RIP Badboy Hido

One of the ultimate marrying up guys in professional wrestling, a scuzzy Juggalo garbage wrestler who somehow ended up wedded to Megumi Kudo. While not at the level of his wife, he had a cool career of his own, scraping the bottom of the Japanese indy world along with having some cool turn of the century US Indy matches. 

Badboy Hido vs. Bull Pain IWA-MS 6/1/01

PAS: This was one of the best US death matches of the 2000s, a barbed wire baseball bat match in first round of the 2001 IWA KOTDM , Pain is a masterful brawler, so good at making the little things look great, punches, spinning headbutt to the nuts, nasty stomps to the head. He also maybe the best baseball bat worker in wrestling history, he really makes it look like he is smashing someone with a baseball bat without breaking bones. Hido was right there with the brawling and bleeding, and they broke out some very cool spots using chairs and the barbedwire baseball bat. I loved Hido wrapping a chair around Bull's head and braining him with a chair shot, and the tope rope splash onto the barbedwire bat was nasty. Finish was really cool as Hido throws a chair in the air and drives it right into Bull's face with a lariat. Great creative plunder fight and a fun fist fight between two tough fuckers. 

Badboy Hido vs. Necro Butcher IWA-MS 7/7/01

PAS: Hido comes to the ring with Madman Pondo and a midget as a Juggalo heel faction. The start of this match was unexpected to say the least, as they work the first 5 minutes or so like a Jack Brisco match around a shoulder block exchanges and a knuckle lock. It of course eventually spills to the floor and gets grody, with some sick looking Necro flip bumps into chairs (including wiping out a fan). Hido is in beatdown mode for a while, and no one takes a bigger beating then Necro Butcher. The wildness keeps ramping up and Necro gets a bunch of lighttubes stuck in his shirt and smashed with a chair, and ends the match by lighting his leg on fire and landing a top rope legdrop. Hido looked great going toe to toe with big shots with Necro and is willing to be completely nuts, great little mini IWA run, I need to find his Cash Flo singles. 

Badboy Hido vs. Shadow WX BJW 4/28/02

PAS: Totally wild match which reads a bit like a shoot angle. Hido is really unprofessionally smashing refs with unpulled kendo stick shots, mauling a woman at ringside with a broken lighttube, getting into what looked like a fist fight with WX. More of a weird angle then a match, but it really delivered the rampaging on the edge violence. Felt like a Japanese version of the IWA-MS Tracey Smothers riot, which is about as a high a compliment as I can give a thing

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RIP Mitch Ryder

PAS: I used to buy XCW-Midwest DVDs from Mitch Ryder in the early days of Segunda Caida. We reviewed a ton of them and it sort of established SC as the kind of place that would review a dozen XCW-Midwest shows. Ryder was a breath of fresh air in the "do a bunch of stuff" era of indy wrestling and was always good for some bumping, bleeding, and brawling.


Mitch Ryder/Todd Morton/Tarek the Great/Bull Pain vs. Ian Rotten/Mark Wolf/Tracy Smothers/Sabu IWA-MS 10/20/01

PAS: Overbooked as it gets, but totally awesome. We probably didn't need a surprise partner (although Sabu is always great in that role), a Tarek the Great face turn AND a Tracy Smothers heel turn all in one match. The Tarek turn added nothing to the match and could have been scrapped. Still everything else was great, Pain cracking Ian in the jaw with a baseball bat, Todd Morton doing two crazy cage dives (including walking the side of the cage), Sabu taking a bump off the side of the cage to the floor, and tons of blood. Ryder was mostly on the outside of the cage running interference, throwing Wolf into chairs, brawling wildly with Smothers, punching Ian in his bloody head. Finish was some classic IWA White WorldStarism. Tracy puts on the ref shirt to count Bull down, only to jump Ian, then the Bad Motherfuckers beat Ian down while the fans throw things. Corporal Robinson tries to make the save by walking the rafters to the top of the cage, Ian's wife Patti tries to hit Tracy with a stick. Total Fentanyl clinic riot which is one of the best things about IWA.

JR: When I was in college I had to take an acting class as a general requirement. I was not a strong actor but I remember I did one scene with a partner and our thought process was “if we just cause chaos the entire time, it will cover up our distinct lack of talent”. It worked well enough.

I thought about that while watching this. As a wrestling writer, I’m someone who is constantly trying to identify narrative. I legitimately can’t do that here. There is a story and it’s established well, but I think to mention it or try and define it would in some ways take away from the sheer spectacle that unfolds. Every single person in this is insane. Sabu shows up early and spends almost all of his time bumping from the cage to the floor. Tarek turns face, the sniveling henchman finally growing a spine and standing up to the abusive Bull Pain and paying the price. Pain holds court, despicable and massive from the first moment, at once the center of everything and completely separate from it all.

Almost everyone is wonderful here. Smothers gets to work his greatest hits throughout, working as a fiery babyface and then turning mid match and working as a heat magnet for the rest, trying to start a riot every step of the way. Every single person takes a bump that they absolutely regretted moments after it happened. Todd Morton did two cage dives!

Of course, we watched this in tribute to Mitch Ryder. I wouldn’t exactly call this a showcase for Ryder, but his makes the most of his moments. In some ways, it’s a good microcosm of his career as a whole: while others will certainly have more words devoted to them, more camera time thrust upon them, in the moments that Ryder was the focal point, he stood out. The door of the cage was slammed on his back and he stooged and pranced like Rick Rude after an atomic drop. In the chaos on the outside, he flung himself around. Chairs and tables and fans scattered around him. He talked trash into the camera, filling the frame with his insane, sweaty face. In short, he was a wrestler. He did everything he was supposed to do and he did it well.

ER: When somebody seeks out an "IWA Mid-South" match, this is the kind of match they have in mind. This was undistilled IWA, the kind of grimy bloody violence you want to see, and the kind of match that's impossible to pick a favorite performance. Mitch Ryder's team come out to Eruption like they are zit faced teenagers, and jump Ian's team the second they come out from the back. And from there we got a perfectly messy terror of stiff punches, crazy bumps, and high emotion. Todd Morton was a real loon, doing TWO cage dives, and it's actually amazing how quickly and easily the shortest guy in the match can scramble up to the top of a cage. Morton hits a pinpoint accurate elbowdrop off the rafters ABOVE the cage, and later hits a frog splash on Ian off the top of the cage while fully protecting Ian. Sabu runs into the chaos and every time he pops into frame he is taking a way too dangerous bump, like falling out the cage door onto his head or getting kicked off nearly the top of the cage all the way to the floor. Tracy Smothers was a big Tasmanian Devil, and two different times I had to check and make sure the tape wasn't on 2x speed. tracy was throwing impossible to block punches, the kind of punches that look much more like the punches someone would throw in a parking lot fight. He was beating people around ringside, throwing Ryder meanly into a table and big cooler, and on his way out he clearly hit a fan. Ian bled about 5 seconds into this and didn't stop, then took constant offense from 4-5 guys for the duration of the match. Ryder was the real heel personality throughout this, taking stooging bumps, yelling at the camera, getting tossed into the crowd, running interference to kick guys off the cage as they were trying to get in, orchestrating Ian getting his arm slammed in the door, and that's all important. He wasn't doing the flashy stuff in the match, but he was constantly the guy doing the important stuff to bridge the violence, to kill time with charisma until a big spot from Morton or Sabu. Glue guys are underrated and important parts of big bloody cage matches, and they don't come more underrated than Ryder.


Mitch Ryder vs. Ian Rotten IWA-MS 11/22/01

PAS: This was an old fashioned walking tall babyface match with Ian putting up half of IWA-MS against Mitch Ryder's hair. It was a fans lumberjack match and Ian is seconded by Sherri Martel. Ian Bill Watts himself all over Ryder who bumps and bleeds the way you need to in this match. Ian adds disgusting headbutts to the big punches you would normally see in this type of match, and both guys get soaked by the end. Ryder is great at finding little moments to take over control while mostly giving the fans what they want to see by bumping around. The finish felt kind of blown by the ref, which is my only beef. Finish has the BMFs and CM Punk stop the haircutting, beat up Sherri and shave Ian's head. Keeping this feud going, I am not sure about bailing on stips like this, but the BMF's are always great to watch beat people down.

JR: So the stipulation here is that if Ian loses, Ryder gets 50% of IWA-MS. Does that mean they would then book by a two person committee? I’m really interested in how this would’ve worked.

Am I alone in thinking there is something about Mitch Ryder’s face, especially when it is masked by blood, that is similar in some way to James Van Der Beek? I’m not saying Ryder looks like him per say, I’m just saying that a drunken Ryder probably at one point claimed he looked like him. Anyway, it adds to the whole effect of scumbag heartbreaker.

This match is ludicrous. Ian selects fans to be the lumberjacks, four of whom were obviously pre selected and one was a spur of the moment call because Fanin and Prazak thought it would be funny and yelled loud enough for Ian to hear them. They essentially serve no purpose after some initial lip service that Ryder is trying desperately to escape. In some ways, the early portion of this is similar to what Phil and I wrote about with Methlab BattlArts, but with Ian cast in the role of conquering babyface. Ryder is good at helping Ian project that same sense of foreboding and dread, as though a match with Rotten is always moments away from slipping completely out of control.

Ryder does well enough while on top. A match can go far on simple things when the participants know how to work the margins. Ian is great at bleeding. That may sound silly but it always looks both grotesque and sympathetic. Ryder understands where he needs to be at all times, working the cut, using the sleeper enough times where a finish would be credible but the predictable escape is warranted. While the finish here is obviously a mistake, the work before is hearty enough to still be enjoyable.

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New Footage Friday: ARKANGEL DE LA MUERTE!!! MR. NIEBLA!! TEXAS HANGMEN!! RODDY PIPER!! ADRIAN ADONIS!!

Roddy Piper/Tim Brooks vs. Adrian Adonis/Ron Starr PNW 3/31/79

MD: About ten years ago, I went back and watched all of 79-82 Portland and there are very few pro wrestling pastimes more fulfilling. This wasn't part of that collection and I think it's because it was part of the syndicated show as opposed to the live (or delayed) Saturday night one. It seems like every other match we're watching these days is "before its time," but the shine here absolutely was. Starr and Adonis basically pinballed themselves around the ring in interesting and coordinated ways to land upon Brooks' leg. Meanwhile, on the apron, Piper showed ass by bumping himself in reaction or because he tried too hard to reach for a tag. The structure was interesting here. It was absolutely heel in peril, by definition, but it didn't wear out its welcome. Part of that was because Piper never made it in, so it wasn't the babyfaces dominating both heels, which is something you never see. Right when Piper did make it in, he launched a few "karate" cheapshots and the heels took over, controlling the ring, distracting the ref, etc. They had a double clothesline behind the ref's back lead to the heel's first fall win but a dodged one led to the finish and that's the kind of callback that always works for me. So yeah, it's cliche, but this was before its time, but then a lot of things in Portland were, tag wrestling especially. If nothing else, this is worth seeing for babyface Adonis.

