2020 Ongoing MOTY List: To Infinity and Beyond vs. Bear Country

19. To Infinity and Beyond vs. Bear Country ESW 2/22/20

PAS: TIAB is my favorite heel tag team in the world, and it was fun to watch them work babyface again. Most of this match was solid tag stuff, brawl on the outside, working over of Colin Delaney, fun hot tag to Cheech, but they really kicked into gear with the finish run. I am a bit jaded on near fall tag finishing runs, but this one really had some bangers. Bear Country is still a bit iffy on little things, but they know how to do impressive big moves. There is an awesome spot where one Bear Country guy backpacks the other, and do a double cannonball just smushing Cheech. TIAB are so good at stringing things together, and they really build to a hot finish. Bear County's finisher has Boulder put Bronson on his shoulders, and then throw him on a prone opponent; the first time they try it Cheech moves out of the way, the second time Delaney hits a doomsday device, with Bronson taking a nastier bump then the one that broke Henry Godwinn's neck. That pretty much put it over the edge to MOTY list level to me.

ER: Yeah To Infinity is probably my favorite regular tag team in the world (now that Jollyville have been on hiatus), and I agree that it's fun seeing them back working babyface (though I also would have liked to see the dynamic in reverse, because they would have been incredible sniveling heels against the 600+ pound Bear Country). Bear Country are a team that should eventually get good if they keep getting ring time, as they have a lot of cool ideas but aren't very good at doing things like subtly getting into position for offense. Luckily, To Infinity are really good at things like that. I liked Delaney eating a long beating from BC, really made me excited for their eventual comeback (Cheech finally just leaping onto Bronson with a choke turned into a triangle was a smart way to stop getting squished), and the comeback to the finish was when this really got good. We got a couple of big nearfalls, my favorite being this brutal piledriver/powerslam by Boulder than slammed Delaney while smashing Cheech between Delaney and Boulder, and I was pretty shocked when Cheech kicked out of that tandem cannonball (really something that looks that much like a human wrecking ball needs to be protected, couldn't believe they didn't have Delaney break up the pin instead of Cheech kicking out). We got a couple cool uses of dives, as Delaney does a wild plancha leaping up to the top rope to take out Bronson, and later Cheech flies through with a tope on Bronson to leave Delaney free for the pin. The finish run had one of those great stretches where Cheech and Delaney hit shot after shot, in a similar pattern as other matches, but always with a couple things turned and twisted around, with the best one here being a Cheech facewash to Bronson that ended in a dropkick through the ropes to Boulder. The Doomsday Device was one of the crazier and near fatal spots of the year, Bronson dropped STRAIGHT off Boulder's shoulders on to his head, and I can't believe they continued to go through with the finish. Still, pretty impressed how Infinity clearly went as easy as possible on him while making it look as good as possible.


2020 MOTY MASTER LIST

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IWTV Worth Watching: IWTV All Stars vs. Team Beyond! Dickinson vs. Homicide!

Chris Dickinson vs. Homicide Squared Circle Project 9/21/19

ER: This got plenty of time but never really jumped up to that next gear. The parts I enjoyed the most were the opening minutes, where we got to see them trading holds, doing some grappling and doing some tiring submission work. That wasn't what I was expecting and I found myself pleasantly surprised. And so by the time they worked up to the brawling portions of the match I was less interested, and the brawling also felt sluggish in spots. All of the brawling felt very 70%, like they were going through the motions of a Homicide/Dickinson match, including throwing in stuff like a ringpost chop and multiple chairshots that felt half-done and immediately forgotten. There was some inspired stuff like Homicide tying up Dickinson in the ringside barrier tape, and these are two guys who can still throw some nice strikes. They had a couple punch exchanges that looked really good - including Homicide punching Dickinson right in the throat - or Homicide going back to the mat and Dickinson biting him in the head to get him to break a kneebar. There was also a bit of weirdness, like Homicide maybe sandbagging a powerbomb leading to Dickinson just kind of sitting back into a piledriver, or a stand and trade section towards the end where Homicide keeps doing weird stuff like rubbing his hands through Dickinson's chest hair, yanking chest hair out (which Dickinson does not react to), or rubbing Dickinson's bald head mockingly (which is a weird flex for a bald dude to pull on a bald dude). This just felt a bit too meandering without much payoff.

IWTV All Stars (Manders/Dominic Garrini/Kevin Ku/Matthew Justice/Warhorse) vs. Team Beyond (Nick Gage/Kris Statlander/Thomas Santell/Bear Bronson/Bear Boulder) Beyond Wrestling 11/28/19

ER: I love team challenge matches, and this was even more on paper exciting to me because it's elimination. On paper this had the chance to capture the vibe of a good NOAH Captain's Fall match from the mid 2000s. It has a good collection of sizes and styles, and it wouldn't have shocked me if this wound up being something special. I do think it underdelivered, had a couple minor messy moments, but far more big spots and to it's credit, felt like a big main event. There was a wild dive sequence where Ku hit a fast tope while Warhorse hit a big tope con giro, Garrini hit a freaking Asai moonsault into everyone which just upped the energy level (is there anything Garrini won't try?), and then Matt Justice reminds everyone that he's Matt Justice and leaps off a 20+ foot ladder. Boulder is a huge guy and a nice presence to have in a match like this, especially when he's hitting double cannonballs and double powerslams like he's in an arcade beat 'em up. We get a lot of stiff strikes, Ku and a Bear really going at it, Statlander hits a totally nuts 450 splash while Ku and Garrini are stacked, and Manders kept showing why he's a cool guy to have on a show. Manders squaring off against Boulder was what I wanted, and we got a great taste. Those two slammed into each other as hard as I was hoping for, and Boulder leveled him with a lariat. This was a nicely assembled group of talent, and it kept a nice pace for the duration; a long match that stayed fresh is a solid rec.

