Things Used to Be Better. I Used to See Super Dragon Live.

Super Dragon vs. B-Boy MPW 11/3/01

ER: Billed as the SoCal Match of the Year by the title card, it is almost certainly not. Even among Super Dragon's other 2001 MPW matches it would be tough to call this the match of the year: A Low Ki time limit draw, a 2/3 falls match with Rising Son, and a Jardi Frantz match. Jardi might sound like a fake opponent to anyone reading this in 2025, but he was a great indie wrestler in 1999-2003. I had the time of my life during this era of west coast wrestling. I couldn't get enough of it and went to so many shows with friends. Even if I don't think this is what the 2001 SoCal MOTY might have been, this is definitely what a big SoCal indie match looked like in 2001, which was incredibly groundbreaking. I really liked Millennium Pro. Those were some good times. The shows were held at a Jewish Community Center in a nice neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley. So, you're in the Valley watching wrestling in a hotel conference room style lit carpeted room and you'd get a bad Hardcore Kidd or Cincinnati Red match and a brilliant Super Dragon match and then you and your friends get to hear Adam Pearce ice out a room with a heavy breathing post-match late 2001 promo stating he was "blown up like the towers".

Our intrepid cameraman is seated next to a soft spoken mother and her little girl who is giggling through a 25 minute long SoCal match of the year. The girl asks her mom for her compact mirror so she can see how loose her tooth is while B-Boy is kicking Dragon across the face, dropkicking him in the back of the head, and throwing vicious crossfaces. Everybody left with loose teeth. B-Boy works over Dragon's leg and it's decent stuff, but everything is more compelling whenever he's stiffing Dragon up, which is most of the runtime. It's weird to see an era where Dragon wasn't the guy working more stiff in a match. B-Boy had an insane offense arsenal and we see it all, done with real energy. His Thousand Oaks Jam was more Bobby Eaton than Psicosis and that's a huge compliment. Crazy distance and a beautiful landing.

They take awhile to set up a cool spot on the floor, but the payoff is worth it to see in a well lit community center: B-Boy tries a reverse splash crucifix bomb off the apron and Dragon reverses it with a Super Calo headscissors that sent him down an aisle surrounded by coral upholstery hotel conference chairs. When Dragon goes for the follow up dive he gets stopped in his tracks deader than dead can be. The whole chain that led to the crucifix bomb was started by Dragon scouting B-Boy's past dive blocks, and didn't count on B-Boy staying diligent to stopping all dives. It was a great bit of layering where every action actually played off previous actions and subverted learned behaviors all within one match. Dragon's blocked dive wasn't his only miss, as he was good at leaving openings with a big miss. His missed phoenix splash was great and led to a strong nearfall.

This got super exciting when it was clear that the crowd was really wanting B-Boy to take this. He starts rocking Dragon with left-right elbow combos and levels him with a clothesline, and these people are living with it. Dragon takes a suplex on his head like Super Dragon would do and fighting spirits to his feet to hit a lariat even more badass than B-Boy's. We've dealt with 25 years of guys aping fighting spirit that they saw on their first puro tape, but this was before ROH even existed, before any kind of super indy style pulling from Japan. Roll your eyes at the masked man's fighting spirit lariat, but you cannot deny the humongous jump-to-their-feet babyface reaction the spot got, completely blowing B-Boy's loud support from just 20 seconds ago out of the water. This was a Super Dragon crowd who started growing loudly into a B-Boy crowd before being firmly turned back into a Super Dragon crowd...but then B-Boy kicked out after a Psycho Driver and the entire crowd shifted right back to being a loud B-Boy crowd. Incredible vibes.

Maybe this was the SoCal match of the year. There were other matches I saw live that I liked more, others I liked more on tape, but I don't remember any of them getting the entire crowd so involved with the ups and downs and the major tide shifts. That's special, and almost surely why it was so fondly remembered by anyone who witnessed it at the time. Still plays as something big today.

Super Dragon vs. Bobby Quance APW 5/24/02

ER: Damn, there I am in the front row of this Gym Wars show with a girlfriend who would not be my girlfriend by June of 2002. I noticed her and my friend Jason before I noticed myself sitting in between them. There couldn't have been 80 people at those Gym Wars shows and we went to a ton of them over a several year period. I didn't even remember seeing this match but here is proof that I did, over half my life ago, in a Hayward garage with 60 or so other people who were all locked in, living in an era before cell phone dominance.

Bobby Quance is basically 10 matches into his short career and is malleable in the best way. This is just 15 sick minutes of Super Dragon manipulating the match into anything he wanted it to be. It starts with nice engaging arm work and armdrag mat wrestling, with Dragon grapevining Quance's arm in cool ways while maneuvering him into pins, Quance coming back when he can with speed. Dragon lets Quance show off a bit, breaking the match open taking a headscissors to the floor to set up a big Bobby tope con giro, then catches a springboard huracanrana back into the ring for 2. That's when Dragon starts trying to shut him down by going after Quance's leg, and it rules. Dragon throws his full weight into a dropkick to the knee and starts kicking at it, then locks in what I can only describe as a very stiff figure 4. You see a submission several thousand times and suddenly you watch a match where you're also watching your 21 year old self watching a match and both versions of you are witnessing a truly great figure 4 leglock. Dragon starts goading Quance into slapping him in the hold and Quance is small enough that he can't quite reach Dragon's face. Quance's effort to make the ropes was great, but not as great as Dragon mocking everyone's applause with dainty hand claps when Quance finally gets the rope break.

Dragon is good at always making it look like he's trying to finish the match, while providing openings for Quance to extend the match. There's a cool Psycho Driver set up where Quance almost rolls through it with a rana, but Dragon blocks his reversal and pulls him back up to hit a beautiful piledriver. When Quance gives the rest of what he has, he limps convincingly through his comeback and hits a back elbow and clothesline much harder than you'd expect he'd be able to hit by looking at him. He gets geared up enough to foolishly try a shooting star press, sees Dragon has moved and lands on his feet...and realizes he would have been better off just missing the shooting star because Dragon never stopped kicking at all sides of his knee. Quance's knee buckles and he's left a sitting duck for Dragon's clothesline, and nobody in the states was throwing better clotheslines than Dragon in 2002. Dragon easily could have ended things there, but he gets in a slick show off move with a spot I do not remember him doing: he rolls over the ropes like he's doing the Misawa feint, but rolls back into the ring in one motion and leaps into a back elbow. So cool. His springboard spinning heel kick lands heavy to the back of Bobby's head, and I love watching my friend Jason put his hands up over his face after Dragon sticks him with the Psycho Driver. What a find, and what luck to have been able to see this kind of wrestling live in 2002 and sitting on my couch in 2025.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE SUPER DRAGON

Read more!

