weren't two wrestling robots, two drilled out shooters driving forward at each other. They are human beings, characters, wrestlers, entities with emotional stakes written on their sleeves (or in Makabe's case, underneath his wrapped up fist). When Tangra got an especially impressive counter, you could see it on Makabe's face. Not overwrought, not over the top, but human and appreciative and consummate to the moment. Tangra, sympathetic, with an ever-growing connection to the crowd, expressed a real sense of desperation in escaping Makabe's holds, escaping late hammer and anvil shots, in avoiding Makabe's punch at all costs (right up until the point he couldn't, of course). When the wrestlers care, when they let things sink in, when they let them matter, those things matter to everyone watching as well.

The turning point of the match was Tangra making the most of a cleverly captured leglock, both legs viced together in a way that wasn't sustainable, that wouldn't draw a submission, that led to a quick ropebreak, but that did lasting damage to one knee. By no means was this the singular story of the match. It gave it color, like any of the other elements. It enhanced instead of dominating. In key moments, Makabe couldn't capitalize due to the leg. In key moments, it provided Tangra a target. It gave him an edge, but against Makabe, you need dozens of them. On this night, he had just enough to survive and to score a believable, well-deserved, still shocking upset.

In watching this on Night 1, we (or at least I) didn't know what we'd learn about Makabe's physical condition on Night 2, that there's a possibility that his in-ring career is winding down. Looking back, that makes this feel like a potential changing of the guard, one that embraced and highlighted so much of what makes Makabe special and unforgettable, while letting Tangra not just hang with the master (no small thing), but also show his own worth and uniqueness and reinforcing the notion that he might carry the torch forward in years to come.

ER: This was so good, easily the match of Night 1. Matt covered this about as thoroughly as I've come to expect from Matt, so I'm not sure how much I have to add. I dug how this was a real Makabe showcase in the front half until he got slowed by his leg, and then those same tangled holds he was breaking out in the first half were given a sense of desperation down the back half. Makabe is so good at taking a sequence that you think you've seen before, and then suddenly taking it in a direction you've never seen. Early on they went into a series of inside cradle reversals that ends with Makabe reversing into a nasty head and arm choke. I swear, there are always at least three moments in a Makabe match that look like something that could plausibly finish the match, and this would have been a cool way to do a sudden surprise finish. This wasn't the venue for that, but the point stands. Dan really glued himself to Tangra like a spider monkey here, keeping himself close for several minutes, constantly tying Tangra up, climbing around his body before rolling into one of the cleanest triangles I've seen. I thought Tangra's body scissors takedown into a heel hook was a really cool way to counteract Makabe's clinginess. 

Makabe getting his leg worked over changed the pace and the strategy, and I really liked how Tangra threw kicks at every angle to Makabe's knee. Some guys get locked into throwing the exact same kind of leg kicks, but Tangra was kicking it from the inside, outside, upper patella, lower hamstring, just throwing them all over the target. Makabe is one of the best at selling a limb, dragging himself up by the ropes while favoring his good leg, trying to hold a bridge with one leg and then getting instantly reversed when he flattens the bum wheel, slowing his reaction time during standing exchanges. He still had several answers to whatever Tangra tried throwing, and I especially liked him wriggling out of a fireman's carry by quickly getting a crucifix on Tangra's arm. Once Tangra made this into more of a strike battle, Makabe kept trying to unload that Logan Gilbert right hand, mostly getting countered due to his slowed down wind up. Makabe getting slowed face Tangra openings to show off on the mat, and he had an awesome STF where he choked Makabe out with his own arm, while also hammer fisting his bandaged hand. That didn't finish things, but it could have, and having multiple ways to finish and be finished is one of the things that makes this pairing so engaging. 

Dominic Garrini vs. Kevin Ku

ER: I didn't really like this. I don't think I really like them against each other. This started at one level, and basically stayed at that level nearly the entire match, and never really let the crowd in on where they were going. They came out and took turns throwing chops, then took turns throwing kicks, and I'm not sure they even looked beyond the ring during any of it. These matches feel like they're done for the weird enjoyment of the two guys in the ring, as I never got the sense they would have done anything differently regardless of the crowd reaction. Obviously this crowd did not hate the match, and I was amused by a couple of girls chirping in reaction to several of the chops, but I think this needed just an ounce of direction or purpose. I think I would have liked it more had Dom's scoop spinning tombstone ended things. Up until then it had been mostly perfunctory strike exchanges with neither really acknowledging that they had been struck, but that tombstone was nasty and would have made a fun "fuck it I'm tried of being hit" finish. Not for me, but no problem if it works for thee. 

