AIW Is This Something You Might Be Interested in? 4/30/21

Kaplan vs. Levi Everett

ER: This was fine, a little wandering for a 6 minute opener, but not bad. Neither guy has a ton of finesse or accuracy behind their strikes, but they throw them with intent and that is more important. I'm always partial to a hairline struggle brawl, makes things hit a little better. Everett has a great "Buffalo Bill on a bad day" faded glory, and Kaplan sports a "Me in a few years", and I dig Kaplan grabbing Everett by the hair to smack him around a bit. Commentary does a cool job of putting Kaplan over as a blue collar brawler, a guy who had a war with Matthew Justice the night before, woke up at 5 AM for his contractor gig, then came to this show to brawl with a butter churner. Kaplan takes an awesome bump off the top to the floor, hitting the wooden stage stairs on the way down, and later misses a huge cannonball into the guardrail. I like a match structured around a fat guy missing his offense, although Everett comes off a bit too big to be working as much like Spike Dudley as he was. Still, I liked Everett's flying back elbow, and him dodging Kaplan offense was cool. Kaplan was really swinging on clotheslines, and you knew if one of them hit that it was going to hit hard. And what do you know? Everett does a kind of pointless arm break spot (can we start shifting away from breaking arms and fingers in matches? It kind of makes any long term storytelling a bit tough), but Kaplan saves it by jamming his shoulder back into the socket before laying Everett the hell out with a standing lariat. 

Louis Lyndon/Jack Verville vs. Chuck Stone/Arthur McArthur

ER: This felt more like Chikara than AIW, and the moments wasted on horseshit weren't that interesting, but once they built to the finishing stretch things picked up nicely. Lyndon and Verville are working as "9 to 5", like the old Mr. Zero gimmick but really half-assed, just wearing generic lucha masks and button downs and only occasionally integrating the gimmick. If you're going to make rolled up dress shirts and neckties your gimmick, I'm going to need something more interesting than necktie chokes. The sentiment of "This business has kicked us around for over a decade and we haven't made it anywhere in it, so we are just getting normal jobs" is a good one, but the ring work never really matched up to the sentiment. If they snipped out the early match comedy and picked things up on McArthur hitting a wild dive, we would have had something. That was the real turning point, and once Chuck Stone tagged in we kept up a nice pace to the finish. Stone is a beefy guy who comes in with some nice avalanches, big black hole slam, takes a cool double dropkick from 9 to 5, and we build to a nutso iron claw powerbomb where McArthur palms one of 9 to 5 from the top rope into a powerbomb over Stone's knee. Still, overall not a great use of time and a debuting gimmick should have more oomph. 

Allysin Kay vs. Joseline Navarro

ER: This match really surprised me with how physical it was. A lot of modern women's wrestling is really heavily structured around rehearsed sequences, and this had much more of a fight feel with minimal rehearsed bits, no shocked face kickouts, and a lot of good thuds. I think Allysin Kay is the actual wrestler that people say Kris Statlander is. Kay is super confident in the ring and comes off very comfortable pacing a match, and it wouldn't be shocking to see her become a kind of Chris Hero type ring general in the next 5-10 years. Kay has been wrestling a long time and Hero has nearly 5x the matches as she does, so it's not like becoming a Chris Hero type is a quick journey. But she has that confidence and ring presence, and Joseline (first time seeing her) was a good opponent for her style. Kay works over her shoulder and chokes Joseline with her own arms, and Joseline takes a couple of hard bumps into the guardrail and got dragged and smacked around ringside. I loved her dragging Kay to the floor by the legs, but Kay pump kicking her backwards into the rail. Joseline took the bump really fast, the way the best lucha bases can also expertly fling themselves into the barricade after a nice catch. Kay's bullying was really great, go so far as to rip off one of Joseline's fake eyelashes, which is an fantastic spot. Joseline hits a sick low crossbody while Kay is slumped in the corner, but I think it would have been a bit better had Kay kind of punched through a win instead of wearing her down a bit. It felt a little long down the very home stretch even though it was under 10 minutes, but I still think it built to a good finish. Impressed with both here, love it when a match sneaks up and kicks my ass. 