Super Dragon is the Original Subliminal Subterranean Titanium Criminal Minded Swift SD

Super Dragon vs. Mike Quackenbush Rev Pro 9/28/02 - FUN

ER: I had higher hopes for this one, as it never really felt like a match, much more like a fun exhibition of moves and submissions. Now, I was kind of expecting a fun exhibition of moves and submissions - these are two guys with plenty of both - but this literally felt like an exhibition as there wasn't much happening between the moves. There was a lot of move, stand up, new move, stand up, submission, stand up, other guy's move. It wasn't bad, but Quack is someone who can string together a match really well and none of that happened here. Neither guy did their wildest spots (no big crash and burns to the floor), with the biggest miss being a Dragon corkscrew senton that would have missed Quack by a couple feet even if Quack hadn't moved. But the few subs looked good, Dragon hit a hard clothesline right into Quack's chest, Dragon got nicely spiked on a DDT for a nearfall. And Dragon's finishing run combo of a German suplex, rolled into a Blue Thunder Bomb, turned over into a piledriver? Well, that's a brilliant looked finishing package. However, that finishing package came literally after that spike DDT that got Quack a 2 count, and Dragon literally just stood up and hit all of those moves. So nearly everything looked good, but it had the psychology of a Smackdown vs. Raw video game match.

PAS: I agree, this didn't feel like it had much of a structure or process. I liked the early matwork, but when the got up off the mat they just did some stuff without any of it really stringing together in a sensible way. This was a tourney match, and maybe it would have been better if it had been a PWG or Chikara main event, just didn't feel like they put much thought into this match. 

Super Dragon/B-Boy vs. Bobby Quance/Jardi Frantz GSCW 3/29/03 - EPIC

ER: Big spot tag with some fun location specific structure, with Jardi and Quance are heels opposite hometown boys Dragon and B-Boy, leading to some heel in peril sections and our faces working like the bigger jerks. It's a fun tone for a stiff spotfest tag to take on, and I like all of these guys together. I miss this era of wrestling as these were all guys I got to see live a bunch so I have lots of memories associated with these lunatics. Heel Jardi was an awesome part of 2003, a heel proto-Matt Riddle with more of the stoner vibe and none of the MMA vibe, but all of the violent bump vibe. Quance was barely 30 matches into pro wrestling at this point, but it adds to his ring work. He doesn't hold back on hits or misses, and has that same kind of excitement that Blitzkrieg had. And since he's so new to all of this, there's a rawness to his misses and a desire to impress on things that don't quite work. When a move is supposed to miss, he goes through with it like he expects it to hit, which leads to several of his exchanges with Dragon look like something out of early Zero-1. Quance would throw an elbow that Dragon would kind of duck, and the off balance positions Quance winds up in make it look like he was never expecting anything to miss. It looks so much better than moves today that are thrown specifically to be reversed. Quance seems confused by the heel reaction from the crowd, but Jardi leans right into his role as deadbeat stoner heel who was getting high with his friends in the drive-thru before accidentally driving directly into a girl on a bike.

Dragon and B-Boy throw nothing but stiff shots, everyone gets kicked in the back at least twice throughout this match, Dragon comes up throwing hard slaps a couple times against Jardi, and both of them really start teeing off on Jardi in the corner. Frantz is a great punching bag and rag doll, and it's crazy he is the heel here as B-Boy drops him to his butt with a high left kick, plasters him with his running corner dropkick, and really gets folded in half several times. His comeback offense is cool, like his leaping top rope tornado DDT on B-Boy or his super impressive springboard rana on Dragon. There isn't too much selling in this one, but it doesn't really matter once they all start stringing together big spots. The match could have been different as there's some fairly engaging submission work earlier once B-Boy/Quance started against each other, but I like the big spots breakdown. Quance and Frantz hit stereo shooting star/450, there are some nice pinfall saves, Dragon hits an awesome top con hilo past the ringpost into Jardi, and the finish itself is really great: Dragon goes for a Psycho Driver on Quance, Quance lands on his feet and tries a low dropkick which Dragon leans out of, leaving Quance prone to an awesome B-Boy shining wizard. Dragon even dives onto the pin just to prevent Jardi from breaking it up. The match was a little scattered at times, but I loved the way it played against dynamics, and everyone involved did too much cool stuff.

PAS: Crazy spotfest tag matches aren't my favorite style, but I think this is about as cool of match you can have within that parameter. You have a ton of big spots hit pretty perfectly (the Frantz single jump springboard rana would be an all time legendary spot if hit on a bigger stage), counters and reversals that actually looked good rather then just dance moves, some actual drawn heel heat by Frantz and a whole ton of sick violence. B-Boy and Super Dragon are a tremendous team of violent asskickers, and they find lots of ways to kick people really hard in the face, and I loved Jardi winding up Super Dragon and then taking a Super Dragon sized asskicking. Jardi really got the crowd worked up, so they went nuts when Dragon started pushing his shit in. Quance was a little dry, but he had tremendous physical body control and looked really good mat wrestling with B-Boy. These matches can often go on too long, but I thought this ended right when it should have with the three count coming right at the apex of the crowd engagement.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE SUPER DRAGON

Read more!

Matches from CZW High Stakes II: Night Show 9/11/04

This show opens with a "Remember the Sacrifices" 9/11 flute instrumental memorial, showing fire fighters and ground zero extraction crews, segueing directly into a warning that CZW contains graphic and violent content because 2000s wrestling and (well, everything, for a few years) 9/11 had a strong bond. CZW even ran two shows on this day, the 3rd anniversary of 9/11, presumably to honor troops and first responders twice as much.


Super Dragon vs. Chris Hero - FUN

ER: For two guys who seem like they would have some real classic against each other, turns out they only had two singles matches. They had some tags opposite each other, but half of those included Davey Richards, so, you know. This one never really came together, and felt more like an assemblage of neat things both men do rather than a cohesive match featuring those things. You get your rolling wristlock exchange opening, your forearm exchange section, your suplex exchange section, and the momentum basically turned whenever either of them felt like turning the momentum. A lot of the greatest hits looked good: I'll always love Dragon's ringpost Cassandro bump, or Hero's running face wash big boot. You get hard Dragon short arm clotheslines, wrenched in cravats from Hero, a great German suplex spot where Dragon throws him after no selling an eyepoke, a Hero capture suplex that really folds Dragon, and a nice Dragon tope con hilo. But some of Hero's elbows actually don't look great, and the whole thing has a kind of exhibition feel throughout. It felt like they were checking off boxes rather than actually putting together a match. Moves got bigger, but since neither guy seemed to have much trouble getting back on offense, the moves never felt significant. Hero maneuvering through Dragon's limbs to get to the deathlock cravat was a slick as hell finish, and the whole thing would certainly make for a great 4 minute highlight video. But this was below what these SC favorites are capable of, and you gotta hold legends like these to a standard.

