Found Footage Friday: LOW KI~! PCO~! DR. DEATH~! 2 COLD~! MEAN STREET POSSE~! LONDON~! KENDRICK~! FBI~!

WWE Vault Dark Matches

Pierre Carl Ouellet vs. El Tornado(?) 7/7/03

MD: Pretty insane performance by PCO here. Not surprising but he went so far over the top that he did three things in one match probably not otherwise seen in a WWE ring in 2003: a sit out chokeslam, sit out pumphandle slam, top rope exploder. That was on top of both a flip dive to the floor and the flipping cannonball senton he won it with. He also took a gnarly face first corner bump that was not at all warranted by the guy half his size whipping him across the ring. He balanced it with a lot of energy and charisma and a connection with the crowd but it almost all felt like a rib somehow. His opponent was game and along for the ride and got pretty good heat at times but not necessarily through much that he was doing. Just having the offense against PCO here was going to be enough and he didn't capitalize on it by leaning into it in any way. I don't think I'd hire PCO off of this but I sure as hell would give him a 2003 ROH run.

ER: It's crazy how PCO ran the ropes better than every person on the current WWE roster. Not sure who El Tornado(?) is but the man had a fine backdrop and a real nice slingshot senton. It's awesome to see PCO taking bumps off the edges of aprons 20+ years ago, not so different than the Shawn Michaels casket match bump that turned him into one of the worst big match workers of the 2000s. We all know PCO now for his inhuman bumps, but I didn't remember him being so good at bumping into the buckles. Every time he went into the buckles - back first, chest first - it looked so hard. There are some spots in this that they absolutely would not have allowed a regular heavyweight to be doing. The top rope exploder was incredible, both men standing on the top with seemingly no balance issues, PCO getting legs behind it like he was just standing on the mat. Insane. The cannonball hit perfectly, but really everything he did hit perfectly. The man could have been great doing just "basic" clotheslines and slams, but instead he was out here killing himself and a game opponent whom none of us know. 

Mean Street Posse (Rodney/Pete Gas) vs. Low Ki/Vincent Goodnight 8/7/00

MD: We come in on a crazy Low Ki dive (set up well by Goodnight teasing one drawing the MSP in another direction, a set up not used nearly enough now honestly) followed by a great transition where Ki, going for another dive off the apron is knocked off by Rodney knocking Goodnight into him, landing right in Gas' clutches for a world's strongest slam. Gas looked pretty good here, honestly. Most of the rest of the match was a FIP on Ki and Rodney looked ok, but Gas was in the right place and doing the right thing with the right energy. They did a phantom tag (with a clap) as Goodnight had the ref, solid stuff, well taught. The comeback had Goodnight punching one MSP in the corner while Ki kicked the other and they weren't entirely in sync (Ki would have just kicked him all day) before they just crashed into each other and I saw the Gas Mask for the first time in years (I remembered it being more of a full reverse full nelson for some reason when here it was more of a just a lift up). There was probably a really good Ki vs Gas singles match in here somewhere.

ER: I am a big fan of the actual wrestling abilities of the Mean Street Posse, so was excited to see this turn up. Low Ki vs. Pete Gas is one of those oddball EWR pairings that surely never happened in the real world, and yet here's Gas and Rodney hanging in to catch Low Ki's Phoenix splash to the floor, Ki kicking Gas across his very large face, and Gas slamming Ki hard on the floor. Who taught Rodney how to throw his actually good worked punches? Who taught Gas to throw such aggressive low cut missed clotheslines? How many pairs of normal jeans could have been made out of Rodney's double wide legged jeans? How did Gas have such nice form on his vertical suplex? I love Gas choking out Low Ki and breaking before 5, repeatedly telling the referee he could count. What's incredible about Pete Gas and the way he says "I can count!" is that he knows exactly how to say it the way a guy who didn't actually know how to count would defensively and angrily say it. I loved Rodney's sell of Low Ki's short superkick, bumping fast after leaning in chin first. Vincent Goodnight was the only part of this match that didn't work. The guy looked like a worse version of Lenny Lane. Hundreds of guys would have made a better Low Ki partner, but what should stand out the most is how legitimately good the Mean Street Posse looked.  

Paul London/Brian Kendrick vs. FBI (Little Guido/Tony Mamaluke) 8/1/06

MD: This was a hot mess, but still pretty fun. The problem was that the crowd was totally behind the FBI, which Guido (ribs taped even) was able to play into and Spanky, maybe, just a little bit as well, but that no one else could adapt to and the match structure didn't adapt to. London and Kendrick might get a pop for a big move or double team or dive but then the crowd would turn right back on them again. Guido worked really well with both guys. At one point they did a cazadora before Kendrick looped around into a roll up but during it, Guido smacked him right in the back which is a great bit. Mamaluke looked real rough around the edges but when he actually landed, that added more than substracted. There was one missed clothesline where a foot got up somehow that looked nasty, right before London absolutely wiped out on a dive. If they had adapted and really leaned hard into Kendrick/London heeling I think this would have been over huge and could have been honestly great but they stayed the course and ran off the road.

ER: Kendrick's and London's shorts are hands down the worst gear in wrestling history. I fucking hated these enormous culottes in 2006 and they look even worse now. They look like 9 year olds wearing their father's board shorts. I don't think this match was too negatively affected by the teams sticking to their plan and mostly ignoring the fans. Sure, it probably would have been amazing if London and Kendrick came in and chose to be overt heels, but this felt like a crowd worth ignoring, one that wouldn't play along regardless of how you played to them. They were going to react to all the big spots no matter what but they also wanted to get themselves over. I don't think it was a bad crowd, but it wasn't a crowd to cater to. 

As is, I thought this was among the best Guido looked during his long WWE run. This guy was working with something to prove. He looked great against both champs but especially against Kendrick. He and Kendrick worked a lot together but this felt like they were pushing each other hard. Guido blocking Kendrick's majistral, punching him in the back during a cazadora, dropping a knee on his face, both men pushing pace. Everyone else in the match outclassed Tony Mamaluke, who was shockingly behind what I remembered him as. This man couldn't keep up with what anyone else was doing and then he somehow managed to kick Kendrick in the face on a missed clothesline. I skipped back several times and still don't know what he was doing or why he did what he did. It's like he threw he leg up as if Kendrick was supposed to roll over a knee lift with a cradle...but he was also throwing a missed clothesline so what was that leg even doing there? Guido holds Kendrick right after so Mamaluke can hit a cool standing cannonball into him, then everyone lets London splat on the floor on a dive. Nobody came close to catching that man. London's shooting star press vaulting off Kendrick's back looked incredible. 

Justin Credible vs. Kid Kash 9/18/01

 

MD: The crowd did not want to go along for this journey. Kash did small things fine, I'm talking firing back after a big spot or working out of a chinlock. He did some very impressive big things, a run up flip dive to the floor, a pretty complex leaping rana off the top. Credible was... you know, credible, not just sitting arond on the chinlock, working him in the corner, hitting his pull out powerbomb. The fans just weren't buying what they were selling though. In some ways, I think this was a pretty well put together tryout sort of match, but it just didn't click. They even had one unique spot I liked a lot where Credible kicked Kash off of him, pressing him right into the corner hard, only for Kash to fall forward with a headbutt to the crotch. That got a little bit of an "ohhh" but they were right back on their feet a moment later and couldn't really capitalize on it. Or anything else, I guess. At least Kash had the XWF to fall back on.

ER: This is the kind of content the Vault Fans are clamoring for. Justin Credible is one of those wrestlers that is impossible to have a hot take about. There have been a lot of wrestlers who we have worked to change the narrative on, but what if Justin Credible became one of those "actually you know who was really great?" wrestlers. How useless would that be? Maybe it's true. I remember him being an above average bumper and I'm sure there are some other skills he doesn't get credit for. He doesn't get credit for them, because he is someone that nobody wants to talk about. I love talking about guys like that, so let's see if I can further ruin my life by becoming a Justin Credible Truther. His weird minimal contact DDT looks really great when Kid Kash is flying fast onto his face. I also like the way he leaned out of almost all of Kid Kash's punches. One thing you want to do in someone's tryout match is lean out of all their strikes.  He was decent at catching both of Kash's swinging huracanranas and not great at catching his dive, but his scoop powerbomb out of the corner looked good and his superkick was better than I remembered. This was the first Justin Credible match we at Segunda Caida have written about in literally 18 years. Can't wait to revisit his work in my early 60s. 

 

Dr. Death Steve Williams vs. Scorpio 4/28/98

 

MD: I don't know. When this dropped, I saw a bit of "I don't see how this guy could have main evented against Austin" and maybe that would have been an issue. Asking him to do a twenty minute walk and brawl while the stooges were guest timekeepers or whateve rmight have been a problem. This, where Scorpio could create a lot of the motion and Doc could catch him midair off a slingshot with a straight punch or catch a dive and drop him into a tombstone, or just run him over worked pretty well. When he had to bump, he used his whole body, going feet overhead in a slow timbering motion that worked. Credible strikes. A long press slam that got over with the crowd, enough mannerisms to remind him he was alive at all points, a few too many swears that made it all seem just a bit more labored than it had to. I'd watch another twenty matches with this Doc in this environment up against end-run Vader or rookie Edge or Val or Faarooq or whatever.

ER: I have been so excited for this one since it got uploaded, and, yeah, it didn't fully work. I don't think it was either man's fault, but I don't know what the actual problems were. I am not someone who buys into the whole "Doc wouldn't have been able to work WWF style" because that narrative is almost always based on the fallacy that "all Doc does is dangerous suplexes". Dr. Death Williams (as Howard Finkel calls him) is not a one dimensional wrestler, and in 1997 I thought he was one of the greatest wrestlers in the world. Watch his few early '97 ECW matches and tell me his (great) match against Raven couldn't have worked with the majority of the 1998 WWF roster. His 1997 All Japan work is excellent. Watch Misawa's first Triple Crown defense after winning it back from Kobashi. Yes, Misawa takes several suplexes onto his head - it was his fetish after all - but Doc is so much more than suplexes in that match. His energy and look would have absolutely played in WWF a year later. What's so confusing, is that a lot of that energy was completely absent in this match. Maybe that last full year in AJPW really did break him down, but I'm still not so sure. Before this match, the man had just spent the previous month working long Champions Carnival matches, so it's possible his body was worn out from that. I don't know. He did look a step slower here, in a way that I never saw him look in '97, so who's to say when that started. 