Tommy Rich/Mance Warner/Philly Marino Experience vs. Bitcoin Boyz/The Duke/Ethan Wright

ER: This starts as a fun Wildfire vs. Mance singles before the Bitcoin Boyz and Ethan Wright run in and beat them both down, with The Duke working some fun "explaining the beatdown" mic work, stretching reallllll far to start a fight by reasoning that Wright was trained by Harley Race, and Rich beat Race for the title, so Wright is working a "Getting Revenge for My Sensei" angle which is a hilarious and great way to get us into an 8 man brawl. Tommy Rich is 64 years old and it is insane that he is one of the ECW guys who are still occasionally working. He works this the way Satanico would have been working matches had he gained 80 pounds. The match absolutely nails the best vibe for the first 2/3 of this but then falls apart once they get to the prop portion of the match, but the highs are awesome. The first 6 minutes are the kind of thing AIW does best, 8 guys brawling around with all of them doing compelling stuff, fighting for your own attention, and somehow not getting in each other's way. Every time I see PME I'm immediately reminded why I love PME so much. Marino and Philly rescue Tommy and Mancer and both hit planchas onto the heels, and both throw blows that really land. Mancer kicked a whole lotta ass in the early portions of this, just nukes Ethan Wright with a running knee, and the Bitcoin Boyz always impress me with their willingness to lean into hard strikes and JAPW student bumps. Things begin to drag a bit when my boy Duke takes a bit long setting up a couple spots before taking his big bump through a table. He's at his best when he comes in, hits a great big boot, then takes an unexpectedly hard bump. But I liked his "high school coach doing a Vader bomb on the charity show" and the Bitcoin Boyz also took gnarly bumps through tables. Overall this kicked ass, but the best stuff came in the first two acts. 

Big Twan Tucker vs. Derek Dillinger vs. Brayden Lee vs. Casey Carrington vs. Riley Rose vs. TKD

ER: AIW multi-mans are always good at filling 6-7 minutes because they seem to have a bottomless roster filled with guys who can go in a match like this. Derek Dillinger (formerly Director but still carrying his clapboard) and Big Twan were the best guys in the match, but Dillinger's second Ziggy Haim was the real standout star. She's the second gal on this show I hadn't see before, and then wanted to see more. She exists in this match to get kicked, get absolutely lawn darted into a sea of people by Dillinger, and then get human shielded into a huge Twan spear. Dillinger is good at hitting hard and setting up cool spots, and he makes things like bodyslamming someone onto someone else look really violent. Brayden Lee took too long to make his entrance (indy wrestling is all about choosing entrance songs with way too long intros and then bursting through the curtain when the beat changes) and so I wanted to see him pummeled, but he had some real nice flying offense like a big Fosbury Flop to the floor and a crazy springboard 360 kneedrop to break up a pin. Twan knocks Carrington into the crowd with a running ringside Pounce and I liked Dillinger getting the win. 

40 Acres (PB Smooth/Tre Lamar) vs. The Mane Event (Duke Davis/Ganon Jones Jr.)

ER: A match with a lot of potential that didn't quite click. Mane Event are working a college football athlete gimmick, which I love. Both had a couple cool things but didn't seem like they really gelled as a team, didn't have a ton of flow to their runs of offense. But they had a cool, cocky vibe and Duke threw a Lamar-folding Saito suplex. Plus, their names are fantastic. What a great set of names. Duke Davis and Ganon Jones Jr.? Sounds like a best buddies who happen to be a star tight end and a quick pivot running back, respectively. Smooth hits a great big lariat to build to a Lamar hot tag, and they consistently did things I liked, but parts dragged. It felt like a tag that would be a lot better next year, after Mane Event syncs more up with AIW tag style. 