ER: I really love the Portland wrestling scene of the 70s and 80s, and I wish that kind of thing were sustainable today. The crowds were always really great from the footage we have, and this kind of match seems so unique to PNW. Loved Piper's extended bagpipes squawking, and it's wild to go from minutes of bagpipe practice to minutes of Tim Brooks' knee getting ripped apart. Brooks is a guy who shows up in a lot of territories and is immediately the worst guy in the territory, but I really dug the Piper/Brooks team and thought Brooks was a great addition to the match. He had this great veteran taunting rope running to before the bell, hitting the ropes too close to Adonis and Starr under the guise of warming up. Adonis and Starr had some real heavy leg work on him, both of them flying high and landing on Brook's leg. Starr even comes off the top rope onto it! Babyface Adonis is a real treat, with his feathered hair and 100 lb. lighter frame. You can see his potential for being a chubby boy, but here we get him looking like the lead singer of Grim Reaper and it rules. Piper has become one of my absolute favorite wrestlers over the past 5 years or so, someone that was hiding in plain sight for so long. His style is so great and I can't believe he wasn't recognized as a greater in-ring guy, as he's really someone with a super extended period as an excellent worker. His Portland work has such a manic energy to it, always infectious. This got a lot of time and at the end of it I wasn't left feeling that the guys had done a ton of "big" stuff, but they all knew how to nail small moments that the match just kept sustaining.

PAS: I was shocked at what a great babyface team Adonis and Starr were, for a pair of guys who rarely worked babyface and didn't seem to have a long run together, they had a bunch of smooth double teams and great shtick. I loved all of the early leg work including some great fast takedowns from both guys, and a lot of leapfroggy drops on Brooks' knee. The Russian legsweep/superfly splash combo they used to win the second fall was dope, as was all of the taunting of Piper. The in ring breakdown of heels in the match was about 80/20 in favor of Brooks, which is suboptimal. Piper is really fun getting aggravated on the apron though. Any new Piper footage is a mitzvah and this had some really nifty moments from him.

Texas Hangmen vs. Carlos Colon/TNT WWC 11/3/90

PAS: Standard southern tag match, with the added addition of a wild start and finish. I loved Puerto Rican baseball stadium brawling, and the Hangmen jump the faces in the infield and they go after each other. We even get TNT smashing a Hangman's head into home plate. The in-ring stuff was solid, including Colon getting opened up. TNT is a fun hot tag too, love his spinning kicks. Finish goes back to the dugout with El Profe running to the locker room to grab bullropes and the locker room emptying. We could have cut five or so minutes in the middle, but otherwise this was good stuff.

ER: I'm always going to love the atmosphere of a big Puerto Rico baseball stadium brawl. I'm happy with 20 minutes of punch and kick as long as you have those great visuals of rowdy people in a bleacher, people standing up from their folding chairs on the infield, you get scenes of Ferris wheels and carnival rides out past the outfield, and it's just the best wrestling vibe. The first 12 minutes of this match are just TNT and Colon beating the Hangmen pillar to post, just the Hangmen stumbling around the stadium and ring getting punched into position. TNT has a bunch of spinkick variations, a big heavy swinging leg that he uses a bunch in control and during a late match comeback, his big leaping kick, big savate kicks and superkicks, punches with dramatically long follow through, and the Hangmen served as great punching and kicking bags. Colon is a ball of energy that is impossible to root against, too easy to feed off the crowd's reactions to him. Every time he or even TNT got any kind of a strike against the Hangmen, the crowd exploded. Colon is an animated puncher, a violent take on the classic dancing babyface, someone with a good foot shuffle and leapfrog to lead to a big coconut crush headbutt, and the fans losing it for all of his movements makes it so much better. Colon gets busted open, the Hangmen (Bull Pain among them) are good kick punchers themselves, and the match gets even more electric when they roll back out to the infield. Castillo and Los Medics running in front the outfield to break up Profe's bullrope choking was a spectacular wrestling moment, we get a great pull apart with the locker room, all of it is pro wrestling eye candy.

MD: I thought this had a great atmosphere, with the stadium crowd being up for almost everything, and bookended by the wild brawling out of the ring. Right from the start, we have Colon slamming a Hangman's head into home plate which is maybe the best way to start any match in the history of wrestling. I loved how TNT and Colon worked together for merciless shine. I've seen Abby in this (very Memphis) role as the absolute extreme of a partner Colon can unite with, but TNT brought the crazy kicks and mobility while keeping all of the manic unpredictability. Meanwhile, Colon was running around with a fork, preemptively, like he was Abby. It's Puerto Rico so both transitions involved low blows, but the Hangmen's control section was good, even if they were more sound and solid than violent and brutal like the match probably warranted. TNT's hot tag was cut off and cooled down a bit since they had to wait for Colon to recover and set up the end brawling. The bullrope beatdown and post match with the faces trying to keep Colon and TNT from going after the Hangmen off the field all really worked for me. Just good PR spectacle with a solid foundation.

Mr. Niebla/Oriental/Tsubasa vs. Arkangel De La Muerte/Zumbido/El Engima CMLL Japan 8/13/98

PAS: CMLL Japan was such a fun promotion, with a bunch of cool 90s luchadores just going all out for short Nitro lucha matches. Man it is easy to forget what an absolute athletic marvel young Mr. Neibla was. He was just flying all over the ring with really impressive pop and height on everything he did. Loved his feint into an over the turnbuckle tope, great vertical leap, would have loved to see what his combine numbers were. Zumbido and Arkangel were really great rudos (Zumbido shows up in shows around Denver and still fucking rules) and I always loved the way Zumbido's mullet would spin along with his dives. Enigma (who we think is a young Mazda) has some nice moments, but almost dies on a tope when his feet get caught. Good stuff, and I am looking forward to digging into more of the new stuff they are uploading.

MD: 9 minutes of all action, big dumb lucha spectacle with no real narrative but lots of bodies flying around. Of these guys, I think I'm least familiar with Enigma and I thought he comported himself well, in his opening exchange with Tsubasa and then eating all of Oriental and Tsubasa's tandem stuff. Plus he had the makings of a rolling Northern Lights Suplex sequence. Zumbido was charismatic as ever. There's not a lot you can do storywise in nine minutes though I guess I did sort of appreciate the 30 seconds of Arkangel putting Niebla in holds before a micro comeback and the dive train/finish. It's amazing what you can do with even the tiniest bit of glue.

ER: Love CMLL Japan, Phil is right that it's always sprint Nitro lucha, and it's always filled with guys who had enough fun spots to fill a Nitro lucha match. Niebla was such a king during the late 90s, super graceful height on everything and a willingness to die on dives and bumps. He jogs lightly around the ring to laughs from the crowd before slingshotting himself effortlessly over the top in a wild torpedo of a dive. Zumbido is a top 20 favorite luchador for me, a great rudo with huge bumps and spectacular highspots, whip crack strikes and tight rolling. His mullet flows in mesmerizing ways while his tassel pants are among the best in wrestling history, making every Zumbido roll through look like a crashing wave. Arkangel does rudo in Japan well, and here he's the big bumper in a match filled with them, taking a super high backdrop from Niebla, crashing on arm drags, and taking dives. We get several big dives to the floor: Tsubasa hits an Asai moonsault that flattens Enigma, we get a sloppy-but-reckless fun dive train with Enigma catching feet and faceplanting, Tsubasa almost breaking both ankles flying over Zumbido with a somersault senton, Zumbido hits a wild dive on Niebla that sends him face first into the 2nd row, Enigma mans up a mere 15 seconds after crashing on his dive and sinks a perfect catch on a big Oriental moonsault to the floor, all action that feels wholly like CMLL Japan. I love when stuff shows up there, always a must watch for me. 1998 was the first year I got into lucha so this era and these guys have major nostalgia for me, and it's always great to see how it holds up.

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New Footage Friday: AWA SuperClash IV

ER: Before our first match we find out that Junkyard Dog injured his knee the night before and was being replaced by Baron von Raschke as Col. DeBeers's opponent. I think I would have quite liked even 1990 JYD vs. DeBeers, as DeBeers is a good big bumping match for that era JYD. But there are also no records that JYD fought anywhere nearby the night before this show, or even the prior month, so I assume this was some false advertising leading up to the day of the show. Also, this being a Sunday afternoon in Minnesota, most of the crowd looks like a bunch of guys meeting up at a bar for their local Teamsters meeting. The crowd is Teamsters and 10 year olds, and that's a GREAT wrestling crowd.

Jake Milliman vs. Todd Becker

ER: An opening match that felt like an opening match. I have a soft spot for Milliman and he's a fun area favorite, a barrel bodied man billed suspiciously at 5'6". I know wrestlers exaggerate but that seems beyond the pale. This is 5 minutes and feels like a people getting in their seats match, Becker drops some decent elbows and tries to ground Milliman, Jake throws his weird arms close to body armdrags and a nice monkey flip that gets a good reaction. He also has a nice Super Porkyesque sunset flip where his large solid and compact body stays close to his opponent all the way over. There was a weird missed spot where Milliman hits a low shoulderblock right to Becker's stomach and Becker just stands there, so Jake bumps. Jake should have had way more torpedo body block moves, the guy was a toy tank. This was simple, easy, did what it needed to.

Texas Hangmen vs. Brad Rheingans/DJ Peterson

ER: Solid house show tag, always going to be excited about the Network putting up new Bull Pain and one of Mean Mike/Tough Tom footage. Bull Pain works a lot of this, building spots by complaining of hair/mask pulls early, all to just eventually land one great cheap shot punch. Face team was hiptosses and armdrags and dropkicks through much of this, while Hangmen played big bullies. I dug the Hangmen cheating and liked how Rheingans played Morton, it's cool when the more powerful guy on a team is the Morton, switches up the dynamic. DJ Peterson is kind of boring Mark Starr on hot tag, so it's more interesting to have Rheingans build to a big Saito suplex and German suplex, and I like Hangmen's accidental middle rope clothesline miscommunication to set up the hot tag. I wasn't expecting the Hangmen to get the win here so that was a fun surprise. Also, I am loving how we get no commentary, and instead get audio of a couple kids getting picked up by the camera mics, yelling at wrestlers (they must be sitting in an area where guys are walking in and out backstage). It's fun hearing them tell DeBeers that he sucks, or flip out trying to get Tully Blanchard or Greg Gagne's autograph.

MD: This was a pretty enjoyable house show feeling tag match (Hey, I just looked at what Eric wrote and he went the exact same way with it. Good for us) with the crowd playing along. Rheingans, edging towards 40, was the world's least explosive Kurt Angle, able to hit suplexes with a little effort and manage at least one cool roll up at 75% speed. The Hangmen were underrated and fed well, sold properly, and kept things interesting enough while on top. Some weird timing things throughout, like the long, droning, extended announcement (Gagne daughter maybe?) of the 10 minute mark happening right during the hot tag build up, or Brad getting in the way on the apron during the double-clothesline set up. The Hangmen should have gotten a better run somewhere.

Col. DeBeers vs. Baron von Raschke

MD: This was originally supposed to be JYD vs DeBeers which is a kind of fascinating thought but would have been much more so in 1982. I think the crowd was actually happier with the Baron in there, which is MN for you (not that 90 JYD was any great shakes but you get the idea). DeBeers had lots of heat throughout the night, even when it wasn't his match. This was by the numbers with Baron's stuff (even his knee lift which he used twice to set up the Claw tease) pretty rough. I did like the briefcase block of the claw late in the match. Since it was a replacement, the babyface went over but they immediately beat him down to cover for it.