It's also easy to forget (unless you go back and watch the footage) that Scorpio was not at his best in early 1998 WWF. The man's timing in singles matches was so far out of whack. I don't know why, but watch late '97/early '98 WWF Scorpio and the man was a constant timing problem. He didn't start looking like himself again until he started teaming with Terry Funk, magically regaining his old form overnight. This match was during the Funk team run, but his singles match timing still wasn't there. I don't think either man did anything specifically bad here, sometimes things just don't work. I still don't agree with the narrative that Doc wouldn't have been able to adapt to The Style. "His big suplexes wouldn't have played in WWF, they needed punch kick guys in their main events" and well the best parts of this match were every single time Doc turned it into a punch exchange. Punching Scorpio out of the air on a slingshot was easily the best spot of the match, but he had several different punches that all looked tremendous, including a staggering right while both were selling on their feet, and a series of jabs that backed Scorpio into the corner and looked like something out of Valentine/Garvin. The crowd doesn't get into any of it, until a Scorpio back suplex makes it sound like they are getting actually fired up for Scorp's comeback. But then he starts his comeback and it dies instantly down to silence. Oh well. 

Maybe this would have seemed like a good match if the crowd had reacted to any of it. It looked like a match that deserved some reaction. The press slam spot looked great, the punches all looked good, Doc catching Scorpio's moonsault press was a cool spot that wasn't being done in 1998, but even then it looked like the crowd wanted something bigger than just a front slam out of it. The reactions were not there and that killed the match good. But both men also seemed off in ways that I don't think reflect their actual abilities. Anyway, I wish I had a Dr. Death match against every member of the 1998 WWF roster for further research but yeah yeah this didn't work like it should have. 

 

Read more!

NXT UK Worth Watching: Brian Kendrick vs. A-Kid!

Brian Kendrick vs. A-Kid NXT UK 1/18 (Aired 2/27/20) (#81)

ER: I have a feeling that whenever I get all caught up on NXT UK (which will likely only happen when the program ceases to exist, giving me an actual finite endpoint), I'm going to look back on the days of Ohno and Kendrick's tours as the true salad days of the brand. I don't think that's a contentious statement, and through the first 80 episodes (and a few TakeOvers) there are several regular UK roster members that have become real favorites of mine, far more than I assumed there would be when starting this project. Ohno and Kendrick really felt like they took a lot of the UK regulars out of their comfort zones, but they also have the skills to not just make the UK guys do new styles of match, but a different kind of match really suited to their abilities. 

Kendrick and A-Kid were a cool pairing that I wouldn't have thought to ask for, but I'm glad we got. A-Kid's biggest strength is his fast matwork and quick attacks, and Kendrick is a guy who knows how to do cool things against that and with that. Their fast early exchanges were really good, starting with a hard Kendrick shoulderblock and going through some quick but snug work, A-Kid working Kendrick's arm and Kendrick always finding crafty reversals, and A-Kid surprising him with a slick armdrag and dropkick. Things really pick up when Kendrick starts working a disgusting cravat, locking his knuckles around Kid's windpipe. Kendrick is really great at keeping a thread going through a match, and great at making opponent's offense look meaningful. 

It's always tough to say what my favorite part of any given Kendrick match is, because he's so good at taking familiar spots and making them work slightly different. A great example in this match was when A-Kid grazed Kendrick on a fast tope and spilled deep into the entranceway. It was really light contact and shouldn't have been sold as offense, and Kendrick instinctively notices that. Instead of selling the tope, Kendrick sold the bump he took from the tope and sold pain in his arm and shoulder from earlier. Not many wrestlers have the ability to think on their feet like that, and it's just one thing that makes Kendrick stand above. Kid hits a nice heavy high crossbody, and Kendrick faceplants hard on Kid's La Mistica, really making it look like Kid could come away with his arm. Kendrick is probably the best rope worker on the roster, as he's so great at working submissions around ropes and making distance to the ropes part of the drama in smart ways, and his escapes and struggles to get to the ropes really validate opponent's submissions. The home stretch is hot (but the whole match was worked at this pace, so it was really more a culmination of everything), with Kendrick cruelly leaping from the floor to grab the top rope, knocking Kid crotch first on the top and then hitting a great butterfly suplex. When Kendrick locked in the Captain's Hook (my favorite submission in wrestling) right after, I thought Kid was sunk. Instead, Kid somehow works in a springboard DDT and Kendrick absolutely spikes himself on it. NXT UK improbably became my favorite weekly wrestling show, and it was never better than when Ohno and Kendrick were there.  

COMPLETE GUIDE TO NXT UK

Read more!

Got the Feeling Gulak Can't Move Without Sliding

Drew Gulak/Brian Kendrick/Tony Nese vs. Cedric Alexander/Rich Swann/TJ Perkins WWE Raw 10/17/16 - FUN

ER: Fun stuff, a real Gulak/Kendrick showcase. Cedric looked good too, but he had Kendrick and Gulak flopping and flying around for him soooo. Kendrick is a real fun ringleader of goons in this, with Nese as his musclehead goon and Gulak as his snake pit goon, letting them do the dirty work while he makes blind tags to capitalize, and every time he's in just sees him getting bumped in big ways. Gulak's fast sequences with Cedric were good, and I loved him eating that slingshot kick from TJ on the floor. Kendrick was an awesome focused Teddy Hart here, bumping early to the floor and selling a knee, cutting the ring off on Cedric only to take a big backdrop, and vulturing that Nese 450 with his choke. The match was put on in the ultimate dead zone, after a 1 minute tag match but before the big Goldberg appearance, and they somehow manage to get some good crowd reactions. Crowd popped for Swann's nice headscissors and reacted to some characters they really haven't been given tons of reasons to react to. That feels like a win.

Drew Gulak vs. John Morrison WWE Main Event 9/30/21 - FUN

ER: Here's a cool match that's never happened before and I don't think I've ever thought about before. Morrison always gets put into matches with fliers, and not nearly enough against technicians who shut down fliers. Morrison is by definition a heavyweight, but Gulak hits harder, so it's a heavyweight using cruiserweight movements to evade the heavyweight work of a cruiser. I love it. Gulak works snug wrist and armlocks while Morrison cartwheels out of the tight arm work, rolling into pins using leverage without even using his arms. Now, some of Morrison's kicks and headstands and spinning come off too slow and awkward to sustainably work in this match, but I thought Gulak did a great job staying in proper position for all of it. Morrison's slow break dancing offense doesn't always reveal where it is going to wind up, so catching it naturally while looking like you're biting at feints isn't easy, but Gulak spent years training with small fliers with grand ideas and hitchy execution of those ideas so the man has an uncanny knack of being in the right place. 

Gulak is just as great at catching the big stuff, and Morrison's big stuff is more interesting than his array of headstand kicks that barely touch his opponent. Morrison  nails a high speed tornillo tope that annihilates Gulak, and that's the kind of Morrison I love. Morrison should lean into taking freaky Low Ki bumps that most people don't have the body control to pull off, like when Gulak knocks him off the top rope and he rolls and bounces off the ropes to the mat in cool ways, or the way he willingly gets bodyslammed crazily into the ropes. Gulak capitalizing on Morrison's slow rolling is the best, turning a cradle into a nice armbar. This had the bones of a match that should have been better, and part of that is because sometimes Morrison's parkour is on, sometimes the set-up is lacking. You let he and Gulak work this match a couple more times, we'd get a great one. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DREW GULAK

Read more!

NXT UK Worth Watching: Brian Kendrick IS Brian Kendrick

Brian Kendrick vs. Travis Banks NXT UK 1/17 (Aired 1/23/20) (Ep. #76)

ER: This was one of the earliest NXT UK matches I checked out, not long after it aired. Before this I had sought out a handful of the Ohno appearances and one of Oney Lorcan's UK matches, but once Brian Kendrick worked a few UK dates the brand was officially on my radar. I don't think I'm making up history here, but the Kendrick UK matches were probably the straw that broke me down into starting all of NXT UK from the beginning in the first place. Once I saw the excellent matches Ohno and Kendrick were having with all the NXT UK guys, I got more interested in seeing how they worked with each other, and 76 episodes and three TakeOvers later here we are. Kendrick's WWE return was incredible. He worked like an absolute ace, and he and Ohno reminded me more of Finlay than anyone else on the roster in all of the best ways: ring positioning, creativity, working with a moment, logical attacks, crafting a match around a unique opponent. Every Kendrick match had a few things that expose what other wrestlers *aren't* doing, and Kendrick makes those things obvious. 

Here Kendrick worked over Banks' hand to attempt to distract him enough to hit bigger offense. We get 10 minutes of Kendrick slamming that hand into the ring steps, into the barricade, stomping on it, bending it around the ropes, kneeling on it, using it as an entry point to bigger things. He's not constantly working the hand over that 10 minuets, he just goes back to it enough that we're always thinking about it; and if we're thinking about it, then Banks is definitely thinking about it. Banks' hurt hand informed a lot of what he did and he was always mindful of it, all through the finish. Kendrick dominated once he took out that hand, so Banks offense came in bursts: a fast tope that crashed his whole body over Kendrick, big missile dropkick, and a couple Kiwi Crushers that looked like they dumped Kendrick on the back of his neck (one for a close nearfall, the other to win). 

I love the way Kendrick bumps, and thought his bumps made Banks look strong. They aren't always clean bumps, but once you see a guy who doesn't fill his matches with fast flat back bumps you realize how silly they are. Kendrick falls the way a move's momentum takes him, sometimes tumbling wildly to the floor while reaching out for ropes or ring skirt to stop him, sometimes falling on his side, always looking like the right bump for the move he just took. Kendrick's faceplant bumps are some of the greatest I've seen, whipping his face fast into the mat and holding it like he just loosened two teeth. Oh, and then during the home stretch Kendrick also showed he has the best yakuza kicks in wrestling. What a killer. The Captains Hooks has been my favorite sub in wrestling since Kendrick debuted it, and he had some nasty set-ups for it in this match, including a sick crossface with a great headlock takeover, and I liked how it kept coming back. Banks' win feels even worse in retrospect, for a variety of reasons. Brian Kendrick and Kassius Ohno were the guys who made me go and check out all of the NXT UK, but now I'm just bummed realizing that these matches were basically the last matches I would get to see from these two wrestling gods. 

This match was deservedly placed on our 2020 MOTY List in 2020, but this review is updated to reflect its place within my current NXT UK project. 

Read more!