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Matches from Beyond All Hands on Deck 9/22/19

KTB vs. Erick Stevens

ER: Real nice 7 minute sprint, both guys felt like they were really pushing pace. It's like when a starting pitcher throws one inning in the All Star game, and suddenly he's added 4 MPH to his fastball because he knows he's not going to be throwing 110 pitches. This was a great showing for KTB, with Stevens taking plenty of tough bumps of his own, but really shining a light on KTB. I didn't realize this would be worked so quickly, but they started fast with hard shoulderblocks and never really slowed down. KTB had a couple of big slams but also wound up in the sand, and Stevens took zero seconds of hesitation to nail him with a great bullet tope. I'm sure the guys and gals on this show will be finding sand in their gear for the next several gigs, but I bet doing a crazy tope is made that much easier knowing that sand is there to catch you if your opponent doesn't. We even get some sand thrown in the eyes, which feels like something Finlay would have done had he worked any of the early Bash at the Beach shows. And one of the commentators makes me laugh with an Actual Good "shades of", as he drops a "Shades of Paul Orndorff vs. The Renegade from Bash at the Beach '95. I was there, you were there," to which the other commentator replies, "...I wasn't there." Loved it. KTB hits a picture perfect Asai moonsault, Stevens hits a German when KTB goes up top for another (I like when guys establish offense early, leading to openings for their opponents later when they go back to the well), and I kept digging all of KTB's running attacks. It felt like he would run into the ropes and feel like he wouldn't necessarily know what he was going to do when he hit Stevens, but in a good way. I loved the way he caught Stevens on the top rope, hit a running elbow into him, and then just shrugged him over his shoulders. Stevens' comeback was fiery, really I dug all of this.

Team Tremendous (Dan Barry/Bill Carr) vs. Bear Country (Bear Bronson/Bear Beefcake)

ER: This show appears to be full of hot sprints, and I am always going to be cool with that. This is tornado rules, so the ring was constantly filled with big dudes crashing into each other. I really like Dan Barry, he's the smallest guy here but hits harder than the others, his offense always focuses on results rather than style (look at his nice impactful dropkick through the ropes), and he's the guy who typically ties things like this together. This had a ton of fun action, with Bronson hitting a tope early and Barry following that up with a slingshot senton to the sand. We get plenty of lariats and avalanches from the real big men, Carr and Beefcake, nice big boy sentons, big ass Bossman Slam from Carr, and cool power spots like Barry getting powerbombed into Carr (with Beefcake impressively deadlifting Barry off the mat), or Bear Country setting up a tandem electric chair spot only for Barry to do a simple inside cradle and topple their bear stack. It would have been easy to see everyone getting in each other's way due to the tornado format, but they did a great job at looking reckless while nicely building things. I'm not sure why I slept so long on Team Tremendous. They have several years of stuff that I skipped past on Evolve shows (I think the whole cop thing came off too Chikara for me and I never gave it a full chance) but I have dug Barry in everything I've seen him in the past couple years. I ain't missing any more.

Chris Dickinson vs. Kenn Doane

ER: Dickinson is an established property at this point, and it's cool seeing a former WWE come in and not be treated as a holy entity because they were on TV a decade prior. So many times a former TV guy will be brought in as a special attraction on indies, and the local guy he's fighting will treat it like the fight of his life and it plays as a showcase to the former TV guy with the local guy narrowly getting a win. Now, Doane is obviously different from someone like D'Lo Brown, he's still a premier athlete and can provide something other than nostalgia, but it's cool that he would come in and work a show like this and Dickinson is the one rightly booked to look like the big deal. Doane is good at wrestling, but also doesn't seem to want to do it full time, and he's a cool opponent for Dickinson. We also get the addition of Christian Casanova and Cam Zagani running interference for Doane, so Dickinson is in there against essentially three guys and comes off even cooler for it. Doane has some nice athletic stuff, real nice dropkick and crazy vertical leap on his flying back elbow, but also throws a mean right hand, and I love his cocky athletic guy persona. If he wants it, he feels like someone who could be a major name on the indies. And it was great that he came in knowing that the best thing for him to do would be to highlight Dickinson's star. And Dickinson looked great. He hit hard and missed big, everything he did looked like he was 100% committed to wrecking Doane. But he really came off like a big deal when he was finally wrecking Doane's lackeys. Hitting a running Pazuzu bomb on Zagani to the floor is a great holy shit spot, as it's not a move that's easy to hit clean, plenty of bad landings possible. But the visual of Dickinson running across the ring with him, wearing the captains hat, tossing him to the masses, was awesome. I loved how Doane put over the finishing leg lock, really reaching desperately for the ropes, getting pulled deeper into the ring with each desperate grasp, before finally tapping. I'm curious to see more of Doane outside of Beyond, and Dickinson just looks like a star at this point.

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