Eddie Kingston vs. Dominic Garrini

PAS: Eddie Kingston is a fucking psycho, he was doing an unadvertised drop in on an old indy promotion of his, on a day off of his contracted wrestling job. He could have come in, did a little shtick, worked the mic a bit, took a couple of easy bumps, give a post-match speech and everyone would have been happy. Instead, this may be the stiffest match of his entire career. He and Garrini brutalized each other, hard shot after hard shot, it reminded me of the Ki vs. Samoa Joe Fight Without Honor which help make both of those guys.  It all started with some pretty slick grappling. Kingston is a guy who trains BJJ and he clearly wanted to spar a bit with Garrini on the mat to open up, but soon it goes to the floor where it really unloads. 

Garrini does this great thing where he underhooks an arm before throwing Kingston ribs first into the guardrail so he couldn't block the impact, and cracks Eddie with some big forearms, chops, and a face wash into the guardrail. Kingston does this great sell a couple of times in the match, where a hard shot will almost energize him. He gets hit with a shot to the ear on the floor and he bums rushes Garrini and wails on him, like he didn't sign up for how hard he got hit.  He repeats it at the end of the match when Garrini hits a thunderclap of a slap to the side of his head and Eddie rushes him a second time to get him out of there with a half and half and three backfists. In between those two moments we had brutal violent shots by both guys, full of great fatigue and stunned selling by both guys. Meat and Potatoes wrestling (pun intended) and they couldn't have delivered more. 

ER: I, too, am stunned at how stiff Kingston decided to work this, as Phil explained on his off day from his main wrestling gig. Jerry Lawler wasn't typically taking time off from WWE to get punched and chopped in the eye. This is stiffer than any of Kingston's AEW matches, and you'd think if you're willing to get beaten up like this you'd want the most people possible to see it. Kingston has that same kind of vibe as Cactus Jack taking ugly bumps on every high school gym floor in the country. The crowd reaction is great for Kingston's return and it's like it inspires him to really amp things up. I loved the progression of it all, and the early matwork was really cool. Kingston is a fun guy to watch unfold a match, not really a guy with a well worn style. He's capable of taking so many different directions in a match that I just as easily could have seen this staying mat based the entire time. Kingston had cool ways of keeping distance while getting into knucklelocks, throws a kick to the inside of Dom's leg, scrambles out of an ankle pick and armbar, it all felt like they easily could have stretched it into a match. 

But things go to the floor and with no warning whatsoever the go to the floor and start wasting each other. This match was filled with brutal chops and they all started in this close up display, where it's like they were showing all the fans up close how stiff this was going to be. Dom hits some running kicks to Kingston's face and body, Kingston gets furious at the gall Dom has by hitting him so hard and just laces in with mean chops. And that's how all of this goes. I do think some parts went on a bit long, didn't need a long extended kneel and chop section and some of the stand and trade lingers, but they hit each other so hard through it that even those sections take on a sicko charm. Kingston also really makes sure to check off 3 of the 4 pillars too, as he and Dom trade brutal Kawada short kicks and knees to the face (Kingston's whole face looked like it was being rearranged on these Dom kicks), both throwing tons of fast Kobashi chops, and Kingston dropping Dom with a classic Misawa combo in the corner. Kingston makes long standing exchanges more interesting than anybody else in wrestling, and he finishes this with more of that attitude that he is just fed up with how hard he's being hit. He gets nailed and then just angrily throws Dom with a half nelson suplex, then just starts hitting backfists until it's over. Brutal, can't believe they went nearly 20 at this kind of pace. 