But a Dream Like Gulak Gets Wasted, Without You

Drew Gulak/Jack Gallagher/Brian Kendrick vs. Gran Metalik/Kalisto/Lince Dorado 205 Live 6/12/18 - GREAT

ER: WWE was just giving these guys 15 minutes with no kind of feud, to just go out there and fill that time. It's incredible. We get the most Segunda Caida rudo trios team possible, and they are a great group of rudo bases for our Lucha House trio. Sending six cruiserweights out to work an unannounced 15 minute match in front of a WWE crowd feels like a bit of a prank, but they build nicely with their time and the biggest reactions come from the finishing stretch. The match is cool, with them working this as a lucha trios that veered into the rudos cutting off Kalisto from the rest of his Party, before Kalisto finally gets a fun hot tag to Metalik. It's fun seeing all of the rudos act as bases for flying, and it's a natural fit as Gulak and Dorado go way back. Dorado gets a long run of offense peaking in an assisted rope walk flip dive, but my favorite parts of the match was watching all the rudos finally halt Kalisto and make quick tags, knocking Dorado and Metalik off the apron with hard elbows, just working their "non flyer" beatdown. Kendrick comes in with a big kick, Gulak works a kneeling torture rack and shifts that into a half crab/arm lock, all cool stuff. But Kalisto hits a great jawbreaker on Gulak, Kendrick takes a tornado DDT right on his face, all building to Metalik's big missile dropkick heavy tag in. Kalisto gets a nice rana roll up on Gulak, and Gulak pays him back for almost beating him by blasting him with a lariat, the kind that gets a crowd into a match regardless of the particpants' size. Kendrick almost murders Kalisto getting him into the Captain's Hook, not sure who twisted too early, but it only makes his headlock takeover look even more dangerous. This match did not need 15 minutes, but if you're going to give some guys 15 minutes of time to fill during an already long TV taping, I can't think of three better guys than Gulak/Kendrick/Gallagher. 

Drew Gulak vs. Mansoor WWE Main Event 6/3/21 - GREAT

ER: Before I watched this, I had already seen four Gulak/Mansoor matches this year, and it's kind of crazy to look at the people who were cut or allowed to leave and then still see Gulak working as essentially the man who is working as Mansoor's personal in-ring trainer just doing his thing. The proof is in the pudding as the results have been great. Mansoor has improved as much or more than anyone on the roster in 2021. It's a testament to Gulak's powers that they can keep having matches against each other that feel completely different from their other matches, all worked around some unsaid obstacle. This was mostly grounded and over the year you can really see how good Mansoor is getting at selling holds and moving honestly into and out of holds. Working with Gulak has already elevated him above the level of performative mat guys who roll through a quick sequence that ends in a tandem kip-up. This is more about Gulak constantly catching Mansoor in a headlock and Mansoor trying to find his way out of it to a win. When Mansoor is in control you can see Gulak doing little things to direct traffic, things that Mansoor responds naturally to. 

I loved how Gulak worked like an old sensei, reversing everything Mansoor threw (grabbing a headlock off a single leg, gaining arm and wrist control after a Mansoor slap) while also keeping Mansoor's work snug (loved how when Mansoor had arm control Gulak went to cover up his face which was a sly reminder for Mansoor to plant his knee on Gulak's face). Gulak has a couple of cool takedowns off an armdrag reversal and later one where he just takes Mansoor down, traps his legs, and ties him up in a dragon sleeper. I'm going to love a match where guys refuse to break headlocks off the ropes or get tied up in messy holds that don't look as "clean" as other WWE holds. The spot of the match is Gulak blocking an armdrag and turning it into a kind of Gory special as Mansoor fights it, only for Gulak to just drop straight down into a side headlock. The pinfall trading at the end is just about as interesting as you can make that spot now, worked very seamlessly but with Gulak actually looking like someone who is trying to pin Mansoor, not just positioning himself for the next reversal. I'm not sure how long Gulak is going to be able to get away with weird subversive matwork matches on these undercards, but I am going to be in love with it as long as it happens. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DREW GULAK

Read more!

Another Year With Nothing for Brian Kendrick to Do

Brian Kendrick vs. Che Cabrera WPW 5/29/14 - GREAT

ER: This was weird, as it had some odd wrestling show/strip club emcee doing live over the crowd play by play, so when the bell rang we got "This is going to be a great match, folks. I think we're going to see a lot of technical wrestling here tonight!" in just about the most "Come on let's give this gal a hand." Not long after a woman in the crowd yells out words of support for the "Guatemalan Beast" and Cabrera replies that he's Cuban. That's a bold assumption for a woman to assume Cabrera was Guatemalan. But this match was pretty awesome, in a weird tiny room like those early Revolution Pro shows. Cabrera is a guy who has been on the SoCal indies for quite awhile, but hasn't broken through to bigger indy shows. He's stocky and powerful and a nice guy for Kendrick to play off. Kendrick looked really great here, flying into the ropes off throws, running hard chest first into the buckles, purposely ties himself up with the ref to break a waistlock, all cool stuff. His dropkicks and sliding kicks all landed hard, all of it had snap. Cabrera hit knees on a wayward moonsault, but had a couple pretty big slams down the stretch, really good match up.

Brian Kendrick vs. Seville Alvarez Santino Bros. Wrestling 5/30/14 - GREAT

ER: Unfamiliar with Seville the Thrill before this, but he's a local undersized loudmouth heel, and I will always enjoy small loudmouths in wrestling. He gets into it with the crowd the whole match, including taunting a couple of guys in the front row who are at least 3 times his size. This starts with a lot of really well done juniors wrestling, quick mat exchanges with roll throughs and kickoffs that felt almost lucha maestro style. The strikes really smack loudly in the Santino garage with nice chops from both, hard elbows from Kendrick, and two nice yakuza kicks from Alvarez. What's funny is he threw those kicks the exact same way Kendrick throws his, except those kicks weren't really as much a part of Kendrick's offense then. The body movement is exact, and it's a great looking kick. There's a great moment where Seville throws Kendrick to the floor and then has people move for a dive, then just gets out of the ring and tosses Kendrick back in. It's a spot I enjoy any time I see it, but here it's even better as the guys he made move were those giant aforementioned fans. Seville standing in the middle of two big goons and still talking trash makes me like him even more. Couple disjointed moments down the stretch, but still played out like a nice juniors stretch run, and while Seville may have been the reason for a couple of hitches, he always followed it up with something I liked (like his cocky pin straddling Kendrick while pinning his hands), and the sliced bread is academic. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE BRIAN KENDRICK 2014-NOW

Read more!

Check Out What Brian Kendrick Did on 205 Live in October

39. Brian Kendrick vs. Ashante "Thee" Adonis 205 Live 10/9

ER: This has been a 205 Live story the past couple months, with Kendrick reaching out to Adonis when he was still Tehuti Miles, before the hipster bike messenger shorts. They've had a couple other matches which Kendrick won, with the angle going that Kendrick was trying to motivate Miles/Adonis throughout the matches. It's a bit quick and short attention span for a really good master/student blowoff, but this third match is basically the student putting down his (in this case not wanted) master. It doesn't really work to that level of drama, and the only weak parts of this are when too much drama interjected itself. Adonis doing even somewhat convincing resolve sounded instead like "You're not my real dad!" high school acting, and I've seen enough Shawn Michaels agenting with long pauses before match ending superkicks to not need guys doing that voluntarily. But the match outshone the unearned drama, and Kendrick is perhaps the best person in the company (and in wrestling) to put on these gatekeeper veteran matches. 

Adonis had some nice uppercuts early and was able to overpower Kendrick a bit, but Kendrick is crafty and one of my favorite things about his matches is the ways he makes clever use of opportunities and makes match situations seem organic. He gains control after Adonis gets his foot snagged on the ring skirt, which feels like the exact kind of way Kendrick and his opponents work this kind of bad luck into a match. Kendrick makes cruiser offense hit harder than others, flinging his body with more last second impact. His Captain's Hook looked awesome, still my favorite submission in wrestling, and it always plays like such a convincing match ender. Adonis smartly rolls it into a pin to force a break (and, it looked for a moment, risk Kendrick being able to sink the choke deeper into his arm crook), and he chains offense together effectively and smartly. His high crossbody landed hard, and it was cool how he immediately picked Kendrick up to his a nice short arm DDT instead of going for a pinball and doing a shocked face upon kickout. I didn't love how Kendrick got polished off with a pair of superkicks, felt a little too I'm Sorry, I Love You and I think it could have been stronger. That said, this is a Kendrick match I'm always going to enjoy. 

PAS: This 205 Live stuff is buried so deep underground at this point that I had no idea who Ashante Adonis even was. This was from the 200th Episode of 205 Live, for context M*A*S*H had 255 episodes, this dumb show has nearly as many episodes as fucking M*A*S*H. WWE is like late 90s WCW at this point, it is hard to watch much of their main product, but they have so much of it that you have matches like this which just completely escape notice. This is Dandy vs. Dean Malenko on WCW Pro like stuff, and I am glad Eric is looking for and finding it. Kendrick is such a pro here, really the spiritual son of Fit Finlay. I loved how he pounced on the rookie getting his foot caught in the skirt and hit that vicious Russian leg sweep into the barricade. He uses his environment so well, nothing is contrived, he just sees the angles. The Captain's hook section was the highlight, Kendrick just constantly adjusts to get purchase, and it makes sense he lost soon after that. You see that in MMA sometimes when a fighter does everything he can to lock a choke and just gasses out. Adonis wasn't a huge standout, but his big stuff looked big, and he did get crazy height on the cross body. Didn't love the ACTING in the finish, but it was mostly kept to the last minute or so. 

35. Brian Kendrick vs. Isaiah Scott 205 Live 10/16 

ER: This is the first time these two have crossed paths (there was a bad Elimination match earlier this year, but Kendrick was out of that one without hardly any time spent in the ring), and it's a shame for Scott because Kendrick is the perfect opponent for him. I'm not a big Scott fan, as I get sick of the fruity embellishments he puts on so much of his offense. Some things just don't look better with a little rolling hopping tumble before them, and Kendrick brings that Finlay mindset into the match and puts an immediate stop to any of the flowery bullshit, and makes Scott's offense look more plausible than anyone else on the brand has been able to do. It's no shock that Scott's best WWE match so far was opposite Drew Gulak, but I think Kendrick makes for an even better opponent. Kendrick brings so much interesting detail to this, doing things that are completely absent from other Scott matches. 