ER: I liked the sound of this on paper, just because DeBeers is a big guy who bumps big - and bumps plausibly - for old or otherwise immobile guys. DeBeers is big enough that he can easily control and bully, and he's someone who works in his stooging well. And it turns out I like the match even more in execution than I did on paper! They kept it short (around 6 minutes) and Baron (who is just about 50 here) doesn't have any time to get in trouble, so what we do get is DeBeers bumping big for kneelifts that don't quite lift, and working a few really fun sequences around a limited opponent. DeBeers has a great bump through the ropes to the floor, which leads to him slam dunking Baron's neck right over the top rope in an awesome visual. DeBeers controls with nice punches, backing Baron into the corner and throwing uppercuts, short shots to the face, and nice headlock punches, Baron throws some nice comeback punches, and the finish had two VERY great pieces, two things that I absolutely loved: DeBeers gets tied up in the ropes Andre style, Baron calls for the claw, gets people all exciting with some babyface goose stepping, comes in for the claw...and Sheik Adnan blocks the claw with his briefcase!! Honestly, I was way into the rest of this match already, but if the rest of this match had been a 5 minute chinlock leading to that spot, I'd be writing just as favorably about this match. The fact that they roll to the floor and set up a spot where DeBeers accidentally lobs a straight right hand into the ringpost was the tastiest icing. This ruled.

Tully Blanchard vs. Tommy Jammer

MD: This was a Tully performance that would have worked at almost any time, in almost any place, except in front of this crowd and against this opponent. They had been running with Jammer a bit. He was undefeated. There just wasn't anything there. Tully had Christopher Love with him and the subtitles on the network (since I couldn't make it out at first) said that he had the Perfect Ten Baby Doll with him, which merged together, was kind of a horrifying thought. They went fifteen minutes with Tully sneaking a win at the end due to a foot grab from the outside by Love. This was obviously an attempt for Tully to help make Jammer by giving him the near-entirety of a long-ish match, but the fans wanted nothing to do with it. To Tully's credit, when he realized how little they were engaged, he worked even harder from underneath and tried engaging them more, but it was blood from the stone here. Part of it was them not caring about Jammer and part was the fact that Tully wasn't a regular in the area. I honestly don't know what more he could have done here.

ER: 90s Tully feels like one of the bigger things that we wrestling fans missed out on. He was still in his mid 30s here, and his Muga match 5 years later showed he was still a clear top in-ring guy. It sucks to think of how many fun Tully matches could have happened during those 5 years if things had gone differently. And a match like this really showcased the kind of match Tully could craft without...well without much of anything. Tommy Jammer was basically a Tony Garea style good looking babyface with one hold, and not much else. And I thought it was great. It was a cool glimpse at what Tully could do with just about...well, just about literally anybody. This is a 15 minute match and the first 9-10 minutes is Jammer holding Tully's arm behind his back and Tully actually making that interesting. There are a couple times Jammer loses his grip and Tully holds the whole thing together, and I was completely engaged the whole time by just how engaging Tully was while wrestling a match on his back with one arm. 

I thought Tully made the pinfall attempts way more interesting than they should have been, thought he feebly fought back well and made it seem like Jammer was actually bossing him through things, and loved the moments like his little panicked expression when Jammer was dragging him back to the center by his arm, and Bert Prentice yanking his leg from the floor, just Tully panicking hilariously at his potential quartering. Tully took 15 minutes of minimalist wrestling and made me interested at any turn. He hardly used any offense, with his biggest spots being the two times he grabbed Jammer by the front of the trunks and flung him to the floor (for his part, Jammer falls nice and recklessly to the floor). Tully works some interesting stuff with an incomplete Sharpshooter, holding Jammer up vertically and trying to leverage a pinfall out of it, and I loved it all. I was kind of transfixed by Tully the whole match, really begging off and making Jammer look like someone he was actually threatened by. The fans don't seem to care one lick about Jammer, but there is no way in hell that was Tully's fault. There are so many other wrestlers throughout history who would have benefitted from a legend like Tully crafting a match like this around them. I loved it.

Yukon John Nord vs. Kokina Maximus

PAS: This was a little disappointing, both these guys are such huge bump freaks, you would hope this match would have some big bumps, instead we got a lot of Kokina nerve holds. There are some fun clubbering exchanges, and Sheik Adnan getting his comeuppance, and Nord has an all time great big boot, I just wanted more.

MD: This was lead-babyface Nord, and by damn, I think that it could have worked on a bigger stage. Maybe not with the Lumberjack gimmick, but you almost didn't need a gimmick. He was a big crazy guy who could kick people in the face. Kokina here makes me think we were robbed with the scowling sumo gimmick. He had so much swagger and cockiness, like a proto-heel Uso. He could move a hundred and fifty pounds heavier but he could really move here. The match itself was a little too nervelock heavy but Nord really worked it well from underneath. The gimmick was that Al-Kaissie had a 50K bounty on Nord but that the briefcase was actually just full of paper, so after 1.) the colossally big boot (as in the biggest boot ever, as in if they were going to keep doing TV, it should have been the very last thing in the opening montage) 2.) Kokina accidentally squashing Kaissie, and 3.) Nord flattened him with it for the pin, causing it to fly open, Kokina had a babyface turn which the crowd was mostly into. Twin Wars had Nord and Norton face the Hangmen and how great would the team of Nord and Kokina have been instead?

ER: How did it take so long for us all, collectively, as a fully undivided group, to realize how incredible John Nord was. Even just his pre-match routine of putting his giant fur trapper hat on the ref while taking his rapid fire back bump, that stuff just cracks me up every time. I love this guy. This is also a look at super skinny (on his scale, and by that I mean when his weight would have still shown up on a normal human scale) Kokina, and I had a blast with this. Nord is such a gigantic guy, with a big goofy personality and tons of skill, and he really makes this whole thing work. It's a lumberjack stip, even though it really only comes into play when Adnan is thrown back in after the match, but he's the one actually engaging the lumberjacks and putting on a spectacle for fans in the back. We get fun early moments of shrugged off shoulderblocks, and Nord is someone who will run as hard as possible into a shoulderblock, and I loved all the ways Nord made a nerve hold interesting (my favorite was him grabbing at Kokina's hair, leading to a dramatic hair whip from Kokina as he sank the hold back in). 

Things get really good as Nord is left staggered by a thrust kick, so Kokina clotheslines him over the top to the floor. You knew Nord was going to take SOME bump to the floor, and here's where he plays it to the back. Once on the floor, being larger than any of the lumberjacks containing him, he starts stumbling his way through all of them, a man lost in a mosh pit. Nobody is hitting him, he's just making his own action, falling into chairs and then getting tangled in a chair, throwing that chair into the air, and then pie facing Jake Milliman; honestly it felt like he was channeling Terry Funk, and a gigantic Terry Funk is too much fun to even consider. Back in the ring we build to Nord hitting a tremendous big boot, just an all time highlight reel big boot, with him practically doing a mid air splits as his right leg is fully extended and kicking right through Kokina. Now you're talking about boots, kid. These two, both heels by then, obviously never crossed paths in WWF, so this was a dream match for me. It didn't live up to my internal expectations, but I knew those were too high to live up to. It certainly left me smiling and satisfied, and still perplexed wondering how Nord wasn't an absolute megastar.

Larry Zbyszko vs. Masa Saito

MD: Not a ton here. They worked it a little bit like Larry was the vulnerable challenger (likely because he was going over) including a long sleeper. There were flashes of great matwork at the beginning, counter-heavy instead of moving in and out to spots like you'd expect in a title match but it didn't last long. Saito had history but maybe not the right sort and he wasn't the right guy for this role in front of this crowd. The finish felt five years before its time though, with Larry surviving one Saito suplex only to get his feet up on the ropes to press back harder on the second which theoretically (physics be damned) let him get his shoulder up at the last second.

ER: Whose physical appearance in pro wrestling reads more "Badass Motherfucker" than Masa Saito? And here he looks even more badass wearing that big beautiful title belt (truly one of the better belt wearers in wrestling, as this footage shows) while standing next to Business BBQ Riki Choshu in his dad jeans and ponytail. But I really dug this match. Neither man really felt like they were sticking to assigned face/heel dynamics; you assume Saito would be the heel just because "not American" but Zbyszko doesn't really work like a face for large parts of this. But I liked all the work and when heel work would happen it was never cheating, it just meant each guy worked more aggressively, and that's more interesting to me. I thought the early grappling was really tight and a lot of this felt hard fought, more of a struggle than the match structure I was expecting. It looked like Larry tried to take Saito down right at the beginning and Saito blocked it and immediately turned it into a shoot Fujiwara, with both then scrambling for dominance. The standing grappling down to even stuff like their knucklelocks were totally engaging to me.

I liked them working holds, and I thought that was a good way to highlight the other nice feature of the match, an Actual Good Guest Referee in Nick Bockwinkel. I liked how he would handle the holds and pinfalls, getting down athletically and engagingly without ever being tempted to get in the way of action or drawing attention to himself. If it wasn't Nick Bockwinkel and just some guy, he would just come off like a really good ref. It's not a surprise that Bockwinkel is a good referee. It feels like something he would excel at. I loved how they made big parts of this look like a fight, and the turnbuckle spots were some of the absolute best in recent memory. I was impressed with how great Saito was making shots into the buckles look, really looking like Larry was forcing his face into them....and then moments later Zbyszko was ramming that top buckle so ferociously that he looked like he was trying to hardway bleed. You watch Saito slamming Larry's head into the buckles for a 10 count, and you tell me the last time you saw that spot done as well. 

The Saito suplexes were great, loved the way he drops Larry straight down. But man did I hate this finish. It felt both ahead of its time, and completely annoying and nonsensical. Saito lifts for a Saito suplex, Larry walks up and pushes up off the ropes, sending him backwards even harder than the other suplexes he took...the suplex even harder than he took any other suplex in the match. He landed higher up on his shoulders and it looked hard as hell...but then he just got his shoulder up at the 3 count. I hate that fucking finish, and if this was the first time I'd have seen it I'd have hated it for the first time. There's a big muddled confusion as Saito is announced as winner and Bockwinkel slowly and too casually walks over to Zbyszko and raises his hand, and then Zbyszko acts surprised and disbelieving that he won, which came off like a really bizarre reaction. A fan is shown in the crowd holding a "Larry Does Not Suck" sign, which I am still actually laughing about. It's calmly and sincerely meaning to answer a question I didn't realize was being asked, and it open-faced honesty is so hilarious to me. Not "Larry Rocks" or "Larry Rules", but taking the opposite approach and saying "Larry Isn't Bad at This" or "Larry is Trying and I Noticed". I love it and hate every part of the ending, even my favorite front row Teamster immediately understanding what happened and trying to alert officials that Larry got his shoulder up, even Saito sending Larry into a killer postmatch beatdown backdrop (okay no I obviously loved it because I'd probably love a backdrop in any part of a match). This match has now left me confused.

The Destruction Crew vs. Paul Diamond/The Trooper

MD: The more I think about this, the more I like it. Given the purpose it had, it was nearly perfect, actually. The only issue was that the crowd kind of loved the Destruction Crew. There's not a lot that they could do about that, I guess. So the deal here was this: one of the big matches at Twin Wars was going to be Rheingans teaming with Benchwarmer Bob Lurtsema - a local sports star/sports bar owner pushing 50 - against the Destruction Crew. This was going to set it up by having him be a special ref. It follows the formula of Zbyszko vs Ledoux a bit, which feels like it was a success for the AWA but I can't at all quantify that. Two ref shots for Lurtsema (this being the second) and then the match. Therefore, instead of the babyfaces getting a real comeback here, Lurtsema was going to cannibalize that pop.

