CWF Mid-Atlantic Weaver Cup Semi-Finals and Finals 8/24/19

We haven't been checking in on CWF-Mid Atlantic since they go off of YouTube and Trevor Lee left with the belt. They are finally filling the vacancy so I decided to check out the Semi-Finals and Finals of their tournament on Twitch. They keep the shows up for only a couple of days though, so you have to be quick.

Roy Wilkins vs. Ethan Alexander Sharpe

This was heel stable versus heel stable, but Wilkins worked face with lots of interference from Corruption. This was fine, Wilkins had some stuff which landed nicely, but last time I checked on Sharpe he had been working more serious threat and he seemed to be back working as a cowardly heel manager. I do like Wilkins' offense, and he was definitely the right guy to go to the final.

Arik Royal vs. Cain Justice

These are my two favorite guys in CWF and I am pretty sure this was a first time match up. I  enjoyed this, but I wanted it to be better. Lots of cool little touches in the match with Cain giving up referees position, and dropping into guard, Royal had some really cool mat takedowns and riding positions, stuff like that. I also liked some of Cain's arm work, including his flip over Fujiwara and some of the takedowns. Still they had some chop battles which really didn't look good, and some time killing stuff, this felt like it would have been better faster, Cain was killing it in 10 minute RGL title matches, and his longer stuff hasn't connected with me as much. The Ethan Sharpe run in felt unnecessary and took some steam out of the finish. I imagine a title match between these two will be better, but this underwhelmed.

Arik Royal vs. Roy Wilkins

This was tag partner vs. tag partner, and I liked the actually work in the match a fair amount. Pretty simple stuff, but these are two big guys who do slow burn wrestling well. We got a slow burn start but never got any sort of finish run. They do a surprise distraction by Mace Lee and somebody else, and then a swerve as the All Stars turn on Wilkins (after teasing a turn on Royal) and help Royal get a roll up. An angle rather then a match really

Pretty disappointing, felt like all three matches under delivered, and the production of the show with the single streaming camera and new commentary team are subpar. I thought CL Party was fine as a Color commentator with Cecil Scott, but she is miscast as a lead announcer and basically didn't call the action of the match at all. I might check in for a big Cain or Arik Royal match in the future, but this didn't want to make me want to start following the fed regularly again.

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2019 Ongoing MOTY List: Cain & Trevor Go Long

4. Cain Justice vs. Trevor Lee CWF Mid-Atlantic 2/16

PAS: This is a match that I have real mixed feelings about. 74 minutes is really long, I get why Lee wanted to go out with a Trevor Lee marathon, especially because he is off to the land of the four minute Noam Dar matches, but they really could have told the same story in 45 minutes, they found interesting things to do to fill the time, but it is a lot of time. I am also very tired of the indy forearm exchanges, and there were a couple of not great ones here.

I try to review matches separate from promotional booking, I want to have matches stand alone. Still having Trevor Lee win this match and walk out of the promotion with the title is really destructive booking. Lee beat everyone in this promotion multiple times, held the belt for three years and needed to drop the title to someone on his way out. How is anyone going to be invested in the next champion after he picks the belt out of the dumpster Lee threw it in on his way to the Performance Center? The promotion seems to want to push Cain as next guy, which makes sense, he is great. Still Lee went 3-0 against him in 2019, in this match he beats him into a ref stoppage, restarts the match, and then beats him again a minute later. There were multiple points in this match it would have made perfect sense to have Cain win, and to have him lose again was just deflating. All of the Ian Rotten speeches by Trevor about how Cain is the future still won't undo the damage of him being unable to get the job done. CWF doesn't seem to be doing Worldwide anymore, and is pulling stuff quickly from Twitch. I am not sure why they are making it harder to watch their product, and add that to a decimated title situation, I am really worried about the future of the promotion.

On the other hand there was a lot to love about this match, and despite my reservations I think it was damn good. This match is Cain's trial by fire, and Trevor does Fuchi style torturing better then anyone, and he really stretches and pounds on Cain in a brutal and impressive ways. It is really one sided for a long time, but they build to some big Cain moments well, and by the end I totally bought into him pulling off the win. There was a couple of really awesome spots, I loved Cain slipping in a flash gogoplata and Trevor breaking it by deadlifting him and hotshotting him on the bottom of the top rope. The last 20 minutes are really dramatic with both guys getting some really great submission based near falls, I loved all of the teases and variations of both the STF and Twist Endings, and the near fall by Cain on the Twist Ending roll up was one of the better 2.9 near falls I can remember. I think the whole crowd thought Cain had won the match. I thought the stomps Trevor did to get the ref stoppage were appropriately brutal looking, and Trevor restarting the match if Cain can beat a 10 count was a cool moment, I just wish it didn't end with another decisive Trevor win, it really was a perfect way to give Cain a win, but still protect Lee, instead it just lets Trevor beat him twice.