Matthew Justice vs. Joshua Bishop

ER: This feels like it's been the primary feud the entire time I've been watching AIW, but it's a feud I enjoy. I've really enjoyed Bishop's evolution into the heavyweight champ, and I am always entertained by Justice's specific title challenger main event charisma. And this was definitely a Matthew Justice/Joshua Bishop match. They do the best job of anyone on the Indies at working ECW/XPW dream matches, with the exact same nostalgia scratch, but with a real death wish thrill. These two are crazy, and they bring out the craziest parts in each other. Justice starts by jumping off the top onto Bishop and Barkley on the ramp, and Bishop comes back and brains Justice with a chair, and that's how this whole things goes. Bishop bleeds a ton, an excellent mask that runs into his hair, and there are some insanely reckless spills into unkillable furniture. Fonzie gets very involved, and they get just as crazy as the men they're protecting. Barkley throws Fonzie into the second row, and Fonzie comes back and Shane McMahon's Barkley over and over into a table that refuses to break, even dropping Barkley onto his head with a Death Valley driver. Bishop wrecks a door over Justice's body, Justice flings himself over the guardrail into Bishop, and we build to a huge Justice splash off the top rope through Bishop and two tables. Bishop's splash mountain looks like it should wreck Justice, and I have no idea how Justice works as often as he does. The finish is some great violent improv over that same fucking unkillable table, with Justice taking a tombstone on it, then a splash mountain, then Bishop sets it up in the corner and runs Justice into it as hard as possible, then just beats Justice with it. The table stays standing, but Justice finally goes down. Some of the prop and table set up took far too long, but the hits paid off big for me, and these two are two of the only guys that make me think they genuinely want to injure the other whenever they fight. It's like the nuttiest backyard feud ever and I love it. 

2021 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Josh Barnett's Bloodsport 3! 10/12/20

Matt Makowski vs. Simon Grimm

PAS: Makowski damn near stole the show at the last Bloodsport, and Grimm is always good in this style too, so this was bound to deliver.  These guys hued very closely to shootstyle, although Makowski always finds a way to innovate something cool. In this match he did a moonsault to pass guard, although it was totally something I could see Caol Uno doing in a real fight.  Makowski landed some nasty leg kicks and a solid high kick, and I really liked how he didn't sell Grimm's enziguiri when it didn't land clean. I liked the idea of the finish, with Makowski turning a cross armbreaker attempt into a kneebar, only for Grimm to hit a suplex for the KO. Suplex didn't land clean though and the ref jumped in way too fast for the call. If you are going to end a match on a suplex like that, it has to look brutal or the guy taking it has to really sell being KO'd. This was a regular flack back bump sold like a flat back bump and I didn't buy it ending the match like that. Still this was good stuff, and Makowski is a must watch at this point.

ER: Grimm has been so good on these Bloodsport shows, something near entirely impossible to predict after being in attendance live for his pro wrestling debut nearly 20 years ago. It's amazing to me how long he's kept at it, but you can look at his career as a whole and then look at his three Bloodsport matches and see the kind of wrestling he truly excels at. His first Bloodsport match against Kratos was the best live match I'd seen from either of them, and they are two guys I've seen live plenty. I really loved the way he kept Makowski tangled up on the mat, eating leg kicks while standing but always super active on the ground. Sometimes it didn't work out, like when Makowski stuffed a takedown and just pancaked him, but I thought his mat skills were very impressive. I loved when he was raining down elbows from mount, and Makowski shifted slightly so that one of the elbows was a glancing blow, essentially sending Grimm straight into a snug side triangle. But I really liked how Grimm stayed calm and worked to snag Makowski's ankle, twisting it to break the hold and continuing to grapevine the legs in a painful way. The suplex did not work for me as a finish for the same reasons Phil mentioned, but I liked the work around the suplex itself. I like the brief fight for it and liked how Makowski going deadweight lead to a hard flat bump, I just didn't like that as a thing that should KO someone. Had Grimm floated right through and locked in a choke I think that would have been great, but this match was still some very good shoot style. 