With that in mind, they sort of flipped the script. At first I thought it was because Wilkes was super green and enthusiastic, but it's because of this. The first half of the match is Enos being petrified of getting into the cage and then tossed into it by the babyfaces again and again and again as he bleeds all over the place. Generally, I like cage matches where they really build to the use of the catch, where the babyfaces barely get to use it at all until their comeback, but it made sense to topload it here. The transition was Trooper missing a ridiculously big elbow drop off the top and what really kept putting him down was Tully putting a chair up to the cage from the outside so that the Crew could toss him into a completely no-give situation. The fans were generally behind the Crew over the babyfaces but that still got heat every time they went to it. Honestly, I get what they were going here and I think, if you add in the post-match promos (of which we have a litany of, including Verne, from off camera, completely browbeating Bischoff who looked like the most uncomfortable sap in the world), it was a fairly successful promotional tactic. The problem is that this was shaping up to be a pretty solid cage match and we got robbed of a comeback. I wish they didn't eminent domain away Verne's collateral so that we would have gotten another year of the Tully/Crew pairing.

PAS: I thought this was really good, and if the Lurtsema stuff had worked for the crowd, it could have been an all timer. Man the 90s pairing of Destruction Crew and Tully Blanchard has to be an all time What Ifs. I could just see that trio running rampant all over a fed with more of a future. Enos takes a big time thrashing early and it was some really good babyface standing tall stuff. Trooper's big missed elbow ruled, and the beatdown was great stuff. I agree that putting all the heat on Benchwarmer made the match feel incomplete, the Trooper just gets wrecked, we never get a big Paul Diamond hot tag or Trooper comeback. You could have still had that, and then run some business with Benchwarmer Bob. I actually like this roster, they are a little light on babyfaces, Saito should always be a heel, and really Nord is better as a heel too, but the heel roster is pretty great.

ER: I thought this was legitimately great. I thought it stood up among the greatest tag matches in AWA history, and honestly it's my favorite tag match I've watch in 2019, and it's one of the greatest tag team cage matches I've seen. I loved this, every bit of it. It was a perfectly condensed 10 minutes of bell to bell asskicking. Both teams were so good, Diamond and Trooper exceeding all expectations and beating so much ass that this was like watching Destruction Crew vs. Destruction Crew. Mike Enos eats a beating on every single inch of that cage, he was such a great meathead pinball, flopping onto his face and comically stepping over the whole ring, taking all sorts of hard face first shots into the cage, and bouncing back and forth between big Diamond and Trooper punches. Enos gets busted open and his big bumping doesn't slow when he gets bloodied up, and watching Diamond and Trooper punch away at a loopy Enos's bloody head gives me a full head of respect for Diamond and Del Wilkes. 

Wayne Bloom comes in and I love what he does with all of this, scrambling up and over the top and getting pulled over, getting punched on the top of the cage, and then coming up with several dramatic blocks of his face going into the cage, all leading to an eyepoke to finally get the Destruction Crew out of the red. Then we get Trooper flying 2/3 across the ring with a missed elbow, and you get Enos and Bloom throwing their dickhead elbows (Enos would run at the faces and hit these rad almost standing elbowdrops, running into them at a nice lean elbow first, whereas Bloom has one of my favorite traditional elbows and all of his elbow strikes look even better with his sharp ass 'bows), and by the time Tully was holding up a steel chair on the floor for the Crew to run the faces into, I was over the moon. And that was before Destruction Crew's insane Doomsday Device had even happened. Swoon. Say what you will about the Lurtsema stuff, I thought it was fine minor celeb involvement. I have no idea how much of an actual local legend Lurtsema was to people 15 years after he was a Viking, like would a 2019 Minnesota native get excited for Lew Ford dropping a leg drop on someone in a cage match? Probably! This whole thing ruled. I genuinely do think it stands up with the greatest AWA tag matches in history, and completely unheralded matches than many knew existed are some of the greatest joys in wrestling. I already knew I was going to eventually do a Destruction Crew/Beverly Bros. C&A; I didn't realize I would be looking through Paul Diamond or Del Wilkes' careers either...

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Wednesday Morning War Games: IWA-MS- Team IWA-MS v. Team Fanin v. Team NWA

Team IWA-MS (Ian Rotten/Chris Hero/Axl Rotten/Corporal Robinson/Bull Pain) v. Team NWA (Tank/Eric Priest/Chandler McClure/Sal Thomaselli/Vito Thomaselli) v. Fanin Family (Eddie Kingston/BJ Whitmer/JC Bailey/Mark Wolf/Steve Stone) IWA-MS 7/2/05

This was a three team, two ring War Games with ownership of IWA-MS at stake. While it was a little overstuffed (Team NWA seemed superfluous, and were the first team eliminated), this really shows the value of having great brawlers and letting them brawl. War Games are always going to have section where lots of guys are just wandering around kicking and punching, Corp, Ian, Eddie Kingston, Bull Pain, Tank, these are all time great punchers and kickers. Watching Corporal Robinson hurl those half punch/half forearms is just pleasurable. We also had the Chris Hero v. Eddie Kingston feud weaving through this, which is one of my all time favorite indy feuds, there is a great moment near the end where Hero just unloads with crazed elbows. Steve Stone was my favorite under the radar guy in the match, his brawling looked on the level of the legends, he bled a ton and he took some nasty bumps. I didn't love either finish, Tank seemed like he went down a little early, and having JC Bailey turn on Fanin seems like a weird finish for a face team to win. Still this is a violent bloody brawl which was very entertaining and worth tracking down.

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Phil Cherry Picks MAW

I got my hands on a bunch of MAW shows from the early 2000s, this was a Milwaukee area indy which used a bunch of IWA-MS guys. Since these are dozens of long ass early 2000s indy shows I am going to cherry pick some interesting looking matches.

CM Punk/ Jason Kronnan/Dave Prazak v. Dino Bambino/Bobby Bambino/Sherri Martel 2 out of 3 falls Tables and Ladders match 7/23/00

Punks team comes into Kid Rock which should strip him of all of his straight edge scenester cred. WWIMKT (What Would Ian MacKaye think). He also has a stringy blond front rattail and cut off jorts, his look didn't exactly scream future PPV headliner. This was a total shitshow trainwreck but a pretty entertaining one. Sherri was awesome stiffing Punk and Prazak, and even taking a bump off a ladder through a table which is nuts for a lady in her 40s in front of 100 people. Dragged a bit in the middle, but the end was pretty nutso with Prazak going head first through a table and Dino doing a shooting star press through a table which looked really dangerous, he barely rotated enough and looked like he almost spiked himself headfirst into the concrete.

Ian Rotten v. Peter B. Beautiful 6/3/01

This comes off of a KOTDM match between the two of them where Ian crowbarred this kid in one of those weird quasi shoot IWA-MS angles. I have no idea why Peter signed up for this a second time, as again Ian gives him nothing and just brutalizes him with lightbulb tube shots and chairshots. There was some angle where the MAW owner runs in a ineffectually chokes Ian with a pool cue, this leads to PBB's one cover which Ian kicks out of and then Rotten goes right back to mauling him. The end got downright Kurisuish with Ian throwing wind up kicks to this kids eye and punching him square in the cheek. I like meth BattlArts Ian a lot, but this was a different sort of thing and I didn't enjoy watching it.

Ian Rotten/Necro Butcher v. Corporal Robinson/Bull Pain 9/21/02

On paper this is just a murderer's row lineup of early 2000's brawlers. I don't think any match could have lived up to the match I had in my mind, but this was still really entertaining. First part of the match is worked as a southern tag with the heel Pain/Corp team working over Necro. Necro is a guy willing to get worked over and Pain and Corp are awesome guys at beating on someone, awesome punches and stomps and nasty chair shots. Pain is amazing at baseball bat shots, one of the best magic tricks in wrestling history, he really looks like he is braining people with bat shots. Corp has these amazing fast punch combos where he looks like he is beating on a guy in fast forward, man what a heel team those two were. Instead of a hot tag Ian just beats up the ref, and we then have about twelve minutes of straight brawling. I did think that not having the hot tag was a bit deflating, and while the brawling was super nasty looking it got a bit repetitive. Still this was violent nasty stuff executed well and fun to watch. First MAW hidden gem

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Hey, This Happened: Bull Pain Riles Up a Women's Prison

Bull Pain vs. SoulTaker, KAW 1999


ER: When attending live professional wrestling, there is a hierarchy of "the best fans" that you hope to be stationed around. The type of fans who provide you with genuine excitement, laughs, sheer joy, just by being seated around them. The hierarchy tends to go a) children b) developmentally disabled c) old people d) black people. They are all the best fans and it would be impossible for me to accurately rank them. And it is important to note that in NO WAY are these rankings holier than thou, judgmental, condescending rankings. There is no laughing at any of these people. Those four groups are merely people who know how to have a fucking blast at live professional wrestling, and their joy and attitudes are infectious. I never got to witness live pro wrestling as a child, but witnessing a child witnessing pro wrestling is pure magic. Old people bring in experience, and a certain jaded outlook on life in general, but also a little bit of it is still real to them. When I watched a Chainsaw Charlie match with my grandfather, he thought it was simultaneously idiotic...but also thought he was kind of not fake. His favorite wrestler was Freddy Blassie. He once called my mother's school principal a pencil-neck geek. But all four of those categories of fans are the best, and if you can find yourself somehow surrounded by all of those very different and yet very magical and also widely paintbrushed-by-me groups of people, your live wrestling experience will be a guaranteed success. In fact I'd be interested in polling actual pro wrestlers and seeing what their specific favorite crowd member type is. I wouldn't be shocked if it lined up with the 4 buckets I presented.


And yet, until a few weeks ago, I didn't realize there was a 5th bucket that I had never even considered a possibility: Convicted Felons. And in this specific case, Female Convicted Felons. It was like when Ben & Jerry's came out with that ice cream that had chocolate covered potato chips. It was something I never considered, but exactly what I wanted.


Bull Pain, one of my absolute favorite wrestlers, playing his craft in front of hundreds of female Tennessee lawbreakers. And it's amazing. It's everything that you wanted, even though you never knew you wanted it. Pain comes out to AC/DC and the women are into it, until he starts crotch chopping them and then they immediately turn. SoulTaker may as well have been a body pillow because the women do not care about him. I personally have no clue who SoulTaker is. It's definitely not Charles Wright. Whoever it was, was not very good. Although, I suppose he was good at sitting back and letting Pain do his thing. And that thing is yell at a bunch of incarcerated women who all want to yell back at him. Pain takes every opportunity to roll out of the ring, engage the ladies, flip them off, call his shot and single out three separate women before delivering a DDT SoulTaker does take a nice DDT on the floor, so there's that); Pain at one point pulls out the dreaded double middle finger, with his hands reaching allllll the way back underneath the deepest parts of his buttocks to deliver the double middles. At another point he sits on an unsuspecting woman and rubs his buns all over her. The women were all great. They were the perfect level of "just playing along" combined with "some of them could take some of this very seriously". And Pain loved it. Pain was clearly having a blast, probably even more of a blast than I was having watching it. He batters Taker with a chair - which seems like a dangerously slippery slope, as these women were all sitting in chairs, and once a guy flipping them off reminds them that these things make handy blunt beating instruments, it very easily could have set it off. Pain delivers a nasty rope drape DDT for the win, but really this could have gone for ages. Imagine all the amazing hide the weapon games you could play with crowd plants. Pain passes off a fake weapon to a woman, guard pats her down and finds an actual toothbrush shiv, woman is violently removed from the match. Imagine a stooging heel working the crowd, coming out with layered magazine body armor taped to their body. This was a concept that easily could have lent itself to incredible weekly television. That we're never going to get any more is a shame. That we got 10 minutes of it at all is a true wrestling gift.