Scott targets Kendrick's left arm a couple times early (including hopping through the ropes to tangle him up in an armbar), and Kendrick is great at calling attention to his weakened arm without making it into a hammy school play performance. His arm keeps him from doing a couple things, affects his timing by making him hesitant on certain offense, and the ways he acknowledges it are interesting without needing any bad wrestler acting. I like the way he shakes it out, and the best instance of that is when Scott hits his top rope uppercut to a seated Kendrick, and Kendrick's immediate focus is not on the uppercut to the back but the shockwaves it sends down his arm. Donovan Morgan once told me about how his arms went briefly numb after getting kicked in the back by Takayama, and Kendrick's selling reflects actual real body damage in an impressive way. Kendrick evades Scott in interesting ways, always managing to slip in yakuza kicks right under the chin, locking in engaging headscissors, and blocking Scott's offense in cool ways. I loved how Kendrick handled that rolling armbar attempt, as he immediately clasped his hands together and not just maneuvering his body to a rope break, but thinking beyond that and getting his body to the floor, then yanking Scott violently out of the ring. The storm cradle driver finish worked really well, as Kendrick made it look like he was actually trying to reverse Scott into a victory roll type pin, before Scott just dropped down on it to finish him. Kendrick has been putting in excellent work since returning, and that statement applies to his 2020 return and his return to WWE in general. 

PAS: I agree that this really minimized the more irritating parts of Scott's game. I loved the yanking of Scott to the floor, just another example of how Kendrick is viewing the entire chess board. I enjoyed all of the early mat attacks by Scott, he had a very Minoru Tanaka vibe to him, and while I don't like Minoru Tanaka against other Minoru Tanakaish dudes, Kendrick is as close to we get in US wrestling to Fujiwara or Ishikawa. I loved how Scott went for the hammerlock bodyslam but didn't fully grasp the arm. Most wrestlers would keep the arm there even if it wasn't cleanly hooked, but Kendrick rips it out, still takes the bodyslam and sells the impact of the bodyslam jamming his bad arm, so smart and so rare.

Brian Kendrick vs. Mansoor WWE 205 Live 10/23

ER: Since returning in August, Brian Kendrick has been on this great streak working as a self-imposed gatekeeper of 205 Live. He had a fun three match series with Ashante Adonis that had a great finale, then had Isaiah Scott's arguable best match of his WWE run, and now gives us this gem as a scumbag playing heel off a modern Ricky Morton. Mansoor has existed at the fringes of WWE for the past few years, putting in a genuinely memorable performance against Cesaro at Crown Jewel, then kinda kicking around NXT and 205 Live until the next Saudi show rolls around. This was probably the most standout performance of his since that Crown Jewel match. Kendrick is such a timeless bumping and relentless heel, so good that he really elevates anyone across from him. I'm not saying Mansoor hasn't had good showings before, but I don't think I've ever seen him in such a strong babyface role, and it felt like Kendrick was constantly putting him in position to succeed. 

All of the early headlock control was cool, and Mansoor had some neat armdrags around that, and Mansoor working what honestly came off like modernized Ricky Morton got me really into this. Prime Morton vs. 2020 Kendrick would be an awesome match, and Mansoor's armdrags, dropkicks, big floatover suplex, all of it felt like Ricky offense sometimes spun with a modern twist (like rolling through a couple verticals and then powering up into a falcon arrow in an awesome spot). Kendrick is so cool in this role because - while he doesn't win often - he comes off like someone not committed to finishing any one specific way. He's not a heel only trying to win with his finisher, he's someone always switching up his strategy as if he's trying more to keep opponents thinking in the ring, keep them on their toes. Brian Kendrick: Intentionally Sacrificial Gatekeeper. He's not out here looking only for Sliced Bread, he's someone who will take you down and work an arm while tying up your legs, or hitting a big butterfly suplex, or diving in with a Captains Hook choke attempt. They worked struggle into the match in cool ways, so that it never came off like a series of juniors nearfalls. Mansoor really fighting to lift Kendrick into a falcon arrow, or really fighting to block his rana into a sitout powerbomb, things like that make the moves mean something and makes them look like they aren't just part of a sequence. Kendrick is unstoppable right now, essentially filling the same role that Kassius Ohno was filling, in his own trusted way. 

PAS: I liked this a bit less then Eric did. Kendrick is unassailable at this point, he is lost in the woods a bit, but he is putting on bangers weekly on a WWE show while getting much less acclaim than say Cabana Man Dan. He found a bunch of interesting ways to work around Mansoor, who is clearly pretty green, I am not sure those cool armdrags weren't Kendrick armdragging himself.  I also loved his counters, slipping the knee in to catch Mansoor coming, slipping quickly into the Captain's Hook. Still I thought Mansoor worked this a bit too much like a guy with all the answers, cutting off Kendrick at every turn. If he tried for something he would get countered into some almost Nova like chained offense. In some ways this felt like a money mark bringing in a veteran hand to put himself over. Kendrick is a hell of veteran hand to put in that role, but I am not coming out of this wanting to buy a Mansoor 8x10.

2020 MOTY MASTER LIST

Read more!

2018 Ongoing MOTY List: 205 Live Street Fight

52. Drew Gulak/Jack Gallagher vs. Akira Tozawa/Brian Kendrick 205 Live 12/18 (Aired 12/19/18)

PAS: No idea why it took us early two years to watch this match, these are the four best 205 Live guys, and they get a long time to work a street fight.  Gulak and Gallagher look awesome coming in with their fists taped wearing suits. It takes a bit to get going, the first couple of minutes have a lot of WWE street fight spots with brooms and garbage cans, but as soon as Gulak breaks out the bungee cords it gets really great. Gulak fishooks Kendrick with the bungee cord hook which is super nasty looking, and we get a really great finish run with a bunch of cool near falls and big spots. Tozawa ends up hitting his awesome tope right into a garbage can, Gallagher locks in some cool submissions and he ends up leaving himself open to getting smashed. I really dug the battle on the top rope between Gallagher and Kendrick, a lot of times punches on the top rope look bad, but they were really cracking each other including Gallagher punching Kendrick right in the back of the head.

ER: 205 Live loved having good (or bad, I guess) 18 minute matches that could have been fire 10 minute matches. They also never quite mastered blowoff matches or big stipulation matches. Even though this would have been tighter with a shorter runtime, this is one of the best stips matches in the brand's history. It's easier to have a good long match when you send the best 4 in the division (at the time) out there and let them fill the time. Part of the long match era felt like one of those weird WWE self-serving deals where they let guys they don't care about go out and hang themselves, and crowds weren't typically too jazzed to sit through PPV main event length cruiser matches with minimal story build. The better ones found ways to get the crowd into it, and this crowd wakes up about midway and stays with it. I appreciated them starting with hard fists and cranked necks, but we're 20 years removed from ECW and I don't need Singapore cane shots to trash cans. Gulak uses the old Mick Foley trick of clonking Tozawa a few times with a live mic, and the crowds get involved just from the perfectly silly mic shots (makes you wonder why any guys go through the trouble of bumping hard on the apron and floor and taking stiff punches to the head).

We do get a mix of violence added to the sillier spots, like Kendrick suplexing Gallagher into an announcer's chair that Gulak was already seated in, or Gallagher in that same chair getting rolled into a hard Tozawa dropkick. I loved Tozawa working in his big spots on partner saves, crushing Gallagher with his senton to break up an Indian deathlock, or spinning around Gallagher with an octopus hold to get him away from Kendrick. He also gets a great reaction hitting his surprise right hand on Drew and later hitting an insane tope into a trashcan (swung by Drew). Kendrick is really great staggering around ringside taking punches, and Gulak fishhooking Kendrick with a bungee cord hook was one of the greatest things I've seen during a WWE (or anywhere, really) street fight. Gulak really looked like he was tearing at Kendrick's face (strong selling from Kendrick too) and I loved how Tozawa broke it up by jamming his hand into Gulak's mouth to let him know how a fishhook feels. This kind of bummed me out when it was over, as 2 years later we have Gulak mostly doing commentary, Kendrick disappearing for months at a time, Tozawa being a ninja who rarely wrestles, and Gallagher the only sex pest who they didn't attempt to make excuses for. Shit has changed in two years, shit has changed in two months.


2018 MOTY MASTER LIST

Read more!

WWE Velocity 1/18/03: Indy Invasion

I love this episode of Velocity, because it weirdly looked like the indy scene was doing a WWE invasion and being treated as equals. Bryan Danielson takes 70% of a match against Jamie Noble, Xavier gets long runs of offense against the much larger Chuck Palumbo, and Brian Kendrick wins in just his second televised match (without having his identity fully revealed yet). Kendrick was signed at this point, the other two obviously weren't. But all three of these matches were worked way differently than WWE typically treated guys who were working just one night. The night several of my favorite guys invaded Velocity!!


Jamie Noble vs. Bryan Danielson

ER: This was the first time this pairing happened. The two would later go on to be tag partners in New Japan the next year, then opponents in places like ROH and PWG the year after. This is Danielson's first match on WWE TV, and there weren't many people on the roster who were a more perfect match for Danielson than Noble. Danielson didn't work as anything approaching enhancement talent, he was clearly there to be Bryan Danielson. If you were watching for the first time you would have just assumed he was a guy already in WWE. He's wearing his dress whites (I remember around 2001 when he got new kickpads, and they were these big white shining things, an they would look like he was wearing snow boots) and goes right after Noble, the two of them working the same kind of match they would have worked on a 2003 indy card. This didn't feel like they were following any kind of structure, just going out and doing a bunch of cool things in 7 or so minutes (which is more time than I've seen given to almost any non-roster wrestler). It's way different from your typical WWE match from this era, as a lot of it is on the mat or worked around standing grappling. This kind of match would have played strong anywhere in current wrestler, nothing from it feels dated 17+ years later. Danielson throws a lot of kicks, to the leg, to the ribs, to the back, and the more he kicks the louder the fans react. He throws elbows (including a rolling elbow to the back of Noble's head) and really controls a ton of this match. I liked the ways Noble took over, especially his drop toehold that sent Danielson neck first into the bottom rope. They stay close nearly the entire match, as it's not based at all around taking tons of bumps. Even Nidia's interference looks good, attacking Danielson on the apron the one time Noble is away from him. Danielson's bridging German looked good (really, all of their offense looked good), and the finish was cool too: They lock up and twist out of standing go behinds, both squirming out of suplexes, until Noble hooks Danielson's arms and snaps him into a modified swinging neckbreaker. It was totally unexpected, and came off like a cool kill shot.