ER: This was going to be difficult for me, for multiple reasons. I don't think I'm great at reviewing really long matches, because much of my wrestling fandom revolves around thinking that matches don't need to go long, that most guys don't need to go long, that you should be able to accomplish whatever wrestling narrative you're trying to tell in half the time. But I fully get why this match would go long, it's woven into the CWF Trevor Lee title match narrative, it's something we expect, and going into this match we all knew it was the final Trevor Lee CWF title defense. I wish I didn't know going into this match that it was 75 minutes, as it kind hurts the drama of a long match knowing that it is going that long; but, it's also pretty impossible to not know a match was going this long, unless you watch it as it happens.

I really loved the first 60 of this, and it lost me somewhat in the last 15. As with many long matches, it's that type of thing that makes me question why it had to be this long. But what was impressive is how one-sided the first 50 minutes were, without it ever seeming like the match was going too long. It was one-sided, but the % split was just right, so that Cain never felt out of it even while he wasn't actually on top that much. Every time Cain got aggressive Trevor was right there expecting it; when Trevor was aggressive Cain wasn't always as quick on the trigger. Trevor can come off real sadistic, and I love these long matches where Trevor works slightly heel, a guy who is in control who is also rudely wiping his hand on Cain's face and working condescending holds. Trevor really big brothers Cain around the ring, and it wasn't like he wasn't treating Cain as a threat, it was more like he knew Cain was a threat but knew he was better...which admittedly makes a lot more sense if Cain was actually winning the match. Nobody likes cocky guy who definitively backs up what he says. But I like Trevor's brand of torture, and it's awesome to see someone barely old enough to rent a car look *this* comfortable in a ring. Lee wrestles like he knows exactly where he's at in there at all times, but that doesn't guarantee an engaging beatdown. The longer this Cain torture went, the more into it I got, and the more excited I got at how exciting the fans were for it. This is a crowd that ran all age ranges and genders, and there was honest to god excitement coming from the crowd every minute of this match. Do you know how special that is? Once a crowd is burnt out, it's almost impossible to get them back. Imagine starting a 75 minute match, losing them 30 in (and I would wager most indy wrestling crowds would get burnt after 30 minutes) and knowing you still had 45 minutes to gut this thing out. At that point you'd have to realize that you were only working a long match for yourself, and not for the fans. But with these fans along for the ride it felt every step of the way that this was what they wanted to see.

At first Cain's only breaks came from Trevor being too aggressive, and I liked things like Trevor kicking the ringpost to give Cain a breather. And you know the first time Cain gets chippy and one-ups Trevor, that's when Trevor utilizes the finger break. Perfect placement in the match. And I was so into all the mat scrambles and nasty work (Lee hyperextending Cain's left leg, or that absolutely brutal combo where Lee was basically working a stump puller while forcing Cain's head down by sitting on it, or violently and suddenly turning a knucklelock into a Boston crab) that I didn't want them to go into the strike exchange portion. It was ramping up that way, but I didn't totally want it to, and I think some of the striking came off lesser than the mat stuff. Now, since a lot of the striking came an hour into the match, that's kind of an acceptable reason for it to look off in spots. But we got some great nearfalls and some convincing near finishes out of it, like every time Cain went for a Twist Ending. Every reversal out of the TE was exciting, and I honestly thought Cain won it on that roll up (I knew the match went long, but didn't know the result).

I'm 100% with Phil that I just don't understand the ending. I'm a fan of restarts, and you could hear the wind get sucked out of the room when Redd stopped the match, no matter how much a stoppage made sense in that scenario. Cain wasn't defending, Redd was doing his job, the fans were quiet but it made sense. It would have been such a perfect way to get the belt on Cain, to have Trevor sense the fans' disappointment and not want to go out that way, to give the fans a true 3 count or tap out finish that they clearly wanted, to boldly declare that if Cain could answer the 10 count, he would continue the match. And when I heard that my feet started running in place where I sat, excited for Cain to fight to his feet and tap Lee.......and then Lee just beat him right after the restart. What a crushing and confusing finish. I can't think of a better way to finally beat Trevor, for him to demand a match he won be restarted - a combination of cockiness and pleasing the fans that he loved - and then getting beat because of it. But instead he beats Cain twice, and now the title I guess gets decided from some sort of tournament among guys who all couldn't ever beat Trevor Lee, some multiple times. That just feels like a shocking, major misstep to me. If I look at this match as "how many total minutes did I love?" then this match would have a super high %. But it's really hard to love something for much of its runtime and then only be able to think about how it ended.

Separately, I want to say how much I loved Cecil Miller and CL Party's commentary during this whole spectacle. I think it was pretty unquestionable before this match that Cecil is the best active wrestling commentator going, and after this match it's not even close. CL Party has grown confidently into her role and her genuine reactions are believable and welcoming to the brand. The two of them together kept me invested in every minute of this. CWF is a promotion that is big on internal history, and without Cecil and CL there organically working in historical information, I don't think the match comes off as well as it did. It's exciting to hear feud history, personal insight, no snark, commentary that doesn't sound like it's too inside or reading prepared copy; it's two people who know these two wrestlers, who have been there the entire time for everything leading up to this match, and that warmth and personal knowledge shined through the entire way. Seeing the Twist Ending get locked in on Trevor and hearing Cecil scream about how it's never been broken before made me pull my laptop closer in anticipation. CWF wouldn't be as good without these two welcoming fans to the product, and I'm glad I got to listen to them for 75 minutes.