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It Gets So Hard In Times Like These To Hold On, But Guns They Wait To Be Stuck By, and On My Side is The King

Jerry Lawler/Bill Dundee v. Original Midnight Express AWA 10/30/87 - EPIC

PAS: This is for the AWA tag belts and is a match which on paper looks really awesome, but especially in the 80’s on paper matches were often pretty disappointing. This however was even better then it looked on paper. Lawler and Dundee are a great tag team, we all know what great individual wrestlers they are, and how well they match up against each other, but they also have great face tag team shtick. Their opening babyface in control section was just full of great stuff. I especially loved the variations on the partner blocks the Irish whip into the corner, also this was a punch marks dream match with both Lawler and Dundee breaking out tons of different combos. I especially loved the running left hook by Dundee. OMX were a lot fun in this too, especially Randy Rose who looked Eaton great in this, he takes a huge high backdrop, and has a bunch of fun offense. Slim Paul E. with his sport coat with rolled up sleeves throws in the phone and the OMX win the belts. I liked this more then any of the Rose/Somers v. Midnight Rockers matches and this was fucking with the high end Rock and Rolls v. Midnights matches.

TKG: Man this was fun. A lot of faces do stuff effectively, heels try same spots only to have the backfire. If you’ve seen the Memphis doc on youtube, you may remember the Hector Guerrero vs. Lawler spot where Hector puts Lawler across top rope and then kicks at him…Lawler tries same spot and Hector gets out of way. Lawler does same spot with Rose but with Lawler working face this time out. Lawler is caught with knee in corner and ends up face in peril eating a punch with a big bump to floor and then taking body slam on the floor running powerslam from Rose, etc. Dundee is all over the place as guy on apron…running after Heyman on the floor. Holding back heel from making tag while waiting for Lawler’s attempt to make hot tag etc. But really this match is about the early face in control section with the two faces just laying in punches and clotheslines..with Randy Rose just running head first into the fists and lariats. Dundee does a top rope knee drop with refs back turned. I don’t know what the top rope rule was at the time but ref turns around and really can’t figure out what’s going on as Lawler and Dundee switch off going for two counts on Rose before ref can figure out who is the legal man. I don’t know if it was a stunt granny but there is also a nun in the front row who punches at the air with every face punch and gets absolutely irate at all the heel cheating. I have no idea why I haven’t heard this match pimped before.

Jerry Lawler v. "Macho Man" Randy Savage WWF 7/4/94 - FUN

Pretty much a by the number Lawler heel match, which no matter how by the numbers is completely awesome..We get four or five minutes of shtick before any lock ups where King taunts the crowd, yells at the ref, pratfalls on some stairs, basically runs through the book. When we do get some contact, Lawler works a donut hole fake chain masterfully, including some truly jaw dislocating punches. No one in wrestling history knows more ways to pretend to hide a chain. He does this great taunt, after dropping Macho Man, where he does some push ups, stopping to elevate himself on one hand to pose to the crowd. Savage is a complete passenger, he does nothing in the match, as Lawler completely controls the match until he tries a piledriver, gets backflipped, Savage then tries a piledriver gets reversed but rolls through Lawler for the pin. Savages only offensive move was a sunset flip. Great opportunity to see Lawler work a broomstick, but I would have obviously liked to see Savage show up.

Jerry Lawler/Chris Michaels v. Bull Pain/Todd Morton XCW-Midwest 8/9/08 - EPIC

This is a match I had big expectations going into, and it totally exceeded them. Morton and Pain are a tremendous tag team, they take huge bumps, really violent offense, great at cutting off the ring, pretty much everything you want from a Southern Heel tag team. Morton really looks like one of the top 10 wrestlers in the world, his stuff is so crisp and athletic for a guy who has to be in his mid 40s, and his bumping is crazy. Usually in a tag match like this your big indy legend will hang around the ring apron and come in for a spot or two at the end, Lawler however worked about 70% of the match, bumping around the heels early, taking a big beating (including a ring post bump which is as good as the best post bumps on the Memphis set) and delivering the big comeback. Michaels looked good in his spots, but this was a Lawler showcase and it was awesome. Finish totally ruled with your big revenge spot by the crutch wearing Tony Falk son at ringside, and a Lawler Fireball. Hit up XCW Myspace and pick this up.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE KING

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THE MOTHERFUCKING INTERNET: HOOK EM HORNS

The Texas Hangmen v. Gypsy Joe/Dragon Master W*ING 10/12/91

After listening to Colt Cabana's awesome podcast with Bull Pain, I wanted to track down some old school Texas Hangmen. Not much available from their Puerto Rican run, but I did find this amusing match from everyones third favorite early 90's Japanese garbage wrestling promotion W*ING. I assumed when I saw this title that the Dragon Master was Kendo Nagasaki, but it is actually a gigantic skinny guy in a weird mask. He had to be around 7 feet tall, but wasn't proportioned like anyone I recognized, I am pretty sure Baba wasn't doing spot show W*ING work in 91. He did what you need to do in W*ING recklessly hurl a chair and take a bump or two. Gypsy Joe chopped hard, and the Hangmen clubbered. This was clipped up, so it was hard to get a sense of how good it was, but it is definitely weird enough to want to check out, and Gypsy Joe's top rope knee was uncalled for and nasty.

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XCW Midwest Legends of the Garden Night 2 3/4/09

XCW MIDWEST ON SEGUNDA CAIDA

Buddy Landell v. Crippler Jeff Daniels

TKG: Budro comes out looking as big as AWA era Adonis. He doesn’t bump like AWA era Adonis. He comes out in a v cut sweatshirt no knee pads and no hair dye. Daniels beats on him for a bit, Budro intercepts the brass knucks thrown in by Daniels valet and knocks Daniels out.

PAS: I have seen no kneepads Buddy Landell not take any bumps in matches that entertain me, this wasn't one of them. I think he really needs to work heel to pull that off, a face who exerts no effort just feels like a ripoff. Daniels initial rush of Budro looked good, but we are only talking a 90 second match

Tracy Smothers v Mitch Ryder (Taped Fist Match)

TKG: On night one, Smothers beat Ryder by using the wrist tape so we have the rematch as tape fist match. Fun booking. Both guys really lay it into each other and have a nasty ringside brawl. Lots of both guys trying to post the other guy only to end up posting themselves. Just a string of postings one after the other: Smothers torches his shoulder into post trying to lariat Ryder, Ryder blasts his own fist into post missing Tracy with a punch, etc. Really rewarding streetfight.

PAS: This is probably best Tracy match I have seen in years, there is some early Tracy shtick, but for the most of the match they are just laying into each other. Tracy's taped backfist is nasty looking, and I loved Ryder's Lawler style fired up punch combos. After the nastiest of postings Ryder gets busted open and really bleeds a ton which isn't very common in XCW so it felt special.

Bill Dundee v. Todd Morton

TKG: This just puts a big smile on my face and I “OOH!!” along with both guys stuff. No real toe to toe sections. You get the sense that that will come later in the series. Instead you have face moving forward heel moving back. Though a neat variation on that as you get sense that Morton wants to be on offense. Lots of really fun goofy Dundee outwitting Morton and cutting him off before Morton can get any kind of momentum. Morton is great at selling the burn from not being able to get his stuff off. Morton eventually of course does find a way to cheat to offense and has a nasty little run. I demand the rematch.

PAS: Watch all of the Memphis TV for the 80's Memphis set, Bill Dundee really came off like the king of the studio match. He was really great at work a simple entertaining match full of awesome shtick. Here he controls Morton early using all kinds of nifty little tricks, popping him in the knee on the break, holding the rope for him only to bang it into his nuts, just a ton of clever horseshit which Morton sold like a champ. When Morton finally gets the advantage his offensive run looked awesome. Totally fun studio match which would make you buy a ticket to see the Mid-South Coliseum rematch.

Shawn Cook/Cody Hawk v. Rock and Roll Express v. Tommy Rich/Doug Gilbert

TKG: So I go into this dissapointed that it isn't a straight Rich/Gilbert v RnR match. I am really digging the booking of the show where the XCW regulars go over the veterans on all of the night two matches. and you couldn't really do that without the XCW regular team. Still I don't like three way dances. Plus it's the three way tag dance where you can tag in anyone. So on paper lots of reasons to think this won't work. But they absolutely make this work. This isn’t TNA so instead of embracing the foolishness, they do lots of spots mocking the inherent stupidity of the three way structure. At some point or other each team gets one section where they are forced to work against their own partner. Each team works a comedy spot around it…Plus you get the Rock n Rolls cooperating to attack guys on apron, veteran heel team slightly not trusting each other, and the young heel team full on willing to battle against themselves. Partner forced to work against his own partner in multiperson tag is one of the goofier things in wrestling today and I really enjoyed it here as these guys really knew how to play up the spots goofiness. Ricky Morton and Doug Gilbert work a bunch of sections with each other and both look really solid. Gibson does a rolling across ring tag (rolling tag to other team on opposite side of ring) which is a really visually neat spot. For the most part though Robert Gibson and Tommy Rich are placed in role of powerhouses (the Neidharts of their teams) which isn’t really a role I associate with either guy.

PAS: Man did Dougie Gilbert look great in this match, nasty looking offense, great shitck, solid bumping. Really looked like a guy they should have brung in as a regular guy. Gilbert v. Flash and Gilbert v. Ryder would have been great. Cook and Hawk are a really solid tag team and the held down the athletic part of the match really well. Robert Gibson had a shirt on, and kind of wrestled like a guy in a shirt (although the somersault tag was great), but Ricky continues to defy father time, as he still seems to have an impressive amount of his athleticism.

Flash Flanagan v. Bull Pain

TKG: Bull Pain comes in with a limp form yesterdays beatdown and Flannigan does some heel mic work about how they should cancel the match. And then it's on. Powerhouse babyface with bad wheel is something we've all seen before. Still Bull is really great at being both a monster and vulnerable at same time. He isn't a guy who switches back and forth "Now I'm a monster" and " Now I'm vulnerable" but instead gets them both accross at same time. They do this spot midway in the match where Flannigan repeatedly distracts ref so that he can hit Bull with cruitch. Flannigan tosses his belt and ref is distracted by going to retrieve and remove, Flannigan tosses chair in ring, etc. Efectively gets over the idea of using an outside weapoin being something that needs to be hidden from ref without any real tough guy ref talking down a wrestler spots. Finish to this is a little disappointing especially since I've liked their finishes against each other before. I mean I'm not a guy who needs a long finish train but I kind of wanted one more kick out or something.

PAS: Man is Bull Pain an impressive baby face worker. For a role that he has hardly worked in his career, he is just tremendous as a tough guy gutting through an injury. Flanagan is nasty in this taking him apart, and his bumping was great, he eats a suplex and a DDT on the floor and make both look brutal. I liked the finish more then Tom did, Bull's frog splash was great looking and after his spectacular sell of the knee, it came off totally reckless, in a way that should have cost him the match. Morton running in with the baseball bat did seem a little unnecessary, but it felt like it ended about when it should have. Really good match between a pair of really good wrestlers.