Chuck Palumbo vs. Xavier

ER: You know something is in the water when a big guy like Palumbo is giving a ton of openings to Xavier. Xavier kind of fell into that Mike Modest/Chris Candido size chasm. Compared to a lot of indy guys, Xavier looked big. Against Chuck Palumbo? Well, he looked bigger than Jamie Noble would have looked. This could have easily been a Palumbo showcase squash, and instead turned into a match that would have been a legendary Worldwide match. I thought this whole thing kicked ass. Palumbo overpowered Xavier to start, bullying him into the corner and getting loud reactions for his excellent right hand (always thought it was odd that Palumbo never went farther in WWE, as the way he moved in a ring always got a response). Xavier's comeback is cool, and reasonable, dropping Palumbo strike by strike, throwing a low kick to the knee, hitting a great muay thai knee once Palumbo is on a knee, and then throwing a low dropkick. We get what I assume is Palumbo wrapping things up by hitting a huge running buckle bomb and running yakuza kick, but instead we get a dynamite sequence: Palumbo goes for another powerbomb, Xavier slips over for a sunset flip attempt, Palumbo drags him through his legs and into a choke, and Xavier snaps off a rana. It was a super modern looking sequence, except it really didn't have the planned out feeling that a lot of stuff reeks of today. It was totally unexpected here, and I loved it. Xavier keeps Palumbo off balance, even gets to hit his awesome neckbreaker finisher, snapping Palumbo over his shoulder and setting up for a 450 splash. The finish is simple, with Xavier rolling through the 450, hitting an elbow smash and some punches in the corner, then getting plastered with a superkick while the ref was separating them. I was not expecting a couple of the twists this match wound up taking, as this kind of match is unheard of today (and wasn't very common then, either).

Shannon Moore vs. The Jet

ER: This was right before Brian Kendrick officially debuted, when he was doing a fun gimmick wrestling in non-descript pants and a mask, named after a local sports team. He was Diamondback in Arizona, he was awesomely the Rough Rider up in Saskatchewan, and here in New Jersey he's The Jet. The match was a really fun juniors match, with Moore working really stiff and Jet flying at him like the Energizer bunny. Moore keeps getting frustrated the more Jet fights back, even yelling "Who IS this guy?" at one point. The armdrag sequences really snap, Moore's forearms hit with a ton of force, and they manage to work a reversal heavy juniors match without it seeming entirely focused on obnoxiously rehearsed learned behavior reversals. The learned behavior stuff fits in well, like Moore whipping himself into the mat off a missed armdrag, leaving himself open for a roll up. But what really makes this match is how hard they lean into every strike, and how hard they bump into turnbuckles and into the mat. They use cool things like blocked strikes when that wasn't a super common thing in even American indies, let alone WWE TV. Seeing Jet knock down a Moore stomach kick is awesome, but seeing Moore drop Jet with a hard back suplex is awesome in a different way. Moore runs into the side of Jet's head with a hard knee, works a cravate over the top rope (which he calls back by going back to in-ring), and both guys make every single nearfall come off so damn close. Every pinfall came after something that looked like it could finish the match, even in a flash pin kind of way, but there were no wasted covers. There is just so much cool stuff packed into this match, and it never felt like either man was shrugging anything off. Both guys made each other look like stars, yet this never came off like 50-50 nonsense. Jet hits an killer short arm yakuza kick and knocked Moore for a loop with a springboard dropkick, and I'm continually impressed with how well each guy works around Irish whips and the ropes. The finish is quick and unexpected, a barely missed lariat getting caught by Jet and turned into the sliced bread. Awesome, totally breathless juniors match to cap off an all time great episode of Velocity. The night the indies were treated like they were on the same level as the big dogs.

Read more!

2020 Ongoing MOTY List: Kendrick vs. A-Kid

7. Brian Kendrick vs. A-Kid NXT UK 1/18 (Aired 2/27/20)

ER: Man NXT UK rules ever since they let Ohno and Kendrick go over there and work their specific magic on the roster. Those two are a good influence on that style, so now they need to send Gallagher over there and let the three of them just hang out. These two were a great pairing that I wouldn't have thought to ask for, but I'm glad we got. A-Kid's biggest strength is his fast matwork and quick attacks, and Kendrick is a guy who knows how to do cool things against that and with that. Their fast early exchanges were really good, starting with a hard Kendrick shoulderblock and going through some quick but snug work, A-Kid working Kendrick's arm and Kendrick always finding crafty reversals, and A-Kid surprising him with a slick armdrag and dropkick. Things really pick up when Kendrick starts working a disgusting cravat, locking his knuckles around Kid's windpipe. Kendrick is really great at keeping a thread going through a match, and great at making opponent's offense look meaningful. 

A-Kid grazed Kendrick on a fast tope and spilled deep into the entranceway, and instead of selling the tope, Kendrick sold the bump from the tope and sold pain in his arm and shoulder from earlier. Kid hits a nice heavy high crossbody, and Kendrick faceplants hard on Kid's La Mistica, really made it look like Kid could come away with his arm. Kendrick is probably the best rope worker on the roster, as he's so great at working submissions around ropes and making distance to the ropes part of the drama in smart ways, and his escapes and struggles to get to the ropes really validate opponent's submissions. The home stretch is hot (but the whole match was work this pace, so it was really a culmination of everything), with Kendrick cruelly knocking Kid crotch first on the top and getting a great butterfly suplex, then getting what I thought was actually the finish with a killer Captain's Hook (my favorite submission in wrestling). But instead we get Kid working in a springboard DDT and Kendrick absolutely spikes himself on it. Keep these legends over in the UK, they're making it my favorite weekly wrestling show.

PAS: I had no idea until Eric mentioned this match that A-Kid was in the WWE. He is a guy I mainly know for kind of fucking up an Ambition show last year and having a Meltzer rated ***** match with Zack Sabre Jr. which I will never watch. Kendrick is a guy who can do cool things with a guy with bad habits, and none of the fighting spirit stuff or weak strikes were present here. A-Kid has some big offense and Kendrick sold it great, the La Mistica was beautiful, the top rope springboard DDT looked amazing, and all of the big moments happened at the right time. Kendrick is great at adding simple nasty flourishes to his matches. The spot where he grabbed Kid's arm and drove him into the top rope throat first was killer, and I loved him grinding out the neck in the cravat too. Kendrick is pretty brilliant and I would love to see him get a run in the Gulak/Bryan stable. They need a third to combat Zayn/Nakamura/Cesaro and Kendrick makes too much sense.


2020 MOTY MASTER LIST

Read more!

WWE Big 3: Lorcan, Gallagher, Gulak 3/8-3/14/20

Brian Kendrick/Jack Gallagher/Mike Kanellis/Ariya Daivari/Tony Nese vs. Oney Lorcan/Danny Burch/Tyler Breeze/Isaiah Scott/Kushida 205 Live 3/13/20

ER: There is some weird 205 curse where none of the guys know how to lay out even the most normal gimmick match. This is a match with 10 guys ranging from Capable to Actually Great, and I have no doubt it would have been much better had they just worked a standard 5 on 5 match. Instead it is an elimination match, and 205 Live just cannot do gimmick matches. Some of the worst matches I've seen on the show have been normally cool things like No DQ matches, where the guys force themselves into a format while seemingly intentionally playing against their strengths. And this match would have at least been amusing had I gotten a graphic that said "205 Live vs. NXT: Playing Against Their Strengths". Also, you book a weird invasion elimination match, and you make the team representing 205 Live the heels? I don't get it. There's nobody in the building anyway, you aren't playing to any fans, why wouldn't the home team at least be the good guys? I would have been interested in people like Kushida and Lorcan coming in and working like invading assholes, but that would be something that would mix it up a bit, and this needed to be a dry elimination match.

I don't know what it is with most elimination matches, but we always get plenty of guys eliminated due to things they would normally never get pinned by. So obviously you know this match had a ton of roll up and small package finishes after someone took 0-1 moves. It is the way of the elimination match. Most of these guys disappear without making any kind of impression: Kendrick goes down to a late small package after being almost entirely uninvolved in the match, same thing for Tyler Breeze; Kanellis had a great showing last week, goes down to a quick roll up this week; Nese had one of his most interesting showings in awhile teaming with Kanellis last week, here he gets put down quick. There were some nice individual moments, but nothing that added up to anything close to a good match. Burch turning and hitting a headbutt on the interfering Sunil Singh looked cool, and we at least got a tiny bit of Jack Gallagher showcase. Gallagher hasn't been on TV for 3 months, returns sporting scrimshaw tattoos (I'm not really one to judge tattoos; I don't plan on getting any more beyond my Violent J left shoulder tattoo and my Shaggy 2 Dope right shoulder tattoo, but I will say that scrimshaw clipper ship ink on a pale body looks much better than a Blue Lives Matter looking ass neck tattoo), but even then his return is more of a cruel tease do to the match layout. He goes at it with Lorcan (which is actually a criminally unseen pairing, with no singles matches and only sparse interactions in a couple doofus matches like these) but it gets shut down quick with a cool Gallagher rolling elbow. Gallagher also took a great backdrop bump to the floor, but really wasn't in there long. This all felt designed to be a Kushida/Scott showcase, but I'm not really buying what those two are showcasing. This match was another example of breaking something that was already fixed nicely. Nobody came out of this match looking good.

Read more!

Matches from WWE Worlds Collide 4/14/19 & 4/17/19

ER: I didn't even notice these shows when they happened. I was in NY for Mania weekend indy events, and didn't notice WWE was just running weird little shows around the city. This was out at the Brooklyn pier, and had several on paper matches that caught my eye. Now, zero things whatsoever caught my eye on the Worlds Collide event from a few weeks ago, so I'd much rather write about these matches from a year ago. Consider these much more palatable matches, and also consider how you can watch ALL of them in the time it would take you to watch the Gargano tag and the Adam Cole main event from the most recent Worlds Collide show. It's a no brainer decision.

4/14/19

Kassius Ohno vs. Aiden English

ER: It's a shame it came to this, but this was likely Aiden English's WWE in-ring career swansong. English was a favorite of mine in 2014 NXT and beyond, but pale skin and thinning hair likely wasn't going to play on the roster, although I would have been a big fan of them making him pull double duty as the nemesis of Sami Zayn and Cesaro. The ripped, bald, evil Sami Zayn! The pale Cesaro! Two built in feuds, gone. Before this match he hadn't wrestled on TV in almost 6 months, and hadn't worked a house in almost 3 (and I wouldn't hold my breath on ever getting to see one of his house show singles matches opposite Mysterio). If this match is English heading into retirement, so be it, and I'm glad we at least got to see him go up against Ohno. I would have liked something a little more substantial, something without such a go home finish, but I liked what we got. Ohno and English slug it out, and if you hadn't known English wasn't an active wrestler at this point, you wouldn't know it. He looks in incredible cosmetic shape, and as he was always a big bumper in NXT I was very happy when Ohno shoved him off the top and English crashed rough to the floor. English has a super lean, cut physique, and I think that made Ohno's submission work look even nastier. Ohno drove a knee into English's back and bent his arms behind, English's distended ribcage playing as a character in the match. As often happens, Ohno gets cocky and gets his leg caught, gets knocked to the floor, and laid out with a English tope con giro, then English nails a swanton back in the ring. This is where I wished the match had more to it, as a couple more twists, a couple more nearfalls, would have gone a long way towards landing this match on a list. But Ohno catches him napping with a (great) front kick, then unspools English into an elbow to the back of the head, banishing Aiden to 205 Live and PPV kickoff commentary.