Killer Kelly vs. Allysin Kay

PAS: This had some cool moments mixed in was some rough looking stuff. This was the second longest match on the entire show, and they didn't seem to have enough stuff to fill a match this long in this style. It felt like they started over again a couple of times. There was some bad looking strikes mixed in with some good looking ones, there was a section where both women took each other down and rained strikes which looked more like a diva era catfight then Hotta vs. Yamada. I really liked the finish though, with Kay getting a crucifix and raining down Goodrich elbows and keeping the crucifix into a head and arm submission as Kelly tried to stand out or roll out. I think with that finish and a bunch of the meat cut out of the middle this could have been a really good match, just too ambitious to really recommend. 

Lindsay Snow vs. Leyla Hirsch

PAS: This was definitely a better length for what they brought to the table. Hirsch was out sized and out skilled, but brought a bunch of fire to the match. The story was that Hirsch is a talented amateur, who is able to get some takedowns, but once she gets to the mat the much bigger Snow is able to control her. Was pretty impressed with Snow's grappling, she seemed to always find a counter or an advantage and it looked pretty slick. Definitely feels like Snow vs. Kay is the right tourney final.

Calvin Tankman vs. Alexander James

PAS: Tankman is fun in these kind of tourneys, he really feels like a guy you would see in an early UFC with some made up martial arts style, Hoodjitsu or something. He is big and reckless and strong and sometimes that will win you a fight. Not a lot of technique though, mostly James trying to take him down and getting overwhelmed by size. Tankman was crazy over with the crowd and that really added to the atmosphere of the match, as they went nuts when he dropped James for the KO.

ER: I really didn't like this at first, which was painful because I did not want to have to write a negative review now that we finally have a fat guy doing shootstyle again. There are not anywhere close to enough Vader guys doing shootstyle, so I was really rooting for a good Tankman performance. He looked like a real fish out of water at first and didn't look like he'd be able to do anything once things got serious. But after a few minutes I started growing into the minimalist style and started thinking this was actually closer to an actual MMA fight than anything else so far. It had that freakshow PRIDE feel and the crowd was way into the freakshow guy lasting longer than he was supposed to. Tankman laid on him and made slow movements, trying to cool back down after throwing some strikes. I liked the slow passes and just using his weight to plot his next move. But James always looked like he was plotting too, and eventually I got really into the short match slow burn. The triangle choke got the crowd even more into it and by the time Tankman escaped and started throwing hands with James I was fully into the match right with the crowd. The finish looked good as a winged hammer of an arm swung down at a cool looking angle to catch James. Cool approach and great build that kind snuck up on me. 

8. Erik Hammer vs. Grizzly Kal Jak

PAS: I thought this was totally awesome. This was legit heavyweight shootstyle, between two enormous guys with real skill. Jak is a Nor-Cal guy who was in WWE developmental, he was an All-American amateur and is 6'7ish, Hammer is a Barnett sparring partner who has done some IGF before. Jak wrestles this like a taller Gary Albright, huge throws and takedown, and even a big slap to the ear to open the match. Hammer is a shoot wrestler so has real submission skill, and was willing to go for a ride to bait Jak into a dangerous position. Loved the back elbows that Hammer threw when Jak took his back, real jaw clicking stuff and something Jak didn't have to worry about in the NCAA's. Finish was dope stuff with Hammer surviving the big throws until he is able to get the arm out and crank it from the tap. Maybe my favorite Bloodsport match ever. 

ER: I'm really happy Grizz got the opportunity to have this match, and hopefully it exposes him to a larger audience and gets him some more bookings. He's a good guy who has given up a lot of his time for our local indy north Bay Area Phoenix Pro Wrestling, a real popular act with that crowd, and here doing something completely different and completely awesome than anything else I've seen him do. This match was pure shootstyle, the kind of thing that could have been between a Belarussian and a Georgian in RINGS. The only pro wrestling in this entire match is the tale of the tape (Grizz is a big guy, but he's not six and a half feet tall). Hammer has a great look, like a jacked Gary Hart. But this is just fantastic shootstyle wrestling and I agree with Phil that it's arguably the best Bloodsport match we've seen. I would rank it with the best under 10 minute matches we have, honestly. The scrambling and takedowns were really cool, and Jak came off super strong with some big lifts and suplexes from positions where he didn't have leverage. The grappling felt like it could always explode into something new, and sometimes that was a throw, sometimes that was Hammer throwing 4 elbows in a row back behind his head directly to Jak's jaw. I thought that was going to be the finish and I was fully prepared to buy that as a finish. Hammer spots his best chance to finish as going after Jak's arm, and I dug how you can see him trying and see Jak keep lifting him, and you got that sense that eventually Hammer was going to be able to get that arm loose before getting thrown. This was an awesome little journey. 

