Deranged Wrestled 3 Way Dances Worth Watching

Deranged vs. Azrieal vs. Grim Reefer USA Pro 10/19/02 - GREAT

ER: This would have been better as Deranged vs. either in a singles match, but that's not what USA Pro was about and it wasn't what it would ever be about! You get the full flavor by running this three card monte and it only highlights how amazing Deranged was at the style. Seeing Deranged in three ways made his skills stand out more, made it more clear he was a step above the other small fliers. 

Grim Reefer's execution and timing wasn't as good as the others. He has good ideas on his bumps but sometimes takes them a bit early or mapped out. But his chops hit hard, and a guy like Deranged can build some special sequences around a guy with good ideas who hits hard. Reefer is wearing his snapback through half the match, and the Elk's Lodge crowd boos Azrieal when the hat comes off (after Reefer took some kind of crazy arm clutch brainbuster). To get the booing to stop, Azrieal expertly starts kicking Reefer in the back as hard as he can, and it works! 

But Deranged won't be upstaged in a three way. Impossible. Piling onto Azrieal's kicks, Deranged shows how good HE can kick backs, getting then into position with nicely executed snapmares and punctuating them both with kicks. It's kind of shocking how good Deranged's basics were. He knew how to glue flashy spots together, had great punches, had a snapmare that Bret Hart would have to rate, a strong sense of how to get from A to B. The key to his greatness is how he used all these basics to build to wild shit like a hiptoss facebuster slam, or breaking up a pinfall with a double stomp off the top. If you have to break up a pin anyway, why not do so as painfully as possible? His pop up rana is as smooth as any luchador's, and he can take a full backflip selling a facebuster without making it look ridiculous. I mean, it looks ridiculous, but he's great at making it look like that's just what his body does in response to offense. 

Azrieal is eliminated first and it gives us a chance to see Reefer alone with Deranged, see what they could cook up. I don't remember ever seeing a Deranged/Reefer singles (it must have happened but I sure don't remember seeing one) and it's cool. Deranged does more of his Great Basics when he misses a clothesline thrown like he thought it would hit, and thrown hard. If Reefer had somehow gotten crossed up, Deranged would have broken his face with it. He uses that miss to set up a spinning headscissors that at first looks like Reefer messed something up, but then I see he was intentionally laying out flat while taking it to get Deranged into a sick crossface. When Deranged gets to the ropes, Reefer abandons the crossface and runs across the top rope to hit a swanton. One of Deranged's greatest skills is the way he facilitated everyone's whims and ideas, an amazing canvas for guys with playground death wish creativity. 

Deranged vs. Jay Lethal vs. Tony Lazaro JAPW 11/8/02 - VERY GOOD

ER: As part of his entrance, Deranged flips himself into several unprompted bumps, including a cannonball into the guardrail. He wasn't putting himself through tables, but he's like if Sabu had been part of a breakin' crew. It rules. This man is truly deranged! I liked everyone in this match, but it's another instance of Deranged giving two guys a canvas to do some of their best work. You watch something like this and ask "Did Jay Lethal have a really great spinebuster...or was Deranged great at elevating everyone's offense? Did Yeyo have a really great clothesline...or does Deranged make me think it hits like a truck? Does Deranged snap off huracanranas better than anyone...or is every New Jersey resident great at taking pop up ranas?" Lethal and Lazaro do work really well with him, and with each other, and everyone in 2002 New Jersey probably did take huracanranas really well. Except for Slyk Wagner Brown, I guess. 

Early in the match Deranged backdrops Lethal to the floor, sending him pretty far away from the ring, and Lazaro saves Lethal's life with a catch. Lethal would have been busted over the guardrail without a guy like Yeyo out there catching dives like a pro. Lazaro can catch dives, and he can take a mean bump. I think every time I've ever seen Deranged throw Lazaro into the corners with an overhead belly to belly, into another opponent, it has led to Lazaro landing on his head. Lazaro will fall on his head, but he also solos over the bridge with some out of nowhere Chris Hamrick bullshit. He stops the whole match for two minutes selling an ankle injury after taking a pancake. There is not a soul in Bayonne buying it, so Lazaro just keeps it going, long enough that the crowd gets audibly annoyed when he's being helped up by referees and runs through Deranged and Lethal with a clothesline. The man points at his head after, which means we must officially Stan 4 Yeyo. I love when a guy eats up that much match time with bullshit, especially in a match that's designed to be nothing but fast action. 