PAS: I agree that this was less then the sum of its parts. You are going to have some cool shit in a match with two wrestlers with a ton of cool shit, but I never felt it built to anything. I really liked Super Dragon stepping in on a flippy roll from Hero and just pasting him in the chops, and the Super Dragon double stomp to the head is one of wrestling sickest moves. Still that is a move which ended TARO's career and Hero kicks out at two and goes right back on offense. There was a lot of do-si-do reversals for a pair of guys who are normally bangers, and it did just kind of feel like it went till it stopped.

Sexxxy Eddy vs. El Generico vs. Kevin Steen vs. eXceSs 69

ER: I was about to skip this one, as the first several minutes were pretty bad, the kind of 2004 multiman wrestling that doesn't hold up and looks like guys carefully trying new moves and sequences. Eddy throws the absolute worst knee strikes I've seen, with his foot floating up and out behind him every time he did a knee, it looked like some kind of joke offense Rip Rogers would do to get heat (except I'm pretty sure they were just supposed to be actual kneelifts). Then we get one of those dive trains where most of the guys don't seem to know how to catch dives, and it was both a bad moment but also the moment of the match that started winning me over? I mean something about guys just hitting concrete and guardrails has a kind of unifying vibe to it. Generico does a tope con hilo and just lands on his feet without hardly touching anyone, Eddy takes a gnarly flight into the guardrail and crowd on an Asai moonsault, and my brain switched over into "I mean if they're going to kill themselves then let's see it."

And then they killed themselves! Generico was throwing heavy ole kicks in the corner, Steen started crushing people with suplexes, Generico dropped Steen disgustingly on the top buckle with a brainbuster, and then while I was reacting to that he dropped Sexxxy Eddy even more disgustingly with a buckle brainbuster! Steen attempted to cripple eXceSs 69 (presumably and understandably for his name) by throwing him overhead with a cradle suplex that dared Excess to bump on anything other than his neck. And the thing that started really getting me involved with this - other than potential death - is just how strong the crowd gets into Eddy. They really really want to see their guy beat these Canadians (they are all Canadians, but he's THEIR Canadian). You see, before the match, Eddy had done a strip tease for a barely legal girl, aggressively rubbed his dong on her, and then autographed her bare ass, so obviously he's a babyface at the New Alhambra. But the crowd really organically got into an Eddy win as the match went on, and I really like a crowd getting into a wrestler rather than rooting for a MOTY. Steen looked really awesome in this, delivering a ton of dangerous offense (kids never even piledrove their Wrestling Buddies as hard as he delivered a package piledriver in this match) with a smug look and teen acne, he hit a top rope gutbuster that should have shattered his leg, and Eddy kicking out of Steen's great moonsault was a genuine surprise. This was rough and bad, and then won me over. Eddy got the big win, and then everyone stood in the ring for a long time afterward congratulating themselves on what a great job they all did, and it was hilarious watching them all take curtain calls like they were all retiring immediately. 

Eddie Kingston vs. B-Boy - GREAT

ER: This was nothing but action, with both men throwing increasingly heavier and heavier shots, never going into overkill but ramping up the violence consistently. It was a chance for both guys to show off some deep offense wells, while never feeling like either guy was trying to get all their moves in. This was Kingston's first singles match in CZW (and probably the earliest Kingston singles match I've seen, since I haven't dove too far into his Chikara work) and it's so good. He and B-Boy slugged it out and Kingston is a slightly more raw version of his later singles work, but it's surprising (it probably shouldn't be) how confident and mostly formed his style was just 75 matches into his career. Bobby Quance is on this show, and he's a guy whose whole thing was "incredibly quick learner", yet Kingston didn't even have as many matches as Quance at the time of this match. Kingston talked a ton of trash while leaning into some mean B-Boy shots, both men throwing big running kicks to the face, both throwing hard follow through elbow strikes, and the quick pace lead to minimal down time without ever feel like they were rushing to get to another big moment. It looked like it was going to be a real B-Boy steamrolling, loved him kicking King around, bouncing a chair off his head on the floor, and Kingston is great at taking ringside beatings. 

I loved how King would make inroads, especially his blocked shining wizard cradle suplex, or when he caught a kick and used B-Boy's trapped leg to lift him up and plant him with a sitout powerbomb. BLKOUT gets involved, and I'm 95% confident that B-Boy murders Sabian with an electric chair driver. His head gets driven directly into the mat and his body goes stiff (before getting rolled out of the ring and out of our lives). We got a lot of Ultimate Warrior Actually Died rumors in the 90s, but the Second Sabian hasn't gotten nearly as much press. BLK Jeez is not the original Sabian, and you heard it here first. Kingston takes a ton of gross damage, like a brutal death valley driver and a blockbuster through some set up chairs, and the finish is a fantastic visual: B-Boy drops him in the corner with a chair over his face, lays a table over him, and then hits a running kick THROUGH the table into King's face. THAT is a kill shot finish, people. Kingston is a lunatic from taking something so unprotected, and you can even see B-Boy taking extra time in the corner to psyche himself up for putting his damn leg through a table. When the guy about to murder you is having second thoughts about murdering you, that's a weird vibe to bring to a wrestling match. And it ruled.

PAS: This had the awkwardness you might expect from Kingston still being green, but both guys have a ton of charisma and aren't afraid to throw heat. This is a fun role reversal with B-Boy in the later Kingston role of veteran beating on a young stud, and Kingston being an awesome Tre Lamar as the young outgunned cocky kid. Poor Sabian though. That electric chair drive landed on the crown of his head and must have knocked three inches off his height. That finish took a while to set up, but you can't quibble with B-Boy driving his foot through a table and through someone's face.


M-Dogg 20 vs. Bobby Quance

ER: Bobby Quance, as I mentioned before, is famous for being a pro wrestling natural, who moved on quick and left people wanting more. This match was basically the end of his career, with the announcement after the match that he was joining the Navy. And for a guy who never wrestled full time and worked less than 100 matches, he really did have a lot of polish. He looked even more polished wrestling opposite M-Dogg 20. Quance had a lot of cool grappling to start, trying to get wrist control standing, taking M-Dogg down while going for armbars, and M-Dogg actually appeared to be working a funny heel gimmick where he only did disappointing highspots to get under the crowd's skin. M-Dogg hit a springboard tomahawk chop, and kept locking on chinlocks for heat instead of following through on spots (like hitting a snapmare and stopping short from kicking Quance in the back, opting for a chinlock). I was getting plenty of entertainment out of M-Dogg pulling this bullshit - man who is only known for gymnastics refusing to do gymnastics - but the crowd didn't seem to care. And then, M-Dogg stopped caring as well. They went to the finish earlier than expected, felt like they were building to something a bit longer, and the match ended with an M-Dogg shooting star press that landed 2 feet short. That finish felt like somebody shit their pants and they had to immediately go home no matter what. 