17. Homicide vs. Tom Lawlor

PAS: I thought this was a good wrestling match which sort of failed as a Bloodsport match. Weirdly I place the blame on Lawlor who really should have known better. He was the one throwing those bad looking New Japan elbow smashes which were by far the worst part of the match. There was a fair amount of really cool shit though, I loved Homicide countering the guard by brutally stomping Lawlor in the head, exactly the way a Bed-Stuy street fighter would react to a ju-jitsu sweep. Homicide also landed some nasty clinch knees, and even kind of made an STF look like a shoot hold. I also dug the finish with Cide going for the Cop Killer and paying for it by getting choked and then tapped out. Would love to see Homicide back here, especially against someone who hues more towards strict shootstyle for a contrast.

ER: I thought this was great, and an incredible Homicide performance. I mean, we've written up a lot of Homicide matches in our time, but this was some next level wrestling in a style I've never seen him utilize before. It was still pro style Homicide, but with more shootstyle reactions. I don't like when other guys bring too much pro wrestling into these shows, but I really loved how Homicide specifically brought it in. Homicide still wrestling as Homicide but within a shoot fight is something I didn't know I wanted and didn't know I would love so much. I, too, did not like the elbow exchange portions of this (thought the first one was good due to both mixing up shots well, but then we got three others after that and we really could have got by with the one), but I was in awe at everything else. 

Homicide looked outgunned at times, but then would find his way out of it in ways perfect for Homicide-in-a-shoot. The moment where Homicide started stomping hard down on Lawlor's head to get out of an ankle lock was one of those moments where people there realize they're seeing something special. Phil and I synced up and watched some of these matches over the phone, and when Homicide caught a sliding Lawlor kick and violently twisted Lawlor's leg around his own and then cranked into a STF? I lost it and yipped loudly into the phone. Homicide's exploders were great, and the finish was tremendous. Homicide gets to power out of a choke by grabbing onto the ref's shoulder to help pull himself to his feet - at this point Homicide felt like he was acting out a serious church play for special sermon, with the Lord helping him pull himself to his feet and power through the chokehold the Devil has on his life - and fought back to the point of going for a Cop Killer. I was losing it on the phone at the prospect of Homicide finishing a shootstyle fight with a Cop Killer, but Lawlor slipped off into a sleeper choke, Homicide rolled him off, and then Lawlor hit his best action of the entire match: He slides past Homicide and hooks the ankle he softened up earlier while getting his face stomped in, and yanked Homicide into a flat out disgusting single leg crab. I loved this, the kind of genuinely special performance from a legend that makes standing elbow exchanges melt away. 

Davey Boy Smith Jr. vs. Josh Alexander

PAS: This was the least of the matches on the show. I thought some of the early grappling was fun, I especially liked the spot where Alexander got caught in submission as he fell to the floor, really looked like he jacked up his back on the ring apron. It devolved into a New Japan forearm exchange though, and DBS won with a Liger Bomb. Sort of pointless to do that kind of stuff, if you are going to bother to work this show, work the style. 