Jaden Newman vs. Ashton Starr

ER: This kind of odd pantomime wrestling just does not appeal to me. Why are some guys so silent in the ring? It always comes off so bizarre. The Soddy-Daisy fans have a real connection to every wrestler on these SCI cards. It's a good crowd to work in front of, positive and eager to support. But this silent play acting wrestling just doesn't connect. At one point Newman hit a complicated but slick swinging DDT from the apron for a two count, and just sat there doing silent mouthing and hand signing. Every time either man appealed to the crowd it was done silently, going out of their way to not use any kind of words. This is a crowd where you can hear individual reactions of everyone in the crowd, so it plays even weirder when both guys are trying to stay so silent. It was so jarring when Jaden let out a grunt after being hit, as I had assumed neither could make sounds, but it's possible they just can't turn those sounds into words. I liked Starr's high extension kick while Newman was on the top rope, and liked how Starr whipped his head into the mat on Newman's swinging DDT, but mute reaction wrestling is so weird. 

17. Manders vs. Masha Slamovich

ER: Manders was the replacement for Trish Adora, which is a cool swap. I thought this was really good, playing to both strengths. Masha often goes really big in her matches, starting them with some big spots that can leave the endings of those matches underwhelming. Here, that made a lot more sense, as she actually felt like the underdog against Manders. Manders can absorb a lot of punishment and wasn't going to work this 50-50, so Masha breaking out all her big stunts felt like the only way she was going to pull off a win. She's such a fighter, but I liked how Manders overwhelmed her at times, starting the match by wasting her with a clothesline, throwing her through chairs, throwing hard targeted headlock punches. Her openings are all from fighting dirty, and I love it, like how she went after his nose and eyes to break out of a headlock. Her strikes all looked good, and Manders didn't sell them 1:1, instead he treated them more 3:1, making her land several hard elbows or a couple kicks before being moved. Once she started stacking strikes, it gave her more openings to hit big stunts. 

She dropped Manders with some big things, like an electric chair that bounced him off a couple of chairs, and it turned into Manders having to brute force his way out of things. He was taking real damage from Masha, but was always able smash when things got bad. I dug Masha throwing several elbows and kicking him across the chin, and it wasn't like he wasn't selling them, they just needed to come in bunches to keep him down. He was still able to dump her with a big powerbomb or flatten her with a lariat, but they were smart about adding that extra time or breath so this never felt equal. Manders really hammered her with a lariat that looked like it would be the finish, but had such a head of steam that he went right through the ropes to the floor. He still almost got the win (with a great pin leaning his weight way back over her shoulders) but that extra time gave Masha the breathing room she needed. The finish looked botched but in a way that I think benefitted the match. Masha piledriving Manders off the turnbuckles into a pair of set up chairs was pretty crazy, with both landing hard, and Masha basically just landed on Manders for the three. Whatever the spot was supposed to look like, I don't know. I didn't look totally clean, but I came away thinking that whomever was lucky enough to end up on top after the crash landing was the one who was going to win. A crash landing doesn't have to look clean, it's supposed to look like an ugly pile-up, so Masha being the one who got lucky on the landing works well as a finish for me. 

Robert Martyr vs. Billie Starkz

ER: I really liked a lot of this, but the Starkz win really didn't work for me. Maybe there was a way to set it up that would have worked, but I don't think this was it. Pretty much everything up until the finish worked. I loved how they started things, with Martyr being a little prick and then getting his circuits scrambled with a hook kick, actually doing one of the only good "stiffened legs while my lights went out" sells that I've seen in wrestling (I always hold up Jimmy Yang's silly "4 limbs in the air" off a Tank Abbott punch as the worst example of this). Starkz getting a flash KO pin would have been awesome, but as I said earlier in this review, this wasn't the venue for that. But I dug Billie getting that quick advantage and then having it erased when Martyr blocked a tope and ran her into the post, then hit a gross powerbomb on the apron. Martyr seethes into the camera "I'm gonna kill this girl!" and he kinda backs that up. He had some really disrespectful boot scrapes, punishing corner lariats, and a big layout powerbomb. All of his stuff looked pretty killer. 

I didn't love the forearm exchange, but only because Starkz has bad looking forearms that wouldn't look like they'd move even a small guy like Martyr. However, everyone probably knows the moment this match was building towards, and that was one of the greatest splats I have ever seen in wrestling. Billie splats across the floor of Soddy-Daisy with an insane swanton off the top, Martyr slipping out of his seat at the last second, chair absorbing none of Billie's weight. The chair might have slightly slowed her down but not much. This girl just leapt off a one story building to her concrete death. As everyone checks on her, Martyr is the one in the ring yelling at the ref to get the hell in and start counting her out, and I love that look on him. When she barely beats the count and crawls right into a brainbuster, I thought that was it. If that was it, this match would be going on the list. But the finish didn't work for me. I thought the electric chair set up was frankly stupid for someone who was holding the back of her hand to her lower back ever since the apron powerbomb, and I just didn't buy the set up or the win, no matter how sick a Rubik's Cube can look. Criticism of the finish aside, this was still probably my third favorite match of Night 1.