Ladder Match: Nate Webb vs. JC Bailey vs. Chris Cash

ER: This had down time, but was much closer in spirit to Crazy Crusher vs. Hell Storm, which is the only logical way to judge a ladder match. That match was focused on impossibly stiff strikes and death wish bumps with no thoughts to safe landings, and that's what this was. It wasn't as pure as that backyard indy dream, but the vibe was there. There are some UGLY bumps in this one, the kind of things that could have easily crippled someone. The grossest moment was Webb dropping Bailey with a back suplex while Bailey had a ladder hung around his neck. The way Bailey gets folded up I honestly don't know how how he didn't break his neck. That's not the first time in the match I thought Bailey broke his neck, as the finish saw him take a burning hammer off the top of a ladder, onto a ladder that was set up between chairs. That's the perfect beauty of Canadian indy backyard spirit. Webb is super talented, a flyer with a crazy ideas, someone who could have been a super successful "straight" worked, but his willingness to do crazy things without thinking too hard about them makes him even more special. I didn't love Cash here, even though he took a similarly gross bump to Bailey's ladder around neck bump, he seemed to be slower on the draw in pulling off the crazy spots. Bailey and Webb were in there to take incredibly stupid bumps onto their heads or into piles of chairs, and Cash was the guy to pick up the scraps. This wasn't a clean match and there were some longer than needed set up times, but the heart and craziness was there and that's far more important.


Necro Butcher vs. Wifebeater

ER: This was a few big gross landings with not a whole lot in between, so it's going to come down to how much you like to see Necro take punishment. I like that quite a lot, so for me there was plenty here to enjoy. The bumps are what you're here for, and there were plenty of crazy bumps. They brawl through the crowd, Necro superplexes Wifebeater off the bleachers through a table, Necro gets powerbombed off different bleachers through a couple set up chairs, Necro eats a powerbomb through the merch table while some poor guy tries fecklessly to move the VHS and DVDs off the table first (he does not, meaning Necro lands right on a ton of VHS, the table eventually gets broken, VHS tapes everywhere). The set ups to a lot of these are kind of ugly. Wifebeater has a really difficult time both lifting Necro for moves, and appears to be deadweight while being lifted. If you're generous, maybe it comes off like they're struggling to prevent a move, like Misawa sandbagging a powerbomb. It isn't that, but if you're generous you could at least make that argument. It would be a good thing for someone to cover it up on commentary. In the ring Wifebeater snacks on sour cream Pringles, shoves thumbtacks down the front of Necro's pants before hitting a fistdrop on his groin, and then a gruesome inverted atomic drop. That kind of stuff is great, but there's a lot of time in between this stuff. Sure, some of that time is spent on punches to the head, but the whole match is pretty disconnected. The finish is a real cluster, with more tacks than I've ever seen on a mat getting poured out but not really used, then a glass pane getting set up between two chairs. Lobo is guest ref and kind of commandeers things, preventing Wifebeater from using a weed whacker, then taking far too long to open up some lighter fluid and light this pane of glass. Necro has to basically stall for 30 seconds and act like he can't lift Wifebeater for a powerbomb, and they stumble a bit when the glass is finally lit, but Wifebeater finally exploding through glass is a great finish. His back covered with rivulets of blood as he walked out looked even cooler. This is the kind of match that would make a killer 3 minute highlight video, and I'm okay with that.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE SUPER DRAGON

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE EDDIE KINGSTON

Read more!

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.

Read more!

Ian Rotten Looked at the Floor and Scribbled on Gum Wrappers

Ian Rotten vs. B-Boy IWA-MS 12/19/03

JR: The conversation on twitter the past few days has been based around a few notable people (erroneously) categorizing professional wrestling as performance art. I will not bore everyone here with my thoughts on why this comparison falls short. Instead, I will describe one of the more popular performance art pieces of the last decade or so: Melati Suryodarmo’s ‘Exergie: Butter Dance’. In the piece, Suryodarmo, wearing a short black dress and high heels, attempts to move and dance in evocative ways, while perched atop a stage covered in thick blocks of butter. As she moves, she inevitably slips and falls and collapses and seems to care very little for her own physical well being. Eventually, she removes her shoes and crawls off in silence.

I mention this piece because, strangely, the opening of this Ian Rotten and B-Boy match is the first thing I’ve seen in wrestling that has even tangentially reminded me of performance art. Rotten, confident in his movement and in control of his own body, makes an uncharacteristically smooth takeover and pulls B-Boy down into an armbar. In doing so, he manages to land awkwardly upon his opponents leg, and for the briefest moment there is doubt, a sense that he lost track of where he was, like that feeling when you think there’s an extra step and you plant your foot too forcefully and your entire equilibrium is off for longer than it takes your body to register that you’re still on solid ground.

This feeling continues into the first strike exchange, after Rotten comes off the ropes, on his heels from a few forearms. When he swings back he somehow leaves his feet, collapsing onto B-Boy, forcing them both back on the ground, rolling around and desperately grabbing and looking for some minuscule advantage. Last week Phil wrote about how Rotten applies holds from unseen angles, as though he is breaking some unspoken compact within the cooperative confines of professional wrestling. Here, even as it looks clumsy and oafish, I am struck that it is a conscious decision, that he does this to create a feeling of chaos and reality, not only for the audience but for his opponent. He finds ways to get people, seasoned and talented people, to run away, to expose themselves, to move quickly and purposefully without thought. It heightens everything.

When discussing professional wrestling, an idea that comes up often is escalation. I’ve touched on it briefly in this series. In most cases, we take it to mean an increase in motion; moves that the crowd accepts as ‘more devastating’, done in quicker succession, an inevitable and unsustainable perpetual motion machine. Here we see that to some extent, as B-Boy’s kicks create momentum and space that we had not previously seen. But at the same time, Ian’s previous efforts to look wild and unfettered serve to create their own sort of awkward escalation. As he ties B-Boy up and goes for headbutts, a spot that would normally look contrived or cooperative instead looks forceful, a declaration of war.