Luke Harper vs. Dominik Dijakovic

ER: This wasn't far off from landing on the 2019 MOTY List, with really only several stupid as hell Dijakovic pinched faces and sneers keeping it away. I probably could have lobbied to have it on the list, but there's no way I could convince Phil that a Dijakovic match is worth watching, so it would have no chance making it out of Drafts. And how odd of WWE to bring Aiden English out of mothballs to work this show, and the very next match dust off Harper as well. Before this match he had been off TV for 8 months, came back and worked this singles and the pre-show WrestleMania battle royal, and then was off TV another 6 months. It's not too shocking he asked for his release a couple months back. But this was a pretty awesome big boy battle. It did veer too far into unnecessary cruiser action for my liking, but most of the big spots they integrated added to things. Yes, it is impressive when you guys move fast and fly, but all the parts before that when you were just hitting hard clubbing forearms shoulderblocks and big boots was already awesome. I usually think Dijakovic's strikes look lousy, but here he has no problem dropping the full weight of his arm across Harper's back, and dropping big elbows to the back of Harper's neck. Dijakovic throws a couple of really great suplexes, actually throwing Harper with vertical suplexes, literally throwing him instead of holding on. But Harper makes him pay dearly by spiking him with an awesome DDT, hits a big tope, hits some kind of powerslam/driver OFF the apron to the floor (really looked like he could have dumped Dijakovic on his head, camera didn't get all of it and that's probably best for the mystique), even dumps him with a half nelson suplex. By this point they'd already done more than enough for a full match, and I didn't love that Dijakovic's comeback came after some pretty gruesome offense. No doubt a space flying tiger drop is pretty grand for a guy his size, and his moonsault lands really well (considering wrestling is filled with actual juniors who can never land their moonsault well). Finish felt a little abrupt considering the crazy degrees we had ramped up to, but Harper finishing things with a huge discus lariat at least felt like a big man heavyweight way to end it. This felt like a big match, and I like the absurdity of guys killing themselves on a small show taped during Mania festivities. I could have done without a couple things here, but also got a ton of two big guys throwing boots at each other's faces, and that's plenty cool.


Roderick Strong vs. Tyler Breeze

ER: Cool match between two guys who are good 10 minute TV match workers. Tyler Breeze feels like he makes more sense in 1995 WWF. His gimmick, look, and wrestling style would all fit in there, and make him stand out more. But until time travel is both invented and made affordable to the masses, I will be fine with Breeze working fine modern TV matches. This was almost amusingly worked as young upstart Strong really dominating the "veteran" Breeze, obviously amusing because Strong is both several years older than Breeze AND I've been watching Strong for nearly 20 years. But Strong is a good guy to control a match, and I love the mix of over shoulder backbreakers and gourdbusters he used to slow Breeze, as well as his nice knees. Breeze works matches like these as a kind of Christian-cum-Waltman, getting most of his offense by using Strong's aggression against him: catching him under the chin with an upward angle dropkick off the ropes, hitting a slick armdrag off an Argentine stretch sub, or shifting momentum on a suplex to get a close nearfall small package. Breeze stands out with strong execution on small things, things that don't really get lauded and wouldn't have stood out on a go go go show like the new HBK NXT. But I appreciate someone who can actually mix up a stand and trade section by throwing in nice kicks to the stomach, someone with nice forearms, and a nice shoulder thrust to the stomach. Breeze is really good at fighting for nearfalls, not just making them seem like a small part of a larger/sillier reversal sequence. There was a really great crucifix pin that Strong fought against, and later a big suplex that Breeze reversed by kneeing Strong in the head, then got a schoolboy when Strong attempted it again. The finish was a little dry and felt like a "well it's over now, hit your finisher" kind of finish, and didn't really fit with the match they had crafted. But overall this was really good and a pairing I'm glad we got to see.


4/17/19

Brian Kendrick vs. Tyler Bate

ER: Kendrick worked less than 20 matches last year, and I believe this was the only one I hadn't seen. And I love these unsupervised Kendrick matches, where he works shtick and stalling and little moments that won't turn up on real WWE programming. Before the match they even showed a selfie Bate took with Kendrick 6 years prior while Kendrick was there on a European tour, and while I was hoping that would lead to Kendrick absolutely punishing him in a supreme show of "never meet your heroes", I very much liked what we got instead. Kendrick would stall on lock-ups, grab a headlock (one of the few guys on the roster who really knows how to work a headlock), roll to the floor to avoid contact, and then when finally caught and backed in a corner, he eyepoked his way right out of that jam. They do some cute bullshit around eyepokes, with Bate getting him back, Bate reversing one using Three Stooges tactics, etc. Goof around Kendrick is fun as he does that stuff with hints of violence, but I would have been a bigger fan of him continuing to utilize them without the comedy, leading to a bigger moment. But Kendrick works this like a small close indy show match, playing to kids in the crowd, and multiple times trying to get a USA chant to purposely muddy the waters and make people cheer his heeling. He was really great at getting up for all of Bate's offense, even when the "big strong boy" seemed light on the lift (the tiger driver finish looked entirely Kendrick). And damn if the Captains Hook isn't one of the sickest submissions in wrestling. I didn't love how Bate broke the hold just by being in the hold for awhile and then standing up out of it, but the application and the different ways Kendrick traps guys in it is always great, and here we got the added bonus of Kendrick calling him Boy (after the Big Strong Boy chanting).

Read more!

WWE Big 3: Lorcan, Gallagher, Gulak FINAL 2019 Catch-Up

ER: This is exciting, because it is a post that signifies the successful completion of a project. Last year we set out to review every match from Lorcan, Gallagher, and Gulak, and we did. We started halfway through 2019, and I've been going back and filling in the blanks with matches I missed, and this is the last of them. It's been one of my favorite regular projects, just because I love watching these three work. I have obviously been continuing it in 2020, but so far we haven't even seen Gallagher on TV in 2020


Oney Lorcan vs. Brian Kendrick vs. Akira Tozawa vs. Ariya Daivari vs. Mike Kanellis 205 Live 5/21/19

ER: This was disjointed, bad, too long, poorly laid out, poorly agented, made none of the 5 looks any better than the other 4, and was home to everything I dislike about multiman wrestling. WWE is usually a fed that can throw together an interesting main event multiman, and this was a far shout from that. Two minutes into a 16 minutes match, all 5 participants were lying on the mat as if they had all been through a real war. I knew then that this was going to be awful. There were stretches of this match where (I believe) every single participant completely disappeared for 5 minutes at a time. After the first two minutes with everyone chaotically fighting for space in the ring, we went through 80% of the match worked as a series of singles matches, three men either lying out of the way tired or off camera selling, and the layout just flat out stunk. There was no rhythm to this, just a bad series of match vignettes with nobody really standing out. Kendrick probably came off the best of anyone, and the early part of the match with Kendrick locking in and fighting for the Captains Hook, then fighting his balance while fighting out of a Kanellis sub, before getting pushed off into a Lorcan uppercut, was probably the most interesting sequence here. Lorcan hits a flip dive, he and Daivari repeat a couple things from their singles match a month prior (which I might not have noticed had I not watched them the same day), Daivari takes a big thankless splat bump to the floor and gets his ear busted open, Kanellis hits a nice spinebuster and takes a freaking German suplex on the ring apron (in this match! Why??), but this whole thing felt like it added up to nothing and kept purposely resetting itself. The finish was a total mockery, as we had spent 15 minutes with many of these guys lying dead on the mat, and you can tell the second they all get the go home signal, as they all spring to their feet and start do-si-doing into each other's finishers. I hated it.

Drew Gulak vs. Akira Tozawa 205 Live 6/4/19

ER: Gulak had been on a one month NXT sojourn feuding with Kushida, and he made the best possible return to 205 Live by saving the crowd and myself from a show opening Noam Dar match. Gulak jumps Dar in the aisle and spends the next couple minutes beating Dar around ringside, never to be seen again on 205 Live. The match itself doesn't quite catch fire, but these two are familiar opponents and are going to do plenty of things great. The pace was a little slow, which I don't mind, but I don't think the early slow pace was really needed. I still liked how we got a story about Tozawa going for his big babyface spots, and Gulak having every one of them scouted. I really loved Tozawa inching to lock on his octopus hold, with Gulak just tearing free and throwing Tozawa off him. Gulak tosses Tozawa around a few times, with a super memorable snap strength gutwrench and a bone rattling superplex that leads right to the finish. They worked some fun bits around Gulak running away from a tope, then running away from a pescado, before getting nailed with the cannonball. Tozawa's later tope is a great highspot, and Gulak plays it really well so it looks like it blindsides him, Tozawa crashing so hard into him that Gulak flies backwards over the announce table. Tozawa sent Gulak back so fast that it looked like Gulak was sucked out of an airplane. The fans got quiet at points but did stay into Tozawa, really getting behind his last big offense run and staying and responding to his fireman's carry squat lift routine. I think they have a better match in them. They've had several singles matches that all happened on 205 Live, during that couple year stretch when I wasn't watching it, so that great match might be out there as I type this.

Oney Lorcan vs. Ariya Daivari 205 Live 6/4/19

ER: These two matched up in late April, and it's notable how much cooler they look in this match than they looked just six weeks before. Daivari was wearing a black tank top then, and here he's just in black pants with a newly shaved head and stitches and a scar on his ear; Lorcan has grown in his beard and has the great black and gold gear. I like both of these guys (I mean we have a whole feature about Lorcan) but I don't think they have a good long match against each other. They don't have natural chemistry, so even when I like what both are doing it doesn't always work within the match. Lorcan's big comebacks are the best part of the match, with his great uppercuts always playing big to crowds, he also throws Daivari with a cool northern lights and then looks to rip his head off with one of his all time best blockbusters. There is something satisfying about Daivari's simple attack, as I'd much rather see someone using swinging neckbreakers and hard lariats than what makes up the offense of most main carders, but they get just too much time to tell their story. Now, what sets them apart from others - and I think this is very important - is that they had a 100% completely different match than they had six weeks prior. True, I didn't love this match or that match, but I appreciated that the main set pieces of that prior match didn't show up in any way in the return bout. That's cool, and it's an extra step they didn't really need to take. This match had cool parts to it, of course it was going to, but it felt like it should have been more. If they had stuck with the opening minute viciousness of Lorcan, where he ripped at Daivari's fresh stitches, this could have been special. They went a different way, and I like that they're still trying for that thing that will really work.