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XCW Midwest Legends of the Garden 3/2/10

XCW MIDWEST ON SEGUNDA CAIDA

Knuckles and Knives v. Ted Trailer McNaler/Ricky Morton

TKG: Knucles and Knives come out in late 90s pop punk gear with white belts and black vests and guitars (with guitar straps with names on it). Trailer McNailer brings out Ricky Morton as his surprise partner. I didn’t have anything positive to say about Knuckles and Knives when I last saw them, but enjoyed Punch’s shtick (and he takes a crazy bombs away knee bump to nothing for a match this short) and Switchblade didn’t look as loose as I remembered him being. Morton looked pretty fast working opening section and hot tag. This was a lot of fun but too short to say much about.

PAS: I thought Morton looked like he was in good shape, and his execution looked good. This is a Ricky Morton tag match you wanted it to stretch out a bit, enjoy the journey. It doesn’t work nearly as well when it is cut short like this.

Real Deal Derrick Neal v. Simon Sezz

TKG: Last time we saw Derrick Neal work he was working undercard babyface. He works heel here and makes some really amusing pouting heel faces. Closer to Orndorf level pouting than Tatum pouting. He has some nice looking punches and this was fine outside of him having a bunch of really distractingly bad missed clotheslines for a guy who is using the missed clothesline a lot. I mean it wasn’t like he had just one way to throw a clothesline way over opponents head. He had a variety of ways to throw his arm out and make you go “Was that supposed to be a clothesline?”.

PAS: Yeah one of his missed clotheslines looked less like a clothesline and more like he tried to throw a fastball. Simon Sezz is pretty good at working generic babyface, although we saw less of his 2002 indy highflying and innovative offense then we normally do. I enjoyed Neal loading a boot for a basement dropkick which is an amusing 2010 variation of a old school spot.

Todd Morton v. Road Dogg

PAS: I was pretty excited about this match on paper. I have enjoyed some indy Road Dogg, and Todd Morton is pretty infallible. And for the three minutes we got it was pretty good. Still Road Dogg’s mike work was longer then the match

TKG: Yeah this was super short. Road Dog gets in his signature stuff and Bull Pain walks out to distract Morton for the rollup. This is the first XCW show where the sound is really clear on the DVD’s so we can make out all the mic work. But I’d rather see longer matches.

Dangerous Dougie Gilbert v Headliner Chris Michaels

TKG: This was being run face v face and both guys looked really good while it lasted and this really felt like it was building to go longer (with the announcer counting down time) then Michaels gets an out of nowhere pin.

PAS: Yeah this was also too short. Dougie looked really comfortable in there, and is a guy I would like to see them use more of. Still the finish of this really came out of left field. It felt less like a complete short match, then a long match which ended abruptly.

JD Maverick v Mitch Ryder

TKG: I have really disliked Maverick in the past. Last couple times I saw him I remember him working a real indy Shawn Michaels guy who did lots of elaborate self controlled bumps and flopping when he wasn’t being touched and then had really loose offense. He looked really good here. Mitch Ryder throws a series of nasty punches on Maverick in the corner where Maverick sells them standing and Maverick drops a knee really hard on Ryder and Maverick throws a bunch of mean looking strikes. Super fun fight in and out of ring which ends with Maverick slipping in to escape a ten count. Really satisfying finish that Mitch Ryder uses to set up a lumberjack match.

PAS: Yeah I thought Maverick looked really good here too. Maverick was simultaneously landing nasty punches and kicks and pulling off pussy heel. Ryder is one of the best in the world as these kind of around the arena brawls, and Maverick was right there with them.

Simon Dean v. Bull Pain

TKG: Wow Simon Dean has gotten fat. I mean he looks less like a personal trainer and more like a fat guy in sweats. And he works this entire match like he was a fat Jim Cornette. Chickenshit guy running and hiding from face, eating abuse, begging off and then getting a bunch of cheap shots in. He does one neckbreaker. Not a Novaesque pumphandle inverted neckbreaker. Just a neckbreaker. And this is the most I’ve enjoyed Nova ever. Bull Pain is a guy who is great at beating up a fat Andy Kauffman. The post match booking is reall fun and got me excited to see the follow up.

PAS: I am in shock at how much I enjoyed Simon Dean here. His pre match mike work was great, threatening to win a kids replica belt. Deciding that he wouldn’t have a title match because there was no ref, then punching the ref. He was also shockingly fun as Andy Kaufman, running, crying and cheap shotting. The whole match seemed to be setting up one thing and I liked how they did something else. A lot of time wrestling swerves sacrifice common sense for surprise, we were all expecting Chris Michaels to turn, but when Bull Pain turned instead it made sense. Plus I am amped to see Pain and Morton back together

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XCW Midwest Payback Time 10/17/09

Todd Morton v. The Real Deal Derrick Neal

TKG: It’s Todd Morton working a pretty straight opener . No heat garnering horseshit. I assume Derrick Neal is a trainee or something as this was laid out really well but Neal’s execution felt really rookie level.

PAS: Todd Morton is a tremendous wrestler, but we only got to see flashes of this here. I loved the spot where he backed Neal into the corner and mule kicked him low, and the payback spot out of the knuckle lock and bridge was cool too. Still Neal didn’t contribute much and we only got a page or two of the Morton playbook

New Age Assassin v. Platinum Chris Phoenix

PAS: Platinum Chris Phoenix (which is a god awful name) is a really thick guy who kind of looks and wrestles like an indy Brock Lesner. Assassin does a nice job bumping around for all of Phoenixes shoulder blocks and bodyslams, and sneaks in shots here and there. Phoenix was clearly pretty early in his training, but he hit a nasty finishing supelex and was an impressive specimen for indy wrestling. I think he would be pretty good as a Mitch Ryder tag partner to work the apron and come into hit big spots on the heels.

TKG: Yeah I dug this. New Age Assassin flies around for Chris Phoenix and then does the SNME face chases heel around ring till face is ambushed coming into ring. I really dug all of New Age Assassin’s cheap shot into offense moves as he never did anything that was unbelievable given the size difference, but when he was in control you totally bought him in control

Simon Sezz v. Jason Bradley

TKG: Last two matches had kind of bulky oiled up babyfaces. This one had Simon Sezz. And we are in workrate T-shirted indy wrestling territory here.I’ve really been digging Simon Sezz of late as he is a guy who works real 2002 Alex Shelley offense but works it into this really old school face/heel context without it coming off as either masturbatory moves or ironic winking. I’ve never seen Jason Bradley but he was fun as heavyset T-shirted heel vs skinny T shirted face, doing amusing stooge bumps and cutting Sezz off with big throws.

PAS: I am not sure whether Simon Sezz would stand out in Evolve, but having one guy do Evolvish offense in a fed like this kind of works. He really knows how to put 2000 ends offense in context. His fancy shit looks less Chris Sabin and more Skip Young.

Bull Pain v. Flash Flanagan

TKG: So I’ve really been enjoying title match Flash Flannigan as a guy who always has neat finishes done well. Here unfortunately the finish felt abrupt and semi blown. Everything up to the finish was amazing. Bull Pain is just a wrecking machine, and Flash is a guy who comes off tough for taking Pain’s stuff and waiting for his spots to crotch Pain against the ring post. I’ve seen lots of distract a ref spots and there is just something natural about Flash’s distract a ref spots where it feels less formula and more like the way you actually distract a cashier in a store before robbing them.

PAS: Bull Pain is one of the more believably violent guys in all of wrestling. I have seen a lot of great looking headbutts in my day, but Pain aims his forehead right at Flash’s temple and just looks debilitating. Flash fires back just as rough, and he is truly one of the best wrestlers I have ever seen at timing his comebacks, there is an awesome moment where he catches Pain with a DDT right as he is entering the ring and it is just perfectly done. It is too bad the finish was so awkward, because this was pretty close to a tremendous match

Mitch Ryder v. Chris Michaels

PAS: This was that tremendous match though. This was a feud ending falls count anywhere match, and was one of the times where XCW-Midwest reached the big time Memphis main event heights that they aim for. They start with a pretty great arena tour with both guys exchanging big shots and they climb up and down the bleachers. This is a fed full of guys with great looking right hands, but Michaels was winning the contests with some corkers. It slows down some in the middle with both guys bleeding and selling fatigue, and then they build again to a big time finish run with a bunch of spots around a steel chair. They weren’t using the chair innovatively, it was just an exclamation point to all of their shots. XCW is a fed with some questionable finishes to big matches, this finish felt like the ending of both a match and a feud. Great shit, and exactly why I watch this fed.

TKG: Yeah this was the match. This was a pretty fun card top to bottom. And this match on the top is not just the reason why you watch this fed, but pretty much the reason why you watch wrestling. They just go at it all over the arena with Ryder attacking Chris to start and then the bleacher tour with constant teases of big falls. The look on Ryder’s face when he realizes he has drawn first blood, looking at the blood on his hands and realizing where it came from, is great. The crowd is totally behind Ryder and you feel yourself chanting “Go Mitch Go” too. All of the nearfalls are really dramatic, with nothing feeling thrown away.

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XCW Midwest 2nd Anniversary Show 6/9/09

Big Texan Marc Houston v. 2 Tuff Tony

PAS: Marc Houston is a big young guy who works sort of a Stan Hansen gimmick. He isn’t Hansen, but he is pretty good with really nice clubbing forearms and power moves. Tony has been pretty hit or miss in XCW, and he was pretty hit or miss in this match as some of his stuff looked great, but some was really off. His flipping leg drop is still spectacular though.

TKG: I’ve seen Houston once before and have thus far dug what I’ve seen, His strikes look good, he has a real nice powerslam and spinebuster, and he eats stuff really well. This was an odd match in that Houston really dominated with Tony working almost charismatic Dusty calling on crowd support to fight from below.

Bull Pain v. Vito Andretti

PAS: This is set up by Bull Pain coming out on his birthday to challenge Todd Morton to a chain match, Morton then says he has to beat Vito Andretti before he gets his match. It is fine way to build a match, but it just makes me pissed off that I am not watching Bull Pain v. Todd Morton in a chain match. This was a pretty spectacular one man show, as Bull beats on Andretti with some super nasty offense, and then takes a couple of spectacular bumps, and then brutalizes him some more. Man is Bull Pain a superstar.

TKG: I think Andretti maybe a Thatcher guy but yeah this was really a one-man show. Andretti mostly is guy moving backward here constantly retreating. And you don’t blame him. Everything Pain does here looks incredible. His big bumps really are huge bumps. Pain has some amazingly nasty looking offense where you go “Holy Shit” for an amazing looking vertical suplex.

Todd Morton v Bill Dundee

TKG: I’ve seen these guys match up a bunch of times over the last year and its always a blast. Dundee tosses a chain back and forth with the audience and nails Morton in the liver with a chain shot. Morton sells getting punched in the liver with a chain like a guy who was punched in the liver with a chain. And that’s the thing, where it’s not just that both of these guys have great looking punches, and amusing ways to set up those punches. But also both of these guys are really great at selling stuff, Bill Dundee is in his late sixties and doesn’t bump as much as he once did, but he can still sell really well. And instead of adjusting to this by flopping even more, Morton sells standing. The toe to toe stuff almost comes across tougher as both sell struggling to stand instead of flying down for every punch.