There are some ideas that don't quite work due to fudged timing, but they are good ideas! My favorite - in concept - was Lazaro  trying a low dropkick to break up a sunset flip, but Deranged flattens out and Lazaro flies over him into a Fuerza bump. It doesn't quite get pulled off, the timing was off, either Deranged flattened out early or Lazaro came in late, but I've never seen a Fuerza bump set up by a guy trying to break up a pin. Speaking of breaking up pins, Deranged hits a senton onto both Lazaro and Lethal while Lethal is holding a surfboard, leading to Lazaro's elimination, and it's disgusting. Lethal kicks out of one of Deranged's sickest Code Reds, landing Lethal high up on his shoulders, and Lethal wins with a crazy pumphandle Gotch piledriver. As with every crazy move, I love how Deranged set it up. Lethal caught a Deranged clothesline then ducked a high kick, Deranged a master at spinning and twisting himself into someone else's brutal offense while making it look like he organically wound up in an impossible physical position. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE SPECIAL K

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We Need to Get Dixie on a DEAN~! Show

 

Dixie vs. Rainchild JAPW 7/13/02

ER: Why did Dixie beloved by me and all the Real Ones during the early 2000s? Who's to say but he starts this match with a long standing cravat in 2002 and proceeds to work mid 90s Jamie Dundee schtick in Seaside Heights while selling hiptosses and armdrags. He is the youngest man working rope scrapes across the eyes in 2002 wrestling and he knows how to shit talk during a chinlock as well as Tracy Smothers or Adam Pearce. Rainchild was so good for wrestling so few matches. He does "simple" offense well, like his beautiful dropkick, and aims high on his big offense. He might have bit off more than he can chew but I like his brand of go go go. A complicated DDT doesn't quite work? Whatever, he also does a shooting star press to the floor while a ferris wheel glows in the background. His offense is big, like his backpack stunner and his beautifully executed falcon arrow, and he is a dynamic bumper. His bumps are athletic, but in a way where he clearly leans into offense to force the bumps, not looking like he predetermined which athletic bump to take. It looks great because Dixie is someone who can force a mean bump. 

Dixie runs a knee into the side of Rainchild's head and hits increasingly violent back elbows, aimed at Rainchild's eye, and does single arm chops that hit as hard as Tenryu (once you scale the size accordingly). He keeps returning to that cravat he began with and hits snap suplexes with full Dynamite energy, building to his stiffest back elbow of the match. Dixie missed a kneedrop off the top that was so sweet it brought a tear to my eye. I love how Singlet Era Dixie always had the visual threat of a strap drop but he never used it as a regular spot, preferring to keep the straps secure in case the need for a strap drop arose. Finishing the match with an Alabama slam into a snug jackknife pin is a perfectly heel troll Dixie way to win a match that featured a shooting star press to the floor. 

After he's won the match, Dixie hits a fistdrop and doing that feels so on the nose for A Thing That Eric's Favorite Wrestler Would Do that it makes me believe slightly more in a Truman Show universe made just for me. I hate this world in its current state, so at what point did my show get canceled? Taking my girl out to a cheap happy hour now costs $60 but when I was 21 skinny east coast fliers were perfecting southern style and doing perfect fistdrops. The world was mine. 