ER: I liked this more than Phil. I thought it was a tight 5 minutes, and thought the strength from both guys played well in all the rolling and grappling moments. The match had a lot of tough body scissors and a lot of the grappling looked really tiring. I thought Davey Boy used the Sharpshooter attempt really well, as there wasn't any fumbling or any actual attempt to go for the move, but a cool turned kneebar into a low squat single leg looked as painful as Bret's finisher. They made a couple good uses of the apron, with Davey throwing hammers down at Alexander's head while trapping him against the edge, and later the visual of him holding that Sharpshooter variation right on the edge of the ring looked really cool. I thought the pro wrestling stuff at the very end worked well they way they played it. There were no exchanges, just Alexander getting to his feet and throwing to quick elbows that surprise Smith (strikes really hadn't been thrown in the match) and leads to Smith throwing a couple of hard kicks to the chest. I thought the Liger Bomb worked as a KO finish, as it looked like Smith really powered him into the mat like a Zangief Street Fighter KO. 

Allysin Kay vs. Lindsay Snow

PAS: This was the tourney final and felt like a tourney final. I continued to be impressed by Snow on the mat, super pace pushing, always looking to press and counter and attack. I also liked how she threw big looping forearms whenever she got on top, they really looked out of control. Kay nicely used her height to throw up legs to counter submissions, and I dug how she went for the crucifix again, but she did look a bit tentative at points, and Snow was clearly the class of their women's division. 

ER: This was good, I liked both working long stretches basically neutralizing the other. Kay impressed me by staying with things the whole time, the way things were constructed made her come off strong while not even being in control a majority of the time. She has strong legs and was good at using her legs and height to push through different Snow attacks on the ground, and she looks like she's making headway while always being bent painfully bending over her own midsection. When she was able to stand Snow up she through hard knees, and they looked good while she was balancing and preventing a takedown. Snow was relentless and they seemed like they were each making the other work hard. I liked their ground work and it looked like neither was having an easy time advancing, made the whole match feel like a cool struggle. 

Chris Dickinson vs. Jon Moxley

PAS: I thought this was a heck of main event, and I give Moxley a bunch of credit for working as hard as he did to put Dickinson over. Dickinson is on a hell of a Rona roll, and was firing shots with real intent behind them, just mashing Moxley's legs with low kicks. I really like how they used the ring outs, made both big bumps that Dickinson took look totally credible. It is a real shame they stuck that strike and grimace elbow exchange in the finish run, match didn't need it and it took it completely out of the style. Trust the audience, there were responding big to all of the work they were doing, we didn't need a cheap short cut, really turned the end of the match into a indy wrestling match, and they were doing something special before that. 

ER: I thought this was good, but less than Phil. It mainly made me feel bad for Dickinson, as we review all of the big matches that he was supposed to get before the pandemic. But knowing what his Mania weekend was looking like, seeing why he was one of the obvious choices for a current indy guy as Moxley opponent, and seeing how much momentum he's had over the past year, and it's not hard to see Dickinson on TV within 6 months (I mean when WWE has Anthony Greene and Curt Stallion on every other week now you have to assume Dickinson isn't far away from being part of a stable with Lorcan and Burch). But I do wish this match wasn't so strongly tilted to Moxley. Moxley worked a lot of this the same way AEW main guys work a lot of AEW competitive squashes, and that's something I see every week. Moxley didn't treat Dickinson like a chump obviously, but I don't think a lot of the Moxley control was as interesting as it could have been. 

I loved the surprise moment of Dickinson getting kicked off by Moxley right into/past the ringpost, spilling to the floor. It was a great kind of jump moment, but by the end of the match we had two other shoves to the floor, and again this just kept feeling more AEW than Bloodsport. That was before the big standing exchange/face making portion of the match, which felt like the culmination of this match going from grappling and leg kicks to a certain comfort zone. I think the best part of Bloodsport is getting out of that comfort zone, and this kept feeling like they were fighting to get back to normal pro wrestling. I still thought it was a strong Dickinson performance and the connection he has with crowds is undeniable. Even though they were full indy match by the end, he still kept me invested with his hot comeback after being kind of smothered by Mox, as their aren't many current guys I like see make a fired up last stand in a match. 