Read more!

WWE Big 3: Lorcan, Gallagher, Gulak 2/16-2/22/20

Oney Lorcan/Danny Burch vs. Matt Riddle/Pete Dunne NXT 2/19/20

ER: This really felt like these guys' version of a spotfest lucha tag. It started with a nice Burch/Dunne mat section, Dunne stepping and kneeling on Burch's neck in a nasty deathlock, and we quickly move into a fun extended sprint of all the stuff these guys can do. Riddle and Dunne are throwing Karelin lift suplexes, Burch throws a headbutt and also punches Riddle in the mouth, both sides eat a powerbomb, both sides eat uppercuts, both sides eat knees, and it's all a lot of fun. It had a fun atmosphere for a match where the result was in no doubt whatsoever, and Lorcan/Riddle is a total dream match for me that has never been on tape. I loved all their sections together, it's really one of those super obvious match-ups that somehow hasn't used at all. I love how Lorcan flies into everything, from offense to pinfall break ups, and really my only problem with this was that Lorcan went down a little suddenly. If he had another brief comeback or held on for a couple more killer shots from Riddle, this would have jumped up much more for me. But I liked the match we got and would love to see this happen again.

PAS: This didn't do much for me. It just felt like another version of the same NXT million counters and reversals tag we have seen a million times. There were some cool moves in this, but they always have cool moves, and they never mean much. Riddle was a much more interesting wrestler as a rookie in EVOLVE then he is now, and I like Lorcan but didn't think he did much to distinguish himself here. Whole thing was worked at the same pace and you need to very the intensity a bit to make it mean anything.


Oney Lorcan/Danny Burch vs. Brian Kendrick/Ariya Daivari 205 Live 2/21/20

ER: This was one of the more surprinsgly underwhelming matches of the year. A street fight featuring two of the best wrestlers in the world, given as much time as it needed, in the main event. Lorcan and Kendrick are easily the best two guys on 205 Live now that Gulak and Gallagher aren't ever going to be on TV again, and they've matched up a criminally small amount of times for being in the same place for so long. But now they've been across from each other twice in just a few weeks, and the first match was a stinker and now the rematch was the weakest street fight in recent memory. I don't think it's because modern indy wrestling has conditioned me to expect possible death during street fights, as I don't need death for a brawl to be great. This was just dullsville for significant stretches, with perfunctory pre-bell brawling and spots laid way to far apart, and a lot of set up to get to those moments. The moments are usually impressive, but they generate reactions that seem to say "Well you finally got there, thank you." This could have been a mean, rugged no DQ match, but it seemed like everyone in the match decided it would make more sense to just act like extras from that Popeye movie. Burch filled this thing to the breaking point with goofy cartoon mannerisms and selling and facials, reaching peak "just not my night" after falling on his butt doing a kip-up, then getting booed after doing a bad Dudley Boyz "Get the tables" bit with Lorcan. It came off like someone using the Rock Bottom on a school fundraiser indy show and immediately tripping over his opponent. Kendrick's death valley driver that utilized the table looked great, just as a Daivari took a great drop toehold into a chair earlier. All the weapons that got involved were eventually used well for the big moment, but getting there felt way too silly. The home stretch made this at least land on its feet, with Kendrick and Lorcan finally really tangling up around 10 minutes in, and Lorcan hitting a big torpedo uppercut and tope con giro. But you know the match underwhelmed when one of the best moments of the match came when Lorcan and Burch tumbling to the floor, and getting immediately cheered by the cutest sounding kid, who says, "Come on guys, get up!" That kid was so earnestly cheering for these two Popeye goofballs that it just made me happy that kids love wrestling. Match still fell flat for me.

Read more!

2020 Ongoing MOTY List: Kendrick vs. Banks

2. Brian Kendrick vs. Travis Banks NXT UK 1/17 (Aired 1/23/20)

ER: Well, Brian Kendrick just went and ruined pro wrestling in the UK, because now they've seen what a small 160 lb. guy is capable of doing in a ring. How can fans see this tremendous Brian Kendrick performance, and go right back to watching short armed Billdy Joss or stumpy legged Declan Davis-Davies, without a good hard look in the mirror? Kendrick has been an absolute ace since returning to WWE, reminding me more of Finlay than anyone else on the roster, in all of the best ways: ring positioning, creativity, working with a moment, logical attacks; every Kendrick match has a few things that expose what other wrestlers *aren't* doing, and Kendrick makes those things obvious. here Kendrick punches Banks at the bell and locks on a great headlock (Kendrick is among the best headlockers in WWE) but gets shrugged off and a little overwhelmed. Sensing this as a problem, Kendrick opts to just wreck Banks' left hand for the next 10 minutes. We get 10 minutes of Kendrick slamming that hand into the ring steps, into the barricade, stomping on it, bending it around the ropes, kneeling on it, using it as an entry point to bigger things. The Captains Hooks has my favorite sub since he debuted it, a nasty crossface set up with a great headlock takeover, and I liked how it kept coming back.

Banks did more than pay service to his hurt hand, it informed a lot of what he did and he was always mindful of it, all through the finish. Kendrick dominated once he took out that hand, so Banks offense came in bursts: a great tope that crashed his whole body over Kendrick, big missile dropkick, and a couple Kiwi Crushers that looked like they dumped Kendrick on the back of his neck (one for a great nearfall, another for the win). I love the way Kendrick bumps, and thought his bumps made Banks look strong. They aren't always clean bumps, but once you see a guy who doesn't fill his matches with fast flat back bumps you realize how silly they are. Kendrick falls the way a move's momentum takes him, sometimes tumbling wildly to the floor while reaching out for ropes or ring skirt to stop him, sometimes falling on his side, always looking like the right bump for the move he just took. Kendrick's faceplant bumps are some of the greatest I've seen, whipping his face fast into the mat and holding it like he just loosened two teeth. Oh, and then during the home stretch Kendrick also showed he has the best yakuza kicks in wrestling. What a killer. I'm excited to go back and see what kind of match Ohno had with Banks last year, as this felt like Kendrick working all of Banks' best stuff into a match crafted around selling, and Banks holding up his end impressively.

PAS: I liked Banks less than Eric in this match. I thought he came off as a pretty generic Euro junior. If you are going to do kick combos, you had better waste a guy like you're Low-Ki or Tajiri, because if you don't they just look bad. Most of these WWE UK matches are one awesome guy against a guy who only got signed because of that WOS pilot a couple of years ago, and I agree that this was master class by Kendrick. He just has so many interesting little flourishes in his matches. The hand work is different than any hand work I can remember, way closer to Hotta working on Aja Kong's hand than some Marty Scurll finger break bullshit. I did like Banks' selling, and loved how Kendrick stayed focused on the injury. The adding of that hand lock to the Captain's Hook was really cool. Still, it felt like the wrong guy went over, and I would have been way more interested in the When Worlds Collide 4-Way with Kendrick in there to fill spaces with cool shit.


2020 MOTY MASTER LIST

Read more!

WWE Big 3: Lorcan, Gallagher, Gulak 1/26/20-2/8/20

4. Oney Lorcan/Danny Burch vs. The Hunt (Wild Boar/Primate) NXT UK 1/17 (Aired 1/30/20)

ER: Yes, please give me more UK tags like this, where Lorcan and Burch land across the pond and dispose of teams in under 10 minutes. The Hunt are a fun pairing for Lorcan/Burch, as they're like Fun Size Heavy Machinery (so really they are just Machinery). Wild Boar has fluffy Dog the Bounty Hunter hair and Primate seems to have no problem always running directly into danger, whether he lands a lariat or gets run into a ringpost. From what I've seen so far, Burch has been turning in his finest WWE work in 2020, and him smothering Wild Boar with a headlock while throwing great palm strikes to his head continues that trend (I even liked Tom Phillips comparing those shots to the Bride breaking our of her coffin), and this whole match was about quick tags and quick spills. Everybody is throwing chops, everyone is working like they have 7 minutes so how should we show off in 7 minutes, and it works. The tags were quick, and every new person that would tag in would immediately run wild. Primate tags in and hits big suplexes and lariats (you knew Lorcan would have to take a big twisting lariat bump in here), Lorcan flattens Primate with a big uppercut, Boar tags in and nails a cool cannonball on Lorcan only to get headbutted out of existence by Burch, Lorcan/Burch hit a big German and their double powerbomb for a nice nearfall, and Boar toothlessly worms his way into my heart by splatting to the floor with a missed frog splash, a gnarly way to leave Primate alone in the ring. And that match ending elevating DDT really felt like a fine exclamation point on the win. More of Lorcan/Burch in UK, please.

PAS: This was really fun. NXT UK is so weird, there are like a dozen guys on the WWE roster I have never even heard of, like I don't think Primate is a name I had even seen run across my Twitter timeline much less ever seen wrestle. They are kind of mini versions of the Viking Raiders, same kind of look and offense, except both guys look like they are 5'6. This is the best I have ever seen Burch look, he is usually the clear weak link of the tag team, but he provided most of the cool stuff in this match, including some really nice takedowns and the palm strikes Eric mentioned. So many of the pimped NXT tags are so long and overstuffed, it was great to watch a couple teams get in, do their business, and get out.


Oney Lorcan/Danny Burch vs. Brian Kendrick/Ariya Daivari 205 Live 2/7/20

ER: A kind of unexpected, rare miss from these four. After the video package showing what's happened among the four over the past few weeks, they built this up like a big fight, but much of this ended up feeling like a semi-genial cruiser match. The double teams felt clunky, and both teams felt like they were working a different match. Much of the match just felt off, even the timing on the reliably great Lorcan hot tag felt thrown off, guys just couldn't quite get on the same page. There were quick tags that kind of just worked to make things feel disjointed, not getting any decent length sequences from any combination of the four. Kendrick and Daivari work Burch's knee a bit (Kendrick had worked over Burch's knee the week before in much more interesting ways), but it goes nowhere; Lorcan hits a big flying uppercut as part of his hot tag, and hits a double team blockbuster, but things end in a DQ shortly after that. This is probably the most underwhelming 205 match any of these guys have been on in quite some time. On a different night I could see this leading to something special. Not tonight.


2020 MOTY MASTER LIST

Read more!

New Footage Friday: WWE MSG HandHeld 9/20/03

Full Show


MD: I was at this show. My college roommate was from the area and got me a ticket for my 22nd birthday right before I went off to grad school in England. This was the only time I ever went to MSG to see wrestling and as you can tell from the first few seconds of video, business was way down. That meant we ended with great seats, not ringside, but close. I'll be honest. Past the main event and the Taz surprise, I don't remember this card that well. While it was nice to see guys like Spanky, London, Mysterio, and Dragon in a setting like this and the main event felt special, I think, at the time, the main draw was just being in MSG to see wrestling.