2022 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Matches from Southern Underground Pro 12/21/19

Kevin Ku/Dominic Garrini vs. Warhorse/Graham Bell

PAS: I liked parts of this a bunch, Ku and Garrini are guys who come up with fun ways to really hurt people, and Bell and Warhorse also hit really hard, I especially liked the parts where Garinni would hold up Bell and Ku would kick him or stomp him in the back of the head. Still this had a bunch of winky shit at the beginning, Ku wearing a Christmas sweater to block chops,  Ku and Garrini bringing in crowbars and begging the ref not to DQ them,  Bell doing a dive that required both opponents to stand their agape waiting for him. Liked the finish run enough to recommend it, but disliked the bad comedy enough to keep it off a MOTY list.

Brett Ison vs. Zach Cooper

ER: I was really excited for this one when I saw the card. Cooper is a really young guy who hit the ground running in 2019, and feels like a real quick learner. I got to see him at SCI this year and at the end of my weekend his match vs. Manders and Big Beef wound up being my second favorite match of the weekend. It put all three of them on the map for me as guys I would be actively seeking out. Sadly the next night I was enjoying Cooper vs. Garrini, but Cooper got injured mid match and the match got stopped. Ison was a guy I saw in the main event of the same show. Ison won the main event, Cooper left the opener injured.  My eyes saw that story play out, and I wanted to see this progression. And it was fun! It wasn't quite the type of big hoss battle I like, but that's fine. This was more of the modern If RVD Was 60 lb. Heavier matches and while big guy handstand spots aren't really my thing, there are still going to be heavy guys slamming into each other. And if there are going to be cartwheels in a match, they may as well be Cooper getting his arm knocked out from under him on the apron. And there are some RVD spots that are much better as big guy spots, like their big corner dropkicks. Coast to coast dropkicks are going to look cooler from a 260 lb. guy. I thought things built well and had a nicely ramped finish, and both guys are going to keep getting better.

Big Beef vs. Adam Priest

ER: Oh yeah, this is a peak Worldwide match. Beef looks like if Chris Sabin was never able to control his munchies, almost to the point where it's a shame Beef isn't coming out wearing a Guatemalan sweatshirt. In another life Beef was the guy selling poorly made grilled cheese sandwiches in the parking lot of Dead shows, trying to bum a way in. This whole thing is 3 1/2 minutes, and it all rules. I don't think I've ever seen Priest before, but he makes a nice impression by cheapshotting Beef and hitting a big dive before a bell has even rung, and from there they work a quick sprint filled with hard shots and nasty spills. Beef struggling to recover from the cheapshot gives Priest believable openings, including a couple of believably thrown and nasty suplexes. Beef has a lot of size on Priest, so it would look silly if he was lifting him easily, so instead he hits a low angle fast German that is more of a leverage throw than a strength throw (bouncing Beef right off his shoulder), and later barely gets him up for a back suplex (which makes the landing look harder). Priest threw nice chops and was always smart about burying a knee into Beef's stomach before going for Irish whips, but Beef is what was for damn dinner tonight. He can really move and really lands with a thud; he hits an awesome crossbody while Priest is draped over the middle rope, just flying right through Priest to the floor, and he wins the match with an ungodly top rope splash that made me respect Priest more for not immediately puking his guts out. This feels like it would have been a legendary Worldwide match.

PAS: Really fun sprint. Both guys get a big to shine, and the highs were really high. I liked Priest coming out fast and fierce early, and getting some moments of real near falls, only to fall to that three move combo from Beef. His nasty powerbomb, into a smushy bodypress against the ropes, into a final top rope splash is about as cool a jab-right cross-left hook combo as you are going to see in wrestling.

Big Twan Tucker vs. Jaden Newman

PAS: Big Twan is a total stud and so much fun to watch. He would have these monster burst of offense, where he just slammed Newman through the mat, there was a tremendous spot where he caught Newman in mid air and just flung him like a bag of flour into a sidewalk slam. He also countered a dive by splitting Newman in half with a spear. Then Newman would fire back with some super weak looking shit, and make faces. Newman wins the match with a terrible looking flippy elbow to the back of Twan's head which he has to sell like he got hit with a lead pipe. Just a chasm between the credibility of both guys stuff, one of the most BS finishes of the year. Twan can take the beating that Manders gives him, and beat guys on TV like MJF and Ethan Page and he goes down to that?

AC Mack vs. Mr. Brickster

PAS: Man I loved parts of this a lot and absolutely hated a big chunk. Brickster is a super likable babyface, while Mack is a great asshole heel and this was a really classic pro-wrestling set up. Mack had put Brickster on the shelf for 8 months with a knee injury and Brickster was going for revenge and to take the title. It goes great for a while with Mack working over the bad knee and Brickster firing back. Then they do this long section where Brickster takes a dick pillow with Mack's face and has a bunch of people in the crowd hit him with it. This was the big babyface comeback to get revenge for a knee injury, having a bunch of hipsters hit him with a pillow. Just awful stuff, which ground the match to a halt. They then try to have have a bunch of dramatic near falls after we just saw the top heel sell a pillow fight like a chair shot. The finish with the GA vs. TN civil war stuff was cool, and it was smart to keep Mack on top and push off his eventual revenge, but I am losing faith in this fed's ability to keep their winking TikTok wrestling out of their main event angles.

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