PAS: Morton is a tremendous athletic bumper, but I really dug the choice he made in this match. Both guys are just cracking each other with shots and each guy is awesome at looking like they got their bell rung. Going through the Memphis set, Dundee's versatility was really at the forefront. He obviously had a huge arsenal of shitck and spots that he could run through, I loved the audience catch spot when he did it vs. the Assassin in 1982 and it was pretty sweet to see him break it out in 2009. I thought the ending did a nice job setting up the Bull Pain v. Morton chain match, but I would have liked to see this feud get a final chapter. This is an anniversery show so you expect to see some closure, but instead it felt like a Clash of Champions or a RAW setting up a PPV.

Mitch Ryder v. Chris Michaels

TKG: This starts witth a really great arena tour brawl with guys getting knocked down all over the place. For a guy who was supposedly going to retire this year due to back problems, Chris Michaels takes some insane bumps on his back. Mitch Ryder looked super sharp here as well.

PAS: This was pretty great, Chris Micheals is pretty nuts as he was the biggest bumper on the whole show, with that apparently bad back. This may have been the best I have seen Ryder's punches look as he was laying in some sweet combos. There were points of this match that looked like the end of Memphis TX death match. Ryder is really great at the all around the arena brawl too, all the slams into the doors and tables were pretty safe, but looked super nasty. Just a fun match, although this feels like a feud with legs, and they seemed to move on too quickly to other things.

Bull Pain/Jake Crist v. Sexy Shawn Cook/Cody Hawk

TKG: This is a fans get to be lumberjacks with straps match which is always an insane stipulation. I think the fans won the honor through a raffle which is helping to pay for a sick child's medical expenses. It's hard to follow mic work on hand helds. Crist's brother can't mae it so we get Bull Pain as last minute surprise partner. Cook and Hawk are really growing on me and are really great here at constantly teasing that they are going to fall out of ring. Crist as FIP does a couple of spots built around avoiding going to ground which kind of makes no sense..they eventually do the super amusing heels throw Christ to the floor only to be upset when the fan lumberjacks gently pick him back up and rol him back into ring. And really this match is made by the sheer enthusiasm and mugging of the fan lumberjacks. I am voting skinny bearded XCW fan lumberjack as my 2009 WON best non-wrestler performer. I can't think of a better second in wrestling. They actually book a heels win a fan lumberjack with straps match and the finish is just incredibly nasty and clever.

PAS: Man it still amazes me how great Bull Pain is as a charismatic babyface, here is a guy who was a terrifying heel for decades, and he turns face and he is Stone Cold Steve Austin. This was a really great match Jake Crist isn't much, but he is a perfectly fine guy getting doubled teamed by Cook and Hawk, they worked the lumberjack strap tease great and the finish was nasty. I want to second the love for the skinny fan lumberjack, he is the world best methed out Jackie Fargo.

Jamie Dundee v. Flash Flanagan

TKG: This is a fun little match that positions Flanagan as the bruiser vs. JC Ice’s quickness. Flanagan is having a pretty great run with the title. Schneider has complained about the problem with closure and finishes in XCW feuds. The thing with Flanagan is that his matches always finish in really cool ways. Not necessarily new innovative finishes. But he executes BS Mid Atlantic heel steals win finishes better than anyone else. And it’s not just the execution but also the set up. There are times where you watch a Tully match and the roll up with the tights feels like something tacked on in the end. With Flanagan the finish never feels tacked on and is always set up well. His set up and execution on these classic finishes makes them come off really fresh.

PAS: JC Ice was also really great in this match. He does a tremendous job turning his heel shtick into face shtick. His fake karate works was always such a douchebag move, I loved seeing it firing up a crowd. I did feel like this was a match missing a middle. They had excellent opening horseshit, and a cool finish, I would have liked to see more middle stuff to really make this a stand out match.

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XCW Midwest 5/5/09

Rob Fury v. Chris Michaels

TKG: I don’t know who Rob Fury is, but I think there is a guy wrestling as “Rob Fury” in every state in the country. Really had he feel of a guy who would be wrestling in ECWA tagged with Inferno Kid. He has good height on his dropkick and is able to do energetic foot stomping to get crowd behind him. But this is the kind of really impressive heel performance where you leave with no impression of the face at all.

PAS: Fury has short hair and blue trunks and really looks like a random John Paul tag partner in late 80’s Memphis. Michaels ruled in this taking a bunch of really great signature bumps, including a backflip over the top and the Waltman corner bump. Finishing super kick was awesome looking too. Fun but ultimately forgettable match.

Sexy Sean Casey v. Mitch Ryder

TKG: Sean Casey is a really generic heel in the same way that Fury was a really generic babyface. They may both be trainees. I don’t know if Ryder was working as guy working opponent below him (in wrestling hierarchy) or if that’s just what it feels like when you match up a good babyface v. generic heel. This felt like inverted version of the heel underestimates opponent type match.

PAS: I have no idea why you bring in Sexy Sean Casey when your show is being semi mained by Sexy Shawn Cook. They either have to feud, or Casey has to change his gimmick. This seemed to set up a Ryder v Michaels match, and in that sense the matches did their job. You watch Ryder work a generic heel and Michaels work a generic face, and you really want to see them against each other

Bull Pain v. Lash Gibson/Convict

TKG: I can’t make out any of the mic work which is a pain considering this is a fed filled with guys who are good on the mic. The impression I get is that Todd Morton is claiming injury so Bull Pain gets these two guys instead. Lash Gibson is a XCW trainee who I’ve seen twice before and liked. This whole show may be XCW regulars v trainees. I need to start watching the all trainee shows. I expected this to be a total disgusting ass beating. Instead it was Bull Pain beating on the trainees, followed by moments of Bull Pain being distracted by Morton or Flash Flannigan and the trainees getting in little bits of stuff. This disappointed as you kind of want it to be either more competitive or more non-competitive. This was in some in-between place and just there.

PAS: I was expecting this to be a brutal Bull Pain beating and there were moments of that, but I wanted more moments.

Shawn Cook/Cody Hawk v Irish Airborne

TKG: This went really long, maybe too long. First ten minutes of this were flashy face stuff and heel stooging, followed by Shawn Cook pulling down the top rope while one of Irish Airborne was running the ropes leading to a big bump and a FIP section. I liked the first FIP section, and then second member of Irish Airborne tagged in and got his stuff stopped for second FIP section. Heels are really good at stopping the faces from getting stuff in and have lots of nasty ways to knock a guy in his head, but second Irish Airborne guy was sloppier as FIP then first one, They go for a really cool variation of the standard Fantastics lose a match finish (Rogers has opponent in roll up and gets hit with clothesline/DDT etc). Here instead Shawn Cook goes for the clothesline only to have it ducked and fly out the ring. A couple neat spots and variations on a basic formula, neat things that I hadn’t seen before…but this got lost a couple times in it’s length.

PAS: I liked some of the flashy Irish Airborne stuff, the springboard headlock takeover was cool and I liked some of the Cook and Hawk stooging, the face catapulting the heels head into his partners nuts. However it didn’t feel like either guy had enough cool stuff for the length of the match. This was a 20+ minute match that would have been a really great 14 minute match.

L.T. Falk v. Flash Flanagan

PAS: This is a whole show kind of based around higher ranked guys wrestling lower ranked guys and this was the best of those matches. Falk is the son of Cowboy Tony Faulk and is better then anyone in Legacy. This had Flanagan rip apart Faulks leg with some really nastily applied basic offense, and Falk firing back with nice enthusiastic babyface offense. I especially liked his punch, chop combo. Falk did a bunch of really cool sells of the leg, including flipping out of a headlock and his leg collapsing under him. Pretty much a touring Ric Flair match done really well, which is always cool to see in the 21st century.

TKG: Yah a lot of this show felt like an 80s WWF Superstars episode. I got the sense that I would enjoy the battle of the underdogs between all the trainees but here for the most part I didn’t by the underdogs as being competitive. Here this really did feel like underdog hugely stepping up and you bought his enthusiasm at having this opportunity. He wasn’t going to let it go to waste. Flannigan’s leg work all looked really good and was paced well. Flannigan’s had a pretty nice year in the ring and always manages to have neat original finishes to his matches.

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XCW Midwest 8/4/09

2 Tough Tony v. Marc Houston

TKG: This is the best Two Tuff Tony has looked in XCW. Last time these two matched up Two Tuff worked like a Dustyish babyface. Here he works more like a highflying face, getting leg worked over and struggling to knock down the brawler by catching him with highspots. Houston is really good at working powerhouse stopping a highflyers comebacks. I especially liked the section where Tony was selling the leg during an Irish whip attempt which Houston reversed into a leg sweep.

PAS: This has some highs and some lows, Tony has been inconsistent in XCW but he was at his best here, he hits two big highspots, his flipping lariat and a quebrada and has impressively fast rotation on both. They also do a great out of the ring brawl with Tony holding Houston so he can be chopped by the fans, there was one old dude in the crowd who might have been a pompadoured Ron Garvin because he chopped the fuck out of Houston. Houston is a guy who I think is going to be really good, but is probably a year away. He had some great individual moves including a beautiful powerslam, and a rake to the back of Tony’s bald head. However there was a couple of moments where he looked out of place or awkward including seemingly having no idea how to eat Tony’s finisher. Still pretty good match for a rookie and I am looking forward to watching him progress.

Manbeast v. Cody Hawk

PAS: Manbeast is one half of the Mobile Homers and Hawk is one half of the XCW tag champs, so this is setting up a future tag match I assume. Hawk is a guy with a ton of amusing horseshit to fill a match, but I got no sense of Manbeast at all, he took one nice bump, but he was mostly just a guy standing around while Hawk stooged.

TKG: Hawk has added a more douchey mime spots, mimeing taking guns out and spinning them, mimeing looking for opponents head after a lariat etc. He also had an absolutely nasty double knee to opponents face and a reverse calf branding. When Manbeast did get his end run of offense it wasn’t something you wanted to see.

Revolver v. Sexy Shawn Cook

TKG: This was super short and mostly Shawn Cook flying around eating stuff. Cook is good at eating stuff and Revolver looks to be the Mobile Homer with the better execution, as he has a nice punch, a pretty dropkick and a fine suplex.

PAS: Manbeast was better as a second then in the ring, but this was basically just setting up the tag

Mobile Homers v. Cody Hawk/Sexy Shawn Cook

TKG: In theory you want your better face wrestler to work face in peril and have your lesser guy working as hot tag. But Manbeast is a guy who can eat stuff while Revolver has nice offense. Using Manbeast as hot tag just messed this up. I did like all the leg work on Revolver and Manbeast did have amusing overacting begging to get into ring. But yeah…

PAS: I think I liked this more then Tom, Hawk and Cook are good enough at heel shtick that they can work an entertaining match with pretty much any face tag team. Still after the long Irish Airborne series and now this series I really want to see the level they could get against a really good pair of faces. PG-13 v. Hawk and Cook could be awesome.

Chris Michaels v. Mitch Ryder

PAS: Ryder is having a hell of year. This is another in the line of great 2009 Mitch Ryder brawls. Both guys really had a toe to toe fight, not a lot of fancy moves, but great looking punches and kicks. Michaels is a guy who was supposed to have retired because of a bad back, but he was flying around the ring here. The mikework was hard to hear, but it appeared they had a really hot angle with Morton, Cook, Hawk and Michaels beating Ryder while the screamed and intimidated his mother and son. Very cool shit and got me excited to see Ryder get his revenge.

TKG: Yeah there were points where I thought the stressof promoting was going to prematurely age Ryder. But he looked especially sharp and youthful here. His opening floor brawling really made this feel like a fight. Ryder controlled a lot of this match and for a guy who has been working second from the top type feuds this year looked like a guy you want to see in title contention.