This match, moreso than any of the others we have written about, strikes me as a one man show. Perhaps that isn’t fair to B-Boy, whom I actually think is quite good here. But he is so stoic and emotionless throughout, whereas Ian is again so vibrant and vocal. He is constantly talking and screaming and grunting and doing small things to tell the audience where and when to pay attention. He creates a fuller experience for a crowd, for he has an innate sense of when to let things breathe and when to let things crash and come to conclusion.

The finishing run of this presents another narrative wrinkle that we haven’t seen from Ian yet, and one that is immensely interesting. The consistent story throughout all of these matches is that Ian is forever moving forward. Here he does so even to his own detriment. Even as his body breaks down, as he can’t stand on his weak knee, as his headbutts do more damage to himself than to B-Boy, he presses. It only serves to expose him. It’s like watching a bull lose a bullfight.

PAS: B-Boy is a guy who has been in my life for nearly two decades now, but I have never fully developed an opinion on him. He has cool entrance music and hits really hard, but always seemed a bit formless. Like JR mentioned above, he felt like an Ian opponent here,  a replacement level stiff worker, he will hit hard, take some shots, do some stuff on the mat, but the all of the seasoning in this match was Ian's. B-Boy puts on a pretty basic leglock, and Ian turns it into figure four, B-Boy throws some solid, but leg slappy kicks, and Ian cracks him with a palm and knuckles directly on the side of the jaw. They mention that Ian was wrestling BJ Whitmer the next night and I imagine it was a similar kind of match.  The real flaw of this match is B-Boy just kind of putting on an armbar for the finish after focusing entirely on the leg. 

My parents were both avid Contract Bridge players, and I grew up in the world of high level Bridge, going to National tournaments for vacations, caddying etc. There isn't prize money in Championship Bridge so really elite players make their living from taking on clients. Often World Championship teams will be made of 4 or so of the best players in the world, and a couple of rich guys paying to be part of the team (famously the chairman of Bear Sterns was playing in a National Championship Bridge Tournament during the first days of the Financial Crisis and was unavailable as his bank collapsed). If you are going to be a client playing at the level, you have to a very good player (Bridge is a partnership game), but almost all of the real flash, brilliance and moments of grace are provided by the Pro. That is what this match felt like. B-Boy is a competent wrestler at this style, but Ian is the world class maestro making the magic. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE METH LAB BATTLARTS

Read more!

Matches from JAPW Halloween Hell 10/30/04

This show showed up on my internet, and it has a bunch of C+A guys in matches, and a opening salvo for my mini Homicide vs. Teddy Hart RIVALS C+A

H Effect (Dixie/Deranged) vs. The Solution (Havok/Papadon) - GREAT

ER: This is pretty much exactly the 7 minutes you would want out of these two teams. Solution are better than you remembered them being, like a more generous High Voltage. Havok is the slightly larger of the two and had a big fallaway slam, spinebuster, a couple big throws, but would also sell. Papadon dropped elbows and a nice kneedrop, and was also game to take Deranged's big flipping kicks. H Effect had such great energy and it's fun to watch them against a team that easily could have opted to steamroll them. Deranged really is deranged, flying to the floor with a freaking 450 legdrop while Dixie is also diving out onto a target right next to his. Dixie was so special because he was a great flyer and a great junior, but didn't skimp on things you usually don't expect from juniors. At the bell H Effect gets jumped and Dixie is immediately firing back with these great punches from his knees. Nobody pays any attention to making their punches from the knees, or elbows to the gut out of a headlock, look good. Dixie does. It makes his hot tags even better, as he comes in with his big speed but isn't just hitting weak flying forearms while pinballing between Solution, he's coming in throwing great punches. The finish is great as Deranged gets caught doing a rana off the apron to the floor, and eats a powerbomb into the ringpost, then gets tossed in the ring for a Blockbuster Doomsday Device. That's a finish and since it's Deranged of course he takes it as vertically as possible. But Dixie straight up almost died post match. The Solution bring in a chair and set it up, and give Dixie a tombstone onto the set up chair, starting with Papadon standing on top of the chair. So you had him jumping off the chair while dropping Dixie headfirst onto the chair, just looked insane and also looked like an incredibly stupid idea. Dixie never seemed like a guy to turn down a bad idea though, and it's why we love him.

PAS: I remember Havok being really fun in the Hard Hitters tag team with Monsta Mack, and he is really good here too big spinebuster and great looking diving elbows he looks like he is caving in Dixies chest, he seems like a lost big boy wrester of the 2000s. Dixie and Deranged are perfect pinballs for muscled up gym rats, the bump insanely and have some big spots, the Deranged flipping legdrop dive was great looking, and Dixie has such great execution on simple spots. The double team block buster and tombstone on the chair were both certifiable bumps. I could watch H Effect gets mauled everyday.

Low-Ki vs. CM Punk - GREAT

PAS: This was a nifty match which basically served to highlight Ki's shift from respectful martial arts Ki, to Strong Style Thug Ki. I am a big fan of heel Low-Ki and he was in full fuck you mode in this match, flipping off the crowd, constantly shit talking to Punk, and constantly breaking up Punk's momentum by thumbing him in the eye. Punk really didn't have the flexibility or athleticism to keep up with Ki in a showcase match, so something built around character work like this fits with his strengths. Ki was working really stiff as you might expect, including two super high double stomps which really pulverized Punk's toxin free liver.

ER: For two guys who I lump into the same East Coast Indy Revolution barrel, I certainly don't think of CM Punk as a Jersey All Pro guy, and wracking my brain I cannot actually think of a time I saw Punk match up with Ki. They were all wrestling the same guys during the same time period, so it had to have happened, I just don't recall seeing this match-up before in any form, before writing this entry. I was surprised that Low-Ki took so much of the match, and I wish we could have had a more interesting structure than Ki mostly dominating Punk for the first 80% before Punk just comes back full speed. I liked Punk's comeback, thought his long armed chops looked good, thought he had impressive pulling strength on an Irish whip, and he threw one of the best swinging neckbreakers. But it felt like he spent way too long getting his back and core worked over in brutal ways to come back so suddenly. Or maybe it was just that Ki looked that devastating on offense. Ki was great trash talking Punk, and making the fans clear space for him to throw Punk to the crowd, only for him to throw him to the ring, isn't something we see from Ki and I liked the Fuck You attitude as much as the expected silent warrior mode. I loved him taking apart Punk's core, dropping him on the guardrail, a really great gutbuster, a pair of double stomps with insane height (and another from the tree of woe that started with some clunkiness, which Punk recognized and totally saved it by punching back while getting put in woe), a really mean, targeted attack. Ki took Punk's stuff great (he's one of the best offense takers in wrestling history, and several guys who were JAPW regulars were also great at it) and I love him getting planted with that DDT earlier gave a nice reversal when Punk went to that DDT later. All in all it was a super fun contest, from an uncommon pairing.