ER: Another great Bloodsport show, at this point feeling like the kind of thing that can work as its own promotion. We landed two matches HIGH on our 2020 Ongoing MOTY List (with Kal Jak/Hammer making our top 10 and Homicide./Lawlor making our top 20) and there were several matches (Dickinson/Moxley, Tankman/James, Makowski/Grimm) that were narrow list misses. That's a great show, something we've come to expect from Bloodsport. 

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Mae Young Classic 2018 Episode 3

Kaitlyn vs. Kavita Devi

ER: This was a showcase for the returning Kaitlyn, out of wrestling for 4 years, and apparently going through a "tumultuous divorce" in the meantime. I remember Kaitlyn getting better during her original run, eventually being a perfectly fine WWE trained fitness model. I liked her here, nice sliding clothesline, hard elbows, nice cannonball. I remember enjoying Devi more last year, in what was apparently her first match. Here she didn't stand out much, hit an okay kick to the back, whiffed a missed clothesline by a mile. This was meant to make Kaitlyn look good, and it did that well enough.

Toni Storm vs. Jinny

ER: I liked this one, and really liked Jinny. I'd never seen her before, and she carried herself great. She's got a bird bones body, like Sweet Dee or a Sikh Summer Rae. She packs a nice wallop with her long limbs, nice thrust on stomps, nice surfboard, great attitude, broke out some cool things (like reversing a charging Storm with a Japanese armdrag into the corner), and her biggest strength may have been her fast bumping. She really SUWA's herself on a Storm lariat and gets absolutely dumped by a Storm German. Storm's running hip attack in the corner looked good, and I expected Storm to advance, but I know we're going to get a few ladies advancing who I don't want to see more than Jinny.

Karen Q vs. Xia Li

ER: Okay, WWE, we get it, only ONE Chinese girl will be advancing in this tourney. And I really liked this. Li has improved a lot in the last year, all of her strikes looked good, tons of tough corner shots to the body mixed in with low kicks, nice palm strikes, and Q had no problem laying things in either. They have a couple moments that looked like a nice take on Red/Low Ki, and I dug Q playing an overt heel, begging off, kicking Li in the face when Li was talking to the ref, stuff that made the match far more interesting than if it had just been "two Chinese warriors going to war!" Q hits hard back elbows and snaps off a nice exploder, tries to ground, and Li's strikes to come back are good. Q misses big on a frog splash and Li hits her cool spinning kick finisher. This only went about 4 minutes, but was really hot, and made really good use of the time. Very into this.

Mia Yim vs. Allysin Kay

ER: Eh, a lot of this felt like every breathe hard indy war you've seen the past few years, and while there were moments I liked, a lot of it felt like a bunch of sequences lifted from every indy card. We even started with a brutally bad phone booth fight spot, big looping punches coming nowhere close to a human. Early on Yim chops the ring post, and they never do a single thing with Yim's hand...and what makes it awkward is all three members of the announce crew talk up that hand as if it were a major part of the match. After chopping the post, Yim never let on that the hand was bothering her in the slightest, but that didn't stop Cole, Renee, and Beth from speculating just how much that hand was bothering her. Even after the match, which Yim - ahem - handily won, the first highlight they showed was Yim chopping that post, which made Cole just keep talking about that hand while clips of other stuff played. Guys, stop trying to make Mia Yim's hand a thing. These two have faced each other tons of times dating back to 2012, so you'd think they'd have a decent touring match down. This was clearly their touring match, something that would not look out of place 3 matches into any indy card across the country. Again, this whole thing just felt like an attempt to pull moments from other matches, and not interesting matches, just pulling sequences from athletic indy contests. It did not feel like their own match, it just took the DNA of other matches and reassembled it here. Kay's 360 lariat looked really good, loved Kay fishhooking Yim in the ropes, Yim threw a couple nice knees, their strike exchange (you knew there would be a strike exchange) didn't linger, but overall I just didn't think they took it anywhere interesting. This was the longest match of the tournament so far, and I think several other matches have accomplished way more in 1/3 of the time (see Li/Q right before).

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