2019 MOTY MASTER LIST

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2019 Ongoing MOTY List: Cain vs. Trevor

Cain Justice vs. Trevor Lee CWF Mid-Atlantic 1/5

PAS: This has been the match I have most wanted to see in CWF for a couple of years, and while it wasn't a stone cold classic, it was really fun to watch these two guys stretch it out for a long match. Cain has just turned face, and this was worked like a mentor student match, with Lee putting over Cain as the future of the company. Much of this was on the mat with Lee stretching and pounding on Cain, and Cain getting some reversals, I especially liked the triangle armbar out of the flipping powerbomb, Cain had a couple of big roll up nearfalls, but I would have liked to see Trevor survive the Twist ending, and Cain get at least one reversal out of the STF. This was an impromptu challenge on an RGL show (their rookie showcase) so it had a pretty small crowd, and it really reminded me of the Regal vs. Brookside Power Plant match which showed up on YouTube last year. If Lee is NXT bound I hope we get a big time version of this before he goes, if it doesn't happen I am glad we got this.

ER: This is a match we've both been waiting to happen, delivered differently than we maybe expected it to happen. It's a long match that was paced nicely and filled time admirably, but both men felt a little lackadaisical so while the moves themselves felt like they ramped up appropriately, the emotion felt the same to me at the 30 minute mark as it did at the 1 minute mark. I'm not usually one clamoring for MORE EMOTION in a wrestling match, we've seen enough heavy breathing Godspell curtain call selling from Gargano this past year, but there was a little something missing here. I lead with that complaint, which is somewhat mean for a match I liked. I don't really think there was a single misstep here, it all just felt a little passionless. And typically Impromptu Gym Shorts Lee matches have plenty of passion. Here, both came off more irritated than anything. Still, these guys can work, and work they did. As I said the time was filled admirably, starting with a bunch of nice grappling, quick mat exchanges, nasty wrist work from Lee, a couple tough stomps to Cain's posted arm, stomping on Cain's fingers, and Cain paying him back with a couple nice stretches. All the mat stuff looked great, and I loved how the strikes were integrated. Starting with Lee going for an apron punt - which I thought was a weird tonal shift - I immediately thought it fit the tone perfectly when Cain expertly caught the punt and made Trevor regret it. The moves are worked in logically and executed great, with a cool delayed brainbuster from Trevor, and a couple of great superkicks from Cain. But Cain never really felt like he was in a position to win, never felt like he even got Trevor close to a nearfall, and it was a little disheartening to see these two go so long and the match to feel so competitive, while also feeling that Cain never really had a chance. These two are great, and the match was a ton of fun, but I've liked several Trevor title matches against lesser opponents more than this one. I say they just do a Best of 7 series so we can just get every single kind of match we'd ever want them to have against each other.


2019 MOTY MASTER LIST

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CWF Mid-Atlantic Worldwide Episode 153

Episode 153


Aspyn Rose vs. Willow Nightingale

PAS: This was pretty competent, and a better Rose performance then we have seen before. Rose still tries somethings she can't pull off, but less of it, and some of her strikes looked pretty good. I liked Willow Nightingale, she looks like Jill Scott and uses her thickness well, stuff landed solidly and her finishing Death Valley Driver was really nasty looking. Would dig seeing her again, and I imagine a match against SIS would be really good.

Zane Dawson/ Dave Dawson vs. Ray Kandrack/Mike Mars

PAS: I enjoy big boy tag matches, and one of the great things about CWF is the number of big boys available. This is four of their lower tier hosses, but it still going to be pretty thudding. They get most of the heat on Mike Mars, and he is still a little green in the ring (certainly at playing Ricky Morton) and the finish was a bit wonky, but we got some big shots and I dug the Mars/Kandrak double headbutt.

Logan Easton Laroux vs. Cam Carter

PAS: This was really good juniors wrestling. Carter is really athletic and has some impressive flips and feints, really great body control. Laroux is really good at using shortcuts and tricks to keep himself about water. This was a flashy technico against a solid rudo, a tale as old as wrestling itself and one told well. I really liked some of the little beats here. Laroux threw an intentionally weak chop and Carter responded with an open hand heart stopper, I also dug how Laroux tried to force down Carters arm when he was hulking up in a sleeper. I also really like Carters weird mule kick to the face. I did think the finish was a bit abrupt although Carters second rope 450 is cool.  If this had a better finish run I could have easily seen it make a 2018 MOTY list.

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CWF Mid-Atlantic Worldwide Episode 152

Episode 152

Tag Team Battle Royal

ER: A lot of good teams in this, teams I really would not mind seeing in actual regular action. I love the idea of an Otto/Dollars team, like Daddy/Kool, Justice/Sharpe, Biggs/Foxx, just a good mess of teams. I love battle royals a lot, and this really had the makings of a great one. We eventually hit that annoying moment