Samoa Joe vs. Super Dragon - EPIC

PAS: These two guy had a pair of wars in PWG, but this war more of the touring indy version of this match. While this might not have been as epic in scope, they didn't tone down the violence even a little which makes it epic to me. The fact that Super Dragon throws such uncalled for shots really unleashes Joe's violent side. I have never seen a Muscle Buster look as spine damaging as it looked here, and he crushes SD with a death valley driver, and hits this jumping knee which looked like might have severed Dragon's head. Dragon of course unleashes nasty kicks and slaps and backhands, JAPW was and is a fed with potato chefs and these guys took it to a higher level.  I especially loved all of the leg sweeps, both guys where just flinging their legs recklessly at the ankles and knees of their respective opponents.

ER: This was really the peak of Super Dragon being king of all bump freaks. Indie wrestling was filled with tiny guys dying hot death (just look at H Effect earlier in the show) but Super Dragon was a heavyweight (still lean in 2004) that was just regularly taking moves on his neck. And if you were willing to eat a beating, this era Joe was a bad opponent for your body. I was surprised at how much this was dominated by Joe, but Dragon never felt out of it. Joe really was a beast here, that kneedrop Phil mentioned was one of the best I've seen Joe drop, and he had some absolutely devastating looking facewash kicks on the floor, plastering Dragon's head into the guardrail. Dragon had a great sell of one of them, seated in a chair, Joe lands the kick and Dragon just kind of slumps into the chair, holding his face. We build to a big dive where Dragon hits his insane tope, flipping through the ropes past the ringpost, and ends up falling on the back of his head due to the way he fell into Joe. Nasty. He hits a gorgeous springboard spinning heel kick to the back of Joe's head, and a nice double stomp/kneedrop off the top to the back of Joe's neck. But Joe is not a selfish man, and doesn't want to hog all that neck pain to himself, so he plants Dragon with a wayyyyy too snug death valley driver, and then yes, one of the nastiest muscle busters ever done. It's a shame we don't get Super Dragon the wrestler anymore, but after watching this 15 years later, it's kind of amazing we got him for as long as we did.

Homicide/B-Boy vs. Teddy Hart/Jack Evans - EPIC

PAS: This lived up to it's on paper promise. Teddy did lots of crazy flips, took a bunch of nutty bumps and clutched his knee a lot. Homicide chopped and punched people a lot and made crazy faces, Jack Evans did some wacko dives, including a moonsault to the floor bounding off of B-Boy in a fireman's carry. I loved the shooting star press version of Demolition Decapitation which the Matrats team pulled off, and Homicide just flapjacking Evans to the mat and flipping him right into a cop killer was nasty awesome stuff. Finish had some silly bullshit which JAPW would unfortunately fall victim to, the lights go out, and the Carnage Crew is in the ring (which has to be the most underwhelming, light go out guys in the history of wrestling), this is playing off of some early ROH locker room drama between Crew and Teddy, but then they have a swerve and the Crew turns on the SST and joins up with Teddy, big yawn, just end in a double DQ or something, this felt almost Russoish, and almost kept this match from EPIC status, still this is a magnetic match up and I can't wait to watch it all.

ER: I loved this. I think it's one of Hart's best performances. He absolutely dies so tragically on a few bumps that the crowd at the freaking Rahway Rec Center starts actively rooting for Teddy Hart and starts BOOING Homicide. B-Boy and Homicide came off like total assholes, and Evans/Hart have bodies that bend in ways that just shouldn't be possible. Hart and Evans get crumpled all over the ring and floor, Evans getting dumped by an Exploder, Hart getting launched into the crowd and taking out a fan and tumbling off the top to the apron and bouncing off the ring steps. It was crazy hearing the fans get so behind Teddy Hart, and Homicide/B-Boy were relentless. Evan's double stomping B-Boy and vaulting off of him into a moonsault was nuts, and that shooting star Demolition Decapitation was really breathtaking. There's no way that move should have looked that good and not seriously injured someone. It makes no sense. But a lot of stuff in this match looked like it would hurt like hell, like B-Boy's dropkick through the ropes or Evans getting folded in like 8 spots by the Cop Killah. This match also has an immaculately timed stupid spot that was timed so perfectly that it no longer looked anything like a stupid spot. Hart was setting up a shooting star press on B-Boy and as he starts it Homicide rushes in out of camera right and hits a perfect cutter. Those complicated precision timing spots usually just don't work. There are always seams. You see a guy frozen and waiting to hit his mark, because the window is so small. This was the most natural the spot could look, and really should have finished the match. We do get some match ending silliness, but I liked Homicide taunting Hart by locking on a sharpshooter, and Carnage Crew can NEVER be the most underwhelming lights go out in history because 1999 WCW gave us THE GIFT OF MIDNIGHT which will assuredly never not be the answer to that question. Hart cuts a hilariously 2004 post match promo about how Gabe Sapolsky thinks he's a piece of shit (because he did a bunch of flips or something and then pretended he had a concussion so didn't remember doing a bunch of flips) and then Devito says "Yeah but he's OUR piece of shit". This is gonna be great.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE LOW-KI

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE SUPER DRAGON

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DIXIE AND INSANE DRAGON

HOMICIDE VS. TEDDY HART RIVALS

Read more!

SEGUNDA CAIDA DECLARES IWA MID-SOUTH!! A Shot of Southern Comfort 5/29/04, Part 1

ER: IWA Mid-South is probably my favorite indy ever, and I have spindles filled with dvds of it. It seems crazy to not occasionally indulge in this product, which once ran so improbably frequently that there are tons of gaps in my viewing. Let's watch some of the best of the carniest. AND, I think - as always - the best way to watch, is by closing my eyes and pulling a dvd randomly out of the stack. That brings us to this show, which had some deliciously classic early-mid 2000s indy bloat: 13 matches over the course of the night, utilizing  32 DIFFERENT WRESTLERS!! 32!!! WWE barely uses more than 32 guys during the Royal Rumble PPV, but here's IWA bringing 32 different guys to some random Saturday night card in a smallish Indiana town. It's the best.

1. Danny Daniels vs. Eddie Edwards

ER: Oh jeez, Edwards has giant silver pants and his hair done in short braids, looking like the worst ever version of Roger from Sister, Sister. Go home, Eddie. But really this wasn't a bad opener. It was kept to 5 minutes and Edwards wasn't having 2.9 kickout wars at this point in his career. He hit a nice spinkick and took a nasty cross arm German suplex, Daniels stuck him with a nice piledriver that did not get kicked out of, surprising me. We did get a standing elbow exchange, how far we've come in 13 years.