Dixie vs. Azrieal  JAPW 8/10/02

ER: I don't know if wrestling gets better than Dixie wrestling in Seaside Heights. It's like a perfect Conner O'Malley bit. He's challenging guys to step over the rail, telling loudmouths exactly where they can find him outside after the show. He responds to Azrieal's side headlock takeovers like a guy who is wondering what this shit is all about. What's this Working Holds shit!? There are too many things I love about Dixie's wrestling. How was he this good? He isn't just a good bumper, he's a good bumper who can add comedy after the bump. He takes a huracanrana with 0.7 Juventud speed and turns it into a comedy bump as it's happening, taking the rana as if it quickly bumped him to the floor. It's like the comedy bumping of Chris Candido with the athletic speed of Juvy. His leaping kneedrop is something nobody in wrestling is doing right now. There's a wide open market for Best Drops because all forms of Drops are a dying breed. How strange is that? Fistdrops are barely around, kneedrops have been phased almost entirely out, even elbowdrops are nowhere near as common (or as good) as they were a couple decades ago. Think about how few elbowdrops there are in modern wrestling, and how everything is worse for it. Can you name any of the guys in the current discussion for best elbowdrop? No good ones come to my mind. 

Dixie is great at little individual aspects of wrestling, like fighting for the ropes. I like the levels of panic in which he fought for the ropes, like he has a 1-5 panic dial and knew when to start kick his legs to help him scoot faster when the dial hit 4. He is great at putting over the armbar of a man with the smallest arms on the roster. Azrieal does a wild swan dive cannonball into the aisle and Dixie catches as much of it as we can reasonably expect a small teenager to catch. I always loved how Jersey All Pro guys sold big offense that didn't fully hit. I thought it only added to the craziness of spots when one of them would stand up slowly but proudly, in pain after hitting as much concrete as man. They did the thing, they survived the impact, they'll deal with the bad joints in a decade. Dixie was great at using the Alabama slam as not just a finish, but as a move to set up the finish, and thinking about his own offense as multifaceted and not just a myopic "This is My Finish and it comes in This Order" was just one more thing he did that was a cut above the rest.  

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Matches from ICW 3/19/10

Grim Reefer/Azrieal vs. All Money is Legal (K-Pusha/K-Murda) vs. The SAT

ER: Yeah gimme this. Azrieal and Grim Reefer are a good multiman tag team, same kind of undersized heel flyers that feel adjacent to Special K. SAT did that great thing where one of the members of a brothers-who-look-alike tag team gets like 35 pounds bigger than his brother. It's really easy to tell Joel and Jose apart when writing, because Joel looks like Sonny Siaki if he stopped lifting, and while Jose has also moved up to heavyweight it is visually much less so. This also happened on the west coast, to one of the Ballard Brothers, twins who are now very easy to tell apart. And I wonder if this happens to these tag teams in every single indy territory, that the United States is filled with lookalike brother tag teams who now look very different, and I think some indy needs to run a tournament with teams like this. I liked this enough, but would have liked it more as a tag. Azrieal/Reefer are a good team, and I would have been way more interested in seeing them work NE stalwarts SAT or see what they could do with the younger AMiL. As it was, nobody got to shine for long, but there was some shine. The dive train was big, with SAT hitting a kind of sunset flip bomb to the floor on K-Murda, Azrieal hitting a gorgeous tope con hilo, Reefer flying onto and past everyone with his own dive. SAT can still hit the Spanish Fly, AMiL are basically in there to be crash test dummies for the more known teams (which they did well), and Azrieal definitely looks like the money of the bunch. He's as quick here as he was on the JAPW tapes I have from earlier in the decade, and Grim Reefer isn't far behind.


Dan Maff comes out and cuts a kind of Ian Rotten promo but gets interrupted by an absolutely ON FIRE Prince Nana. The announcers weren't expecting Nana to be here, and Nana draws actual heat, and it doesn't sound like people are playing along. He is actually out here riling up fans, cutting down hecklers, and has a wild eyed intensity while running everything down. He talks about how he plans on ending Maff's career, and how he wants to end his career TONIGHT. I like Nana holding a grudge for all those times his teams and charges got wrecked by Da Hit Squad earlier in the decade. So now he's going to bring out a murderer's row of goons to cripple Maff.