Wolfie D v. Chase Stevens

TKG: Wolfie D looks to be off the roids since TNA, while Stevens looks even more gassed up XCW keeps on brining in Chase Stevens and Andy Douglas to work singles matches and watching this made me really want to see PG-13 v Naturals or Stevens/Cassidey O Reilly. Stevens works heel here and does lots of jawing with the crowd and stalling to begin…backing Wolfie D into corner punching him and then running out of ring. Wolfie D takes pretty big bumps and the payoffs for all the stalling are really rewarding.

PAS: This match goes maybe 10 minutes before anything really happens, however I would rather watch someone stall well then watch people do stuff poorly. Wolfie just flies out of the ring with his bumps, and the crowd was pretty hot by the end mainly because Stevens enraged the crowd.

Bull Pain v. Todd Morton

TKG: This was awesome. This was a chain match worked dog collar style (instead of touching corner they are guys just tied together by chain). The two just beat on each other with Morton unable to escape. The two brawl in the ring and then go to the floor where Morton takes a huge bump where he gets thrown into a garage door. They brawl on the floor till Morton ties Pain to the post and beats on him. Morton takes a huge piledriver on top of the chain and then the booking comes in.

PAS: This was the culmination of this feud and was the closet we have gotten to a match that lived up to the potential of the match up. The brawling in the crowd was pretty amazing, Morton was taking some nutty bumps, including flying into the garage door. Bull Pain threw on of the nastiest snap suplexes I have ever seen right on the floor. Morton has done a lot of really great stooging matches this year, but he is deadly serious and violent here. The match was a finish away from being a real match of the year candidate. . It is a booking problem I have noticed before in XCW. Sometimes they seem so intent on setting up the next show, that the matches on the current show seem to be backdrops. They have been running the Pain v. Morton feud off and on for almost a year, but we got no closure to it, they just moved right into the next feud. I don’t see any reason why this couldn’t have had another 10 minutes and a finish and then run the angle. Still well worth watching and a hell of a match.

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R.I.P. IWA-MS, 2/8/03

PAS: To memorialize IWA-MS, a promotion which has provided entertaining shows for over a decade, we are going to review some random shows over the next couple of weeks, after which I imagine the promotion will be back in business.

Shark Boy v. Vortex

PAS: Vortex was accompanied by American Kickboxer who trained him. This match was mostly built around an apparent Shark Boy v. the ref feud, and ended with a restart fast count bullshit finish. Vortex had some impressive athletic spots for an unathletic looking dude, but definitely looked a little rookieish in his other stuff. It was good to see the crazy old dude smoking a pipe though.

ER: Vortex had some pretty OK looking stuff here, and I was fully expecting sub pretty OK. Good to see American Kickboxer coming out and talking shit while wearing a full-on all over print button up Gundam shirt. If you can still sound credible starting shit while supporting Mobile Suit Gundam then more power to you. And that old man's pipe was full on Hans Landa size, just puffing away in the front row.

In between matches saw Todd Morton work the STICK and it was great. He cut a genuinely threatening promo, really intense and hate-filled. What doesn't this guy do? Dave Prazak tries his best to make lame jokes over it man I hate that guy.

Mark Wolf v. KO

PAS: KO was a legit Scottish Games competitor who was green as grass but probably a better athlete then pretty much anyone who ever worked IWA-MS. There were moments where both guys seemed to be visible calling spots. KO looked good on offense, and not so good on defense, dropping early on a bulldog ect. Wolf was solid too, although he kind of had one good looking move, one weak looking move.

ER: I liked KO here, and Phil is overstating how bad the bulldog looked. Most people wouldn't have even noticed it. Plus, I hate when it looks like dudes leap into a perfectly positioned front flop. This dude made the bulldog look REAL, but stumbling and falling way more painfully than if he had taken the bulldog as planned. If you're gonna stumble during a spot, might as well do it when you're supposed to land on your face anyway. Wolf was wearing some classicly torn Balls Mahoney shorts. I can just picture these guys sitting at home, carefully tearing their pants JUST so, just so they'll be PERFECT when they throw shitty forearms to some guy's chest.

Adam Gooch v. Drake Younger

PAS: This was pretty great, Adam Gooch was totally awesome in 2003, great height on his bumps, great looking execution on his moves and a legit sleazeball heat machine. He had this great run for a couple of years and then totally disappeared. He was accompanied by Michael Todd Stratton (AKA Todd Morton), and he is always awesome to watch, even when he is the apron. This was Younger's IWA debut and he looked pretty good, a bunch of energy and some cool spots. It got a little two county for my taste at the finish, but this was blast.

ER: Man, I forgot how great Gooch was earlier this decade. Pre-match heat garnering with Stratton was awesome. They turned an old bit into a forgotten classic, something that easily could've been botched in most others' hands. Fan gives Gooch a wifebeater as a gift, wifebeater says "Gooch is da MAN!" on the front, Stratton urges him to put it on and then poses Gooch to all sides of the crowd, which naturally reveals the back of it says "Who takes it in the ASS!" and Stratton does the slow reveal then reacts in all sorts of awesome "Boss Hogg getting worked by the Dukes" mannerisms. Stratton was the ultimate second in this match.

Steve Stone/Ballz v. Devon Fury/Cornbread

PAS: This was a Pro-Am match, the concept being that a professional was teaming with an amateur. I assume what that means on an IWA show, is that the pros were working for free and the amateurs were paying to work the show. Cornbread was the better of the two backyarders, as Ballz was there mostly there so the announcers can make dozens of puns. Still I never thought I would appreciate the polish and professionalism of Devon Fury.

ER: You can also tell the pros are the ones with new jean shorts and a non-faded black t-shirt. Steve Stone had some good offense including a real nice kneedrop and some good spunk on the ring apron. Cornbread was a pretty enjoyable backyarder, but I'm kind of a chubby chaser as far as wrestling is concerned. If a fat guy does a nice leg drop I'll think he's the best guy in the match. Ballz is my new least favorite wrestler, as Fannin/Prazak with their fucking awful "balls" puns were just constant. Not a one of them funny. Fury slammed balls! Fury punches balls! Fuck you guys.

Danny Daniels v. Spider Nate Webb

PAS: Daniels is a guy I have never particularly cared for, I love Nate Webb but wasn't expecting much. I was plesantly surprised at the beginning of this match as they had some really nice sequences, including Webb climbing Daniels body while in a knucklelock and ripping off a sweet rana. Match fell apart though about six minutes in and never really recovered. Nice moonsault by Nate though.

ER: Nate Webb's pedo-stache always looked so funny with the rest of his vinyl/mesh Hot Topic look. Really came off as a guy who had a friend that worked there and would regularly steal stock, so Nate just gets a bunch of free clothes. There is always a bunch of cool stuff in Webb matches, and Daniels really SUWA's the aforementioned hurracanrana. But that really was the highlight of the first 10+ minute match of the night, and it came in the first minute.

Ian Rotten v. Brad Bradley

PAS: Man was this great. Classic Ian Meth Cook Battlarts. Bradley is a big dude who got a WWE deal at one point. Apparently he was coming off of a MAW victory over Ian, so Ian was coming at him hard. Bradley wasn't really firing back hard enough for this kind of match, although Ian did a great job selling the shots. Ian just goes after Bradley's leg, slapping on some nasty looking leg locks, and even pounding at his thigh with punches. Finish was great with a bloody Ian grabbing a steel chair and decimating his leg with chair shots and then putting on an STF for a submission.

ER: I was a big supporter of Brad Bradley/Ryan Braddock in WWE. I really loved all 9 total minutes he got on Smackdown. Loved the Festus match, loved the tag he had opposite Festus, thought he had good heavyweight offense and a nice dropkick. Anything he had in 2008, he did not have here. Steen-esque bod and a bland face/haircut, this was the Ian show. Ian sells a stomp to the face better than anybody. Bradley was throwing some really wimpy stomps to the face and Ian really made it look like his skull was getting caved in. Those chair shots to the leg were so damn nasty.

Shaq Daddy v. Rollin Hard

PAS: This is another Pro-Am match, with Rollin Hard in the traditional Ian roll of guy potatoing a backyarder. No John Calvin with a kendo stick here, and Rollin actually sells for this guy a bit which kind of kills the gimmick. Shaq Daddy seemed kind of over with the crowd and this feels like the kind of thing that can't be understood out of context.

ER: Shaq Daddy didn't just seem kind of over, he was practically the most over guy on the whole show. Maybe he was a popular local tattoo artist? I have no explanation for this match. It gets like 11 minutes, Shaq gets a lot of bad looking offense, Rollin' really doesn't actually stiff him at all, puts him over afterwards like they had just gone through an epic war, crowd goes apeshit. I have no fucking clue what happened. Rollin' took a real nice spill through some chairs at ringside, but....I just guess you had to be there?

Bull Pain v. Corporal Robinson

PAS: Pain comes out with Mickie Knuckles as his valet, which is an angle that I didn't remember happening. This started out a little underwhelming, but man did it kick in gear. Both these guys really convey "tough guy" well and there were large parts of this that felt like the two craziest guys in a small town clearing out a bar. At one point Bull does a frog splash off the bleachers to the floor, which is a totally insane spot for a veteran to do, I could see Nate Webb or Vortex doing it, but Bull Pain worked in the AWA for fuck sake.

ER: Mickie rocking the little black dress and stylish bob! Cut to 6 years later and she has tangly long hair and a scarred up forehead. Bull is one of the most intimidating guys in wrestling, and Cpl. can do a real nice brawl. Their brawl through the crowd was a lot more impressive than most. Really had a cool fight atmosphere. Bull's bat shots are so awesome. They always look so nasty. They should've used him as an advisor to Ox Baker on "Escape from New York".

Chris Hero v. Michael Todd Stratton

PAS: I had seen this match years ago and I remember it fondly, and man does it hold up well. Stratton (aka Todd Morton) is just amazing at drawing heat, this is the day after Hero and Punk went 90+ minutes, so Hero is coming into this with a disadvantage. Lots of cool shit here, this building has a support poll off to the side of the ring and Stratton takes a huge flying bump into that poll, which looked just brutal. Stratton also breaks out a ladder and they do some cool spots with that, including Stratton pinning him in the corner with the ladder and blasting him with a perfect dropkick. Finish looked to be super overbooked, with a ref bump and Bull Pain and Adam Gooch run in, they get cut off by KO and Mark Wolf and Wolf smashes Stratton. That felt like the finish, but instead Stratton kicks out at two, and they do an amazing kneeling punch exchange, leading to Hero sweeping his legs and getting the Hangman's clutch. Awesome, awesome match, really one of my favorite Chris Hero matches ever, and another spectacular Todd Morton performance.

ER: I am usually not a huge fan of 30 minute matches, as more often than not it seems like the guys could've accomplished just as much in 16-18. But this 30 minutes flies right on by. Everything here was great. Phil mentioned all the cool spots. Hero dropkicking Morton off the apron into the support pole was a real rewind moment. Hero started the match out with real bad punches, but by the time they got to the kneeling exchange he was finally opening up and belting Morton. Of course Morton's punches started great and by the time the exchange rolled around they were just perfect. The size difference was really noticeable here, too, as Morton is a short guy, but they worked the match really believably around that, as even a big guy can get hit in the face. This whole show was a really great showcase for Todd Morton. This would be a real good place to start if you've been wanting to get into him.

Say, we should do some sort of Complete & Accurate Todd Morton list after the Fujiwara one...

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