2. Rain vs. Sumie Sakai

ER: This built to a pretty nice finish. Rain wasn't really that good here, but Sakai was a pro and kept the floor somewhat higher than it would have been. Rain was really poor at obviously getting into position for the next move, really making everything looked rehearsed, running into position early and just standing there motionless waiting to be attacked. Sakai takes a big sprawling bump through all the chairs, packs a huge wallop with two missile dropkicks, drops Rain with a nice hotshot,  hits one of those fast low-arcing moonsaults, throws fast suplexes, all nice stuff. It's awesome that she's still working the states.

3. Southern Comfort (Chris Hamrick/Tracy Smothers) vs. The Wild Cards (Eddie Kingston/Jack Marciano)

ER: Kingston and Marciano look like they're in a weird religious cult, their heads are shaved bald and they're wearing matching big baggy white pants, white boots and white sleeveless shirts. They look like the Yonkers chapter of the Guilty Remnant. The match was a pretty quick sprint, just 7 minutes, and really a showcase for Southern Comfort. Kingston wasn't really an established guy and was really young at this point,  and Marciano never really got established before getting retired. So we get a showcase for SC's offense, and that's a fun thing. Smothers is a great bully, and he breaks out all his leaping kicks, big chops and overhand rights, gets fired up and does a couple spears, makes great faces when Kingston spits in his face, stuff you'd expect from Smothers. Hamrick is a huge favorite of mine, I love his style, love his dangerous bumps and offense, love that he looks like the most violent Johnny Winter ever. Hamrick gets crazy height on offense and on bumps. At one point he does a missile dropkick that seems like he dropped in from the ceiling, and the end of the match is him hitting a Carolina jam onto Marciano...OFF of Kingston's shoulders (who was seated on the top rope). It was a gorgeous legdrop, dropping insanely in from 10 feet. In between all that he hits a couple big kicks, and takes a flying bump through the ropes to the floor FAR more dangerously/painfully than most people would have taken it. I would have liked current Kingston in there against 2004 Southern Comfort, but this was fun.

4. Nigel McGuiness/Chad Collyer vs. The Second City Saints (CM Punk/Colt Cabana)

ER: A good enough match, though nothing much of note happened. We get a lot of comedy matwork from Nigel and Colt, but it's not bad. I am not completely stone, so I can laugh at Colt rolling through back and forth to try to shake a wristlock. Nigel's Johnny Saint spots come off pretty clunky, but the stuff with them working a wristlock was engaging. Collyer had some fun stuff, had a nice combo with a knee drop followed by a quick elbow drop followed by a quick somersault senton. Late in the match he hits a cool dragon screw on Cabana. Best part of the match was Nigel rushing across the ring and just leveling Punk with an elbow to break up interference, and Punk went flying through the ropes to the floor (taking an even better floor bump than Hamrick the match before!). Punk whiffs on a shining wizard to end the match.

5. Havana Pitbulls (TJ Perkins/Ricky Reyes) vs. Brad Bradley/Ryan Boz

ER: This was pretty easily the best match of the card so far, to my surprise. Both Pitbulls looked good here, especially TJ (and has anyone dropped their 2017 stock more than Perkins? Still, 2004 Perkins is a welcome Rocky Romero replacement). I really liked the Boz/Perkins segments as Boz was kind of blocking Perkins' mat stuff which made all of it look more painful. Perkins grabbed him in a cravate and tried a snapmare, but Boz went straight down on his face. Perkins kept it locked on, eventually got the snapmare, all of it looked nasty. I also thought Perkins was throwing nice strikes against Bradley, but soon we move into Boz and Bradley cutting off the ring to work over TJ. It's all really satisfying, Boz comes off as a god sleaze and Bradley was kind of a green lummox at this point, a good combo. Reyes gets a quick pin as TJ planchas to the floor, and this certainly exceeded any expectations.

6. M-Dogg 20/Josh Prohibition vs. Homicide/B-Boy

ER: Hey, this was mostly really good, because Homicide and B-Boy were really great in 2004. And most of the match is an awesome mugging of M-Dogg who played an admirable FIP. We start with some flash from Prohibition and M-Dogg, including a pretty crazy springboard somersault senton from 20 that he almost lawndarts himself on (yet the late rotation seemed planned). The spot portion was fine but once we settled into the FIP portion it got real good. Homicide and B-Boy were lean and mean in 2004, no signs of those bellies that would pop up later, and they laced into 20. At one point the two of them were taking turns just running and striking him, Homicide would run in with an elbow, get out of the way, B-Boy would run in with a knee, get out of the way, Homicide runs in with a yakuza kick, etc. He gets facewashed, he gets beaten down, it's awesome. When Prohibition tags in we get a crazy train crash run with everyone hitting increasingly bigger spots (the move escalation was handled really nicely). We also learn that Prohibition was flat out terrible at getting into position for moves. He would stand there swaying and jerking around like Johnny Cage waiting to get his spine ripped out by Sub-Zero. He would rush into place early...and then stand there and sway while waiting for the move. We get a couple nasty headdrops at the very end, finishing on Prohibition getting planted vertically with the Cop Killa. Absolutely gross landing. I think he got legit knocked out, as even B-Boy was in the ring checking on him after, and his selling was...well, it was too good to be actual selling by Josh Prohibition. Homicide briefly checks on him, laughs and says "You're fine" and makes gang signs to the back.

7. Alex Shelley vs. Roderick Strong vs. Austin Aries vs. Petey Williams vs. Delirious vs. Nate Webb vs. Jimmy Jacobs

ER: This is an elimination match, and if you look at that list of 7 names and picked the guy you would want to see least...you know that was the guy who advanced the whole way through. Yep, we get alllll of the Petey Williams and he clearly looked like the worst guy in the match. I had completely blocked out just how much IWA Mid-South used Petey Williams in 2004, and how strongly pushed he was. It's like they used him before he was in TNA, so once he was on TNA they just pushed him as the top guy in the company. It looks completely absurd now, even moreso than it probably looked then. Because it sure doesn't look great now. And the thing is, everybody else in this match looked decent-to-great, with Petey looking outright bad. So let's not even waste time on Petey's stomach kicks that don't even attempt to look like a man kicking a stomach, or him needing to be lifted up two different times by the guy who was supposed to be taking a move from him, or his really bad athletic bumping that just makes it look like bumps don't hurt at all. No, no need to waste time on THAT. Let's focus on the good, because there was plenty of good here, namely Roderick Strong. This was a big time spotfest that Petey Williams occasionally slowed down, but there was way too much good for him to ruin all of it. Delirious takes the nastiest facebuster ever to get eliminated, we get a wild divetrain that peaks with Strong press slamming Jacobs from the ring and throwing him into everybody like Bigelow throwing Spike. Strong looks is all babyface and babyfat, but he's the most vicious guy in the match and looks great. Jacobs was super tiny and wasn't quite the crazy brawler he'd become, still doing some of the Brody shtick, and doing more indy goofus "I DDT this guy while bulldogging that guy!" stuff. But he bumps big and leans into stuff, and we all know how good he got not long after this. Aries flew into everything and came across like a big deal, and goth goofball Nate Webb works like Aerostar, if Aerostar had just taken a couple of mystery pills he found in his old vinyl pants. That's a good thing. This whole thing was mostly fun, would have made a great 6 way.