Dan Maff vs. Rob Fury

ER: Nana's plan has a bit of an inauspicious start. Fury is a beanpole of a man, has a Batman tattoo on his chest, and doesn't have a ton of pro matches under his belt, but he looks professional. I like how it starts with Fury landing running elbows in the corner, throwing downward strikes until the bottom inevitably drops out. Maff hits a buckle bomb that meets the turnbuckle in that perfect spot between Fury's shoulderblades. He scrapes his boot across Fury's face, hoists him up for a big press slam, and then caps it off with a big man standing moonsault. Fury is disposed, so Nana brings out a new challenger...

Dan Maff vs. Maximus Sex Power

ER: This pudgy doofus eats a hard lariat from Maff, then holds on for dear life to the top rope as Maff aims to hit a burning hammer. Once he scrambles out of the BH attempt and makes it to the apron, he just quits. Obviously I wanted to see this guy get shortened by a burning hammer, but I like how they focused on his mad attempts to escape the hammer and leave with his life instead. It made for a more interesting twist. And then Nana brings out the REAL challenger...

Dan Maff vs. Xavier

ER: I loved the cockiness that Xavier entered with, not a single beat missed in 8 years. He doesn't have that speed, but he credibly stands toe to toe with the larger Maff. Xavier flummoxed him with some ju jitsu, and he hits Maff hard with a nice mix of shots. His elbows land right in the middle of Maff's jaw every time, has a couple of killer running back elbows that hit as hard as anything in the match, and all of his knee strikes look good. Xavier's muay thai knees are cool, and I've always been into how he logically starts throwing knees to the thighs and lower abdomen, and keeps working his way up until he's hitting leaping knees into Maff's face. It's cool how much Xavier took control, impressed with how he dished offense to Maff as well as he took it. Maff pays him back with a quick running knee to the face, but hits knees on a senton, and then Xavier actually hits the Xavier driver on Maff, totally crazy looking lift. We got to a great burning hammer tease, but Xavier slipped out of it only to be accidentally punched from the floor by Nana, which allowed Maff to bounce Xavier of the side of his head with a half nelson suplex. Maff breaking a triangle with a powerbomb looked good, and I thought it was cool they established Maff's big lariat finish instead of making Xavier take the burning hammer. Because you have guys like Rob Fury around, with their young fresh unkinked necks, and THEY can take burning hammers and fold in disgusting ways. This match was different than it would have been in 2002, but the best elements were still present in 2010 and I thought was cool.


Amazing Red vs. B-Boy vs. Bandido Jr.

ER: I was not feeling like one. I think the extra person threw off the timing, and there was too much hitch with the extra man. B-Boy was the surprise, and man I wish they had done an angle where he had jumped Bandido and replaced him. So we got a lot of punching guys into position, a lot of guys bumping awkwardly because they had to land not on an extra guy, and too much time spent on getting the third man out of the ring to the floor. Bandido wasn't bad, but his striking was the weakest of the bunch (and yes we got one or two of those dumb moments where three guys stand in a triangle and take turns punching each other). At minimum he hit a dive and took a mean sitout powerbomb from B-Boy. Red didn't have his signature crispness, although still managed to hit a couple nice spots (his senton atomico into both on the floor was the flying highlight here) . His spinkicks didn't have the same snap that they typically have (both 8 years prior and 8 years after) and they felt off because he worked a third man into them, like vaulting off B-Boy to spinkick Bandido. It just meant for more of guys standing still waiting to take complicated spots, and couldn't ever come off organic. B-Boy had a lot of punch and was my favorite guy here, as he flew harder into offense than the others and made his biggest moves land with an exclamation point. The only times he didn't look good were when the match format got in the way. It felt like the format was actively working against the wrestlers. Finish was fun, with Red battling over and finally hitting the Code Red for a nice nearfall only to seamlessly connect on a standing shooting star off the Code Red kickout to win.

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JAPW Awaken 3/21/2015

JAPW has been around in some form for 15 years or so, and has been one of the great under the radar indies. They seem to run really sporadically, and I was really excited to see a new show pop up in the dark corners of the internet. I am watching this without a match list so I am pretty excited to see who pops up.

Opened with a 10 bell salute to Perro Aguayo, which Chris Dickenson comes out to interrupt. Dickenson is a really hit or miss guy, but he is apparently working Low-Ki in a grudge match, and he seems like a guy who will have a fun unprofessional grudge match with Low-Ki. Low-Ki is with MVP and Samoa Joe as part of their TNA stable, and I see Teddy Hart and Necro Butcher ringside, that is a bunch of guys I like (and MVP).

Silver Ant v. JT Dunn

Silver Ant used to be Green Ant and JT Dunn I have seen before as a member of indy workrate tag team Juicy Product. This was a Beyond Wrestling showcase, and very much felt like a indy wrestling showcase match. Lots of counters and dramatic two counts, and blah blah blah. JT Dunn is very much an indy wrestler, and he does lots of convoluted ways to hit cutters and faceplants. Nice tope by Dunn, but otherwise very forgettable

Steve "Monsta" Mack v. Jaka

On paper very exciting stuff, I am long time Monsta Mack fan, saw the Hit Squad live a bunch of times always enjoyed them, there is an awesome early Low-Ki singles where he works like Vader, loved the Hard Hitters team with a big white guy whose name escapes me. Jaka is Chris Dickonson's tag partner who kind of works an indy Haku gimmick. So this should have ruled. Unfortunately it starts with both guys no-selling german suplexes, and Mack badly blowing a jumping rana, and then right into a bad forearm exchange. One of the worst opening couple of minutes I have seen in a while. It gets a little better at the end as Mack just kills Jaka with some huge throws and clotheslines before pinning him with an awkward nasty powerbomb, still they couldn't dig themselves out of that early hole. Still love Monsta though.

Archadia v. Bandido Jr. v. Smiley v. Joey Janela v. Kimber Lee

Juniors five way with all the flaws that style promises. There were a couple of cool highspots from Bandido Jr. who is a undercard JAPW guy I have always liked, he did a crazy springboard rana, and a cool dive. Otherwise this was kind of mess. Finish was especially stupid, Joey Janela just randomly climbs to the top of a really high pillar, Smiley follows him up for some reason, and the throw some bad punches, and Joey Janela does a flip onto a bunch of security guys, I guess it was supposed to be a bump off the pillar, but it really looked like that what was he was trying to do, looked super fake and dangerous for no reason. Then when those two get back to the ring, everyone else is gone and Janela hits a suplex and pins him. Total mess.

Christopher Daniels + Frankie Kazarian v. Bravado Brothers

Indy wrestling workrate tag, which is a style I just can't get into. Everything was executed slickly (it is a Chris Daniels match) but it didn't add up to a ton. Kazarian does have some cool springboards, and the Bravados have some double teams which look good, but I forgot everything about this a minute after it was done.

Necro Butcher + The Hooligans v. The Viking War Party

The wild Necro brawls around the Rahway Rec center were my favorite thing about the latter day JAPW, this was in that spirit, but was surprisingly subdued. Necro actually spends a fair amount of the match in the ring, instead of reckless fling chairs in the crowd. There was some good craziness including the fat Viking getting smushed through a guardrail, and the Littlest Viking eating a running powerbomb in the rail. This kind of thing is always fun to watch, but this wasn't close to  the level of the great Necro/Brodie Lee matches from a couple of years ago.

Azrieal v. Black Jeez

Surprisingly solid juniors match. Haven't seen a Black Jeez match in years and while he was pretty terrible in CZW back in the day, he was OK here, definitely should have put him on the list of black guys LU should have brought in instead of Killshot. He works pretty stiff here, and applies his stuff well. Azrieal was one of the solid JAPW juniors back in the day, he was no Dixie or Insane Dragon but probably a bit better then Elax the exploited child, he had a nice tope and some solid mid range juniors offense, still nothing about this leaped out at me and didn't stick out in my brain 10 minutes later.

Teddy Hart/Chris Hero v. Samoa Joe/MVP

There are tons of indy wrestlers in the world doing "crazy guy" gimmicks, but how many of those guys spend time training their cats. Teddy Hart is such a legit lunatic that he is compelling to watch. Teddy's valet comes down with a fluffy Persian who seconds him and Hero during that match. Joe and MVP are working their TNA gimmick with Homicide at ringside, pretty fun match. MVP keeps refusing to take any of Teddy Harts moonsaults including moving so he smashes some fans on a dive, it almost felt like a weird inter promotional Puro match where guys are not cooperating. The match was mostly shtick, although Teddy had some nice brawling with Joe. There was also a great moment where Homicide just decides to break a chair over Teddy's head for the hell of it, I love that feud, and hope JAPW runs some more of it. Postmatch had Hart making a lot of jokes about his Pussy and thanking Jesus, what a kook.

Low-Ki v. Chris Dickinson

PAS: I was pretty low on Dickinson in the past, I described him as a fake Davey Richards which is about the worst way you can damn somebody. He has removed a lot of the extraneous bullshit, and is now mostly working on stiffness and his despicable charisma. He has to be one of the most hatable wrestlers I can remember, he feels like the kind of high school linebacker who would organize a gay bashing or gang rape, and add in the crew of creeps he runs with and you get a really compelling act. Low-Ki, especially in JAPW is a guy you want to see beat the shit out of someone, and man does he beat the shit out Dickinson, although Chris dishes it out too. Match starts out with some karate sparing, which is an interesting way to open a match, and then some decent takedowns and mat wrestling before the asskicking starts, Ki would blister Dickinson and he would fire back with some big shots, and also some fun cheap shots, Dickinson has a great looking eye poke. One point Dickinson kicks Ki really hard in the back and Ki fires back with this awesome four punch combo which they replayed from five different angles, so awesome, and really fit the somewhat ragged and uncooperative feel of the match. This match also had one of the cool superplexes I can remember seeing as Dickinson through Ki almost to the other side of the ring.

ER: Really cool match with some inventive asskicking and painful stretching. We get some nice early mat stuff with Dickinson controlling Ki and Ki almost going for broke early with a couple of double foot stomps. This was a nice change-up as Ki doesn't normally go for those so early so it was a neat indication that he thought he was in trouble, outmatched. Dickinson counters Ki's early attempts to finish with nice little cheats, a low blow here and an eye poke there. Dickinson keeps trapping Ki in this nasty submission with Ki's arms hooked behind his back and Dickinson's feet pushing against Ki's neck. At one point Ki does a great job of getting to the ropes, but facially expressing that it's hurting him WAY more to get to the ropes than was maybe worth it. Dickinson ups the stiffness by booting Ki in the back, and Ki puts it over great by slowly standing up back turned to Dickinson, clearly in pain but not wanting to show it. And then he punches Dickinson a bunch in the face and chest and everything is great. There was some good struggle throughout, especially loved Ki desperately grabbing behind Dickinson's knees to block a powerbomb. Later Ki went for a vertical suplex but Dickinson tried to sandbag him, which backfired and ended with him taking a sort of brainbuster DDT that looked vicious. There were a lot of nice little things like that, and those little things elevate a match. Even the finish had one of those moments with Dickinson hung in the tree of woe and Ki going for the Warriors Way. Now usually guys have to just kind of hang there like dinguses and then find a way to look up before getting their chests stomped in, but here Ki stands on Dickinson's knees causing him to sit up in pain, and then Ki hits the Warriors Way. Nice.


Post match was fun with Dickinson's crew brawling to the back with Joe, MVP and Homicide and Monsta Mack saving Ki from a sneak attack, only to do a big turn on him. Could really dig heel Monsta Mack against Ki and Homicide, and I hope JAPW runs again soon.

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