Chris Benoit vs. The Big Show

PAS: This was far enough away that I am going to go ahead and try to pretend this was Quiet Storm vs. The Big Show and review it as a match instead of talking about all of that. Mark "The Shark" Shrader vs. Big Show was always a really great match up because John Walters would always move forward constantly while bouncing off of Show. This was a pretty great Nitro length match with Dingo hitting a great looking top rope shoulder block, and locking in the Josh Daniels crossface for the tap.

ER: I didn't love the layout of this one. Big Show took his offense up front, Benoit took all of his in the back, and that might be my least favorite layout in wrestling. I enjoyed all of the work, especially liked Benoit's shoulderblock off the top. But too often this had the vibe of a formula Randy Savage match, where he'd sell the whole match, hit a bodyslam and then finish with the elbow. This was better than that formula, and I liked how the tracking line skipped when Big Show hit a legdrop. Cooler version of the rumble effect WWE always tries.

MD: I don't see a lot of Benoit these days. He was perfectly serviceable chopping from underneath and the timing and explosiveness of the finishing stretch (headbutt, chokeslam reversal into a crossface) was great. The crowd was as behind him as they ever would be too, but to me, this was all about Show. He'd gotten it by this point and the way he controlled the ring, even in just a few minutes, was perfect, absolutely larger than life. This was a victim of the number of matches on the card, much shorter than it needed to be to move the needle, but they gave us a very good TV C show sort of match.

Matt Hardy/Shannon Moore vs. Spanky/Paul London

PAS: Really fun TWA vs. OMEGA tag match you could imagine seeing on Break the Barrier. It was really interesting to see how much bigger the OMEGA guys were then then London and Spanky, how even a three year difference in indy juniors meant 3 inches and 35 pounds (and I am sure London and Spanky would look like giants against the Undisputed Era). Hardy and Moore were the heels here and did a nice job cutting off the ring on Spanky after he took a big bump to the floor (his crazy bump would be topped by Shannon Moore later in the match). I thought the London hot tag was cool including a nicely set up SSP after spring off of Spanky's back. Just what you wanted from this cool matchup.

MD: This was good. I didn't like it as much as the later tag but that was more of a structural preference than anything else. You really got the sense that Hardy was glad to be in there with these guys and that Spanky and London had a lot to prove. They fit a lot into a short period of time and everything looked good with people in the right position at the right time. Again, with a card this stacked, they needed contrast and this was there to get the crowd going after their appetites had been whetted by the early burst of size, spectacle, and star-power.

ER: This is really cool, as Paul London hadn't actually made his TV debut. He had done some Velocity job work, but I bet 90+% of the crowd had no idea who he was, and the reactions for his biggest spots really showed they liked what they were seeing. I also had no memory of Brian Kendrick actually working WWE as "Spanky". What a silly name to have used for so long, and another name to add to the list of "Wait so Bryan Danielson had to be Daniel Bryan, but..." I obviously remember London & Kendrick, I had no memory of a London & Spanky WWE team. I dug this tag, felt like something that would fit in perfectly on this era Velocity. There were a couple minor timing issues and a swinging neckbreaker that looked like it didn't really swing, but the fans were reacting big to London's dropkicks and flipped out for that shooting star off Spanky's back (which is a fantastic spot), and the finish was really great. Spanky goes for a pescado and Moore dunks him right into the floor, then runs halfway around the ring in time to shove London off the top into a Twist of Fate. I thought they added in a couple of good twists, like Spanky being unable to get to his hot tag while Moore got to his, the kind of things that add different gears to a fun spot tag.

Sho Funaki vs. Nunzio

PAS: The Bloodsport version of PWFG trainee versus UWFI undercarder would be pretty cool. The WWE house show version is a pretty basic undercard juniors match. Lots of dropkicks and armdrags. Nunzio did take a big backdrop which was pretty cool, otherwise this was pretty dry.

MD: Nunzio was really great here, just excellent at working the crowd and keeping people engaged, from having the ref mimic his mannerisms pre-match to mocking Funaki. Because of that, even though you had guys down the cruiserweight chain and basically your third-string Japanese guy on the card in a time where you'd be liable just to have one or two, they never lost the fans, which is saying something because this was a crowd that was capable of tuning out in the midst of a good match.

Bashams vs. Ultimo Dragon/Jamie Noble

MD: Enjoyable southern tag, with Dragon playing face in peril and the Bashams dismantling his arm with perfect precision. Here, they did lose the fans, though it wasn't necessarily the fault of the match. It certainly wasn't Noble's fault, since he was working the apron hard and expressing real indignation in his attempts to get in there, even at his partner's expense. The Bashams had only been on TV for a few months and they didn't have Shaniqua to get them heat here (not that she would have necessarily helped). While they were sound in everything they did, it was the opposite of Nunzio. They barely acknowledged the crowd. When the boring chants started, Noble redoubled his efforts on the apron and Dragon went right into hope spots, but it didn't really work out. Noble was fiery enough that the comeback more or less worked out and the finish was effective and elaborate but the crowd just didn't want to come along for the ride of the match. Shame.

PAS: I thought this was spectacular. The Bashams were really great at making a heel beatdown interesting, and they really worked over Dragons arm in cool ways, while feeding him some nifty comebacks and hope spots. I am sort of a low voter on Ultimo, but he can really be breathtaking when he gets on a roll. Noble was really awesome in this match too, knocking out some cool quick takedowns early, being a killer house of fire, including jumping into a guillotine, and then eating that killer super spine buster for the pin. This is a show with some of the most talented wrestlers in wrestling history on it, and it takes a lot to stand out, and he really did.

ER: I'm with Phil, I thought this was great. Bashams were always a team that I was fine with but never fully got into them, always thought they didn't live up to all of the OVW hype Meltzer gave them at the time. There would be flash standout performances, but I also remember them being tied down with Tough Enough manager Linda Miles and I don't think the act worked. But everything about this tag worked for me and made me want to go back and revisit a ton of Bashams. This was easily one of the best Ultimo Dragon performances I remember seeing in WWE (a stint I thought was super disappointing overall). Dragon was the reason for me to buy WAR tapes back in the day, and at this point in my life there are probably on average at least 15 guys on any given WAR show that I would rather watch. But this was the ideal version of WWE Dragon, all his combos landed and I flat out loved the missed strikes between he and Danny Basham. Danny Basham was full of awesome missed strikes here, I don't remember him cutting so low on missed lariats and punches; he really made Ultimo duck and was throwing them super fast. Noble really did look like a much better and more interesting version of Benoit here, everything he did looked fantastic, that running low knee especially was something that I don't think any current worker does as well. But everything he did was done with such exciting speed and impact. There are plenty of guys with speed on the 2020 roster, but Noble was using his speed to make his impact look greater, not using it to work out overly complicated dance routines based around missed your opponent a bunch. Great tag that I would have loved to see get more time.

Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. Tajiri

MD: Everything hit, but I wanted a little more out of this, just given who was in there. I liked how they didn't dally in getting to the transition (which was smart and flowed, as Mysterio went up one too many times and ate a kick), but past one roll-up out of nowhere, there weren't any hope spots and and cut offs. This is the sort of match that needed a few extended comeback spots where Mysterio could get a few things in. The finishing stretch was as good as you'd expect and I liked how they protected Tajiri's kick for the post match, though it was a little weird that Mysterio would rather celebrate with the crowd than go after the guy who snuck in a cheapshot.

PAS: I thought these guys worked really well together, for a pairing you don't necessarily think about. It felt like Tajiri was trying to out Rey, Rey almost trying to one up him in slickness and speed especially at the beginning of the match. The fact he kind of pulled it off is pretty amazing. Loved how Tajiri went after the ribs, using the big kick as a cutoff spot, and then peppering in little body shots and additional kicks. Great stuff which really makes me want to track down all of their other matches against each other.

Charlie Haas vs. Billy Kidman

MD: I haven't seen either of these guys in a long time. There were some things I really liked: Haas' initial intensity with the mat wrestling (though it didn't last long enough; the way he jammed Kidman's outside-in shoulder to set up the posting and the heat, then how Kidman had to work to get that shoulder for a hope spot later; the back-work in general which was intense, and the comeback took effort and the finish was solid. They had the crowd early, probably due to Haas getting promo time, and lost them midway through, but not for long. I outright laughed when Haas tried to power bomb Kidman, because I didn't think that was still happening in 2003. So I liked the brunt of the storytelling here. Some of the spots were awkward and Kidman's offense in the stretch wasn't great but you couldn't have wanted much more from a cold house show match between these two.

Eddie Guerrero vs. John Cena vs. Rhyno

MD: As triple threats go, I thought this was pretty good. They kept the laying-on-the-outside to a minimum. Cena was definitely full of star power and willing to throw himself into everything. Eddy had this way of creating chaos so effortlessly and then taking advantage of it. You should have been able to see the strings but you never did.

PAS: Three ways are far from my favorite kind of match, but you put two of the most charismatic wrestlers of all time along with a fine utility man like Rhino, you are going to get something really worth watching. I just love watching Eddie move, even in a minor key house show match like this he just exudes something. It is like watching Prince or Richard Pryor, really that kind of kinetic star power was supremely rare. Cena has it in smaller doses, but this was before Cena was Cena really. I did like his squat press suplex, and he didn't look out of his depth in there with Eddie. Rhino was shaped like a cardboard box, and I always enjoyed him bouncing around like a Box Troll.

Brock Lesnar vs. The Undertaker

MD: It's hard to ignore the complaining from the fans. All of the heat here was ultimately on Vince, and yes, the match did come alive in that back third when he was involved. Before that, though it was more of a traditional WWF cage match, lacking hate, lacking blood, not nearly enough violence, with a lot of transitions and spots based around trying to escape the cage, peppered with good use of the cage to do things their size wouldn't usually allow and a few bits of matwork that you know Taker was excited to be able to work with Brock. Vince brought so much energy and excitement relative to the actual wrestlers, which is weird to think considering how the entire world seems to buzz when Brock is in a ring now.

PAS: These guys had an all time great Hell in the Cell match around this time. This wasn't that, but these guys do match up really well. Brock is such a freak athlete and even on simple bumps is just flying around the ring. They also laid in their shots which is really what you want from Matt is right about the match really picking up when Vince comes in. Vince can really emote to the last row, and takes some big bumps for an old man with a lot of money. I really loved his post match celebration only to get ripped by Taker. Fun stuff, although it really could have used the plasma which livened up the Hell in the Cell.

Read more!