8. Petey Williams vs. BJ Whitmer


ER: There must be someone special out there, lookin' out for me. The winner of that 7 way got an immediate title shot against BJ Whitmer, and my dvd stuttered and labored and sputtered and skipped and sadly, right before Petey won the prior match, it just couldn't take any more, and jumped back to the menu screen. I tried - actually tried! - to get back to where I left off, but the dvd wouldn't even make it past the intros to the 7 way. It just wouldn't let me. I actually went back to see a Petey Williams match, and my dvd was all "Look man, just gimme your keys, alright? Look, I know, you're fine, just gimme your keys. Buddy, I know. No, I know. *wrests keys away, dvd forcibly rejects itself* I was going to watch Petey Williams win the IWA Mid-South Heavyweight title, but fate intervened. A regret understood by no one.

Read more!

JAPW 13th Anniversary Night One 12/10/10

JAPW put on two pretty big shows back to back in December, and the DVD's are out. JAPW anniversary shows tend to be good shit, so I have been looking forward to these

Devon Moore v. Jon Moxley

This kind of workrate undercard match isn't going to be the best showcase for Moxley, although I enjoyed him here. I really like the way he takes in ring bumps, very expressive, great pained facial expression. He also can be a real Ginoish sneering bastard on offense. Even in New Jersey I can't really see Devon Moore as a face so he seems like a weird opponent. Moore has some athletic offense, but the way he carries himself really makes impressive things look less impressive. I did love the bump he took on the second rope chicken wing faceplant, although I question Moxley breaking out a super version of his finisher on an opening match like this.

Nick Gage v. Rhyno

Terrible match, Rhyno was fully in cash the check mode, as this was all slow motion side headlock reversals and chinlocks. They blatantly kill some time until the Brodie Lee run in, Lee accidentally kicks Gage which sets up a sub Kelly Kelly spear by Rhyno. If this was a crazy brawl I imagine Gage would have bumped enough to make it semi entertaining, but as far as technical stuff Nick Gage is to Jack Briscoe as Nick Gage is to D.B. Cooper.

Joe Hardway v. Corvis Fear

I like Corvis Fear a bunch, he has some cool looking offense and works stiff, but Hardway is all entrance and they seemed to be on different pages a bunch in this match. I do enjoy the joie de vivre which Johnny D brings to his strip club manager gimmick, I just wish the South SIde Playaz Clube were better wrestlers.

LuFisto v. Kalamity

Surprisingly entertaining womens match, a real potato fest with both ladies cracking each other really hard in mouth and head with kicks and elbows. There was a pretty nasty exchange where both ladies are sitting on the mat kicking each other hard in the teeth. Kalamity who I have never heard of before has some really nice looking offense, including a great spinebuster. About as violent as one might imagine a drunken Comic Con fight between a horse faced girl in an anime costume and a portly goth chick would be.

Necro Butcher v. Eddie Kingston

I like both of these wrestlers a lot, I have really liked this matchup a bunch in the past, and for the most part I liked this. It did fall short of what I was hoping for though. I think part of it might have been card placement, they followed the women's match which was pull of face punching which is going to be a big part of what these guys do, and that dampened the heat a bit. When these guys are at their best they create this frantic intensity, it feels ragged and crazy and even when it isn't currently exploding it feels like it is going to explode. It was just missing here, I felt like I was watching these guys work their touring match, instead of some lunatic fist fight between a fat drunk Puerto Rican and some homeless psychopath. There was some cool shit here though, both guys take sick bumps on chairs, Necro has some of the most violent eye rakes in wrestling history and I love a match which ends on a KO punch. It is a thumbs up for sure, I just wanted more.

Brodie Lee v. Pinkie Sanchez

20 second squash leading to a pull apart with Rhyno. Pull apart sucked Rhyno was just a huge failure, I can't imagine how sucky the title match is going to be.

United States Death Machine v. Da Hit Squad

Wild JAPW tag brawls are one of my favorite things in wrestling. This was one of the lesser versions of that, but I still enjoyed the hell out of it. I didn't hate Dickinson in this as much as I normally do, I kind of enjoyed his Jersey shit talking, and both of his big spots, were big fucking spots. He does a leaping kick from the top of the bleachers down to the middle on Monsta Mack, and takes a burning hammer through a wooden door. Callihan is great in this setting as he is such a rabid dog, that he is always in someones face slapping them or spitting on them. DHS were fun too, Monsta takes a bunch of big bumps for a fat guy, and Maff has a similar kind of frothing anger to Callihan. THe match had some problems, it went too long as downtime really hurts matches like this, and this had some moments where nothing was happening, when it needs to feel like a riot the whole time. Also they clearly built the wall throw (which was an old DHS spot from Bayonne) as a huge moment. In Bayonne they could dart someone from the ring headfirst into a wall, this is a much bigger place and the spot just doesn't look good as a regular press slam throw into a wall. Still the finish was a finish and I wouldn't mind seeing this feud run back.

Jushin Liger v. Bandido Jr. v. Kenny Omega v. Azreal v. El Generico v. B-Boy

For folks that hadn't heard about this card before, that isn't a typo. Outside of the pure weirdness of Liger working rope running exchanges with Bandido Jr., this was pretty average. The BOLH matches in the past have been crazy spotfests, but this didn't have those kind of workers. I thought Omega's three cool spots were hit well, and Liger running in an shotaying everyone was a bunch of fun, but the elimination part of the match didn't have a ton else to it. I actually really liked the final Azreal v. Liger showdown. Liger is historically great at putting over random dudes and he leaned into all of Azreals stuff and made him look like a killer, before crushing him with a top rope brainbuster. Post match Liger was the best as he is so fucking amped to win the JAPW LIght Heavyweight Title, he was on his knees hugging the belt like Rocky at the end of Rocky 2.

A bit of a disappointing show, the on paper great stuff was just good, and some stuff was bad. I am hoping for more from night 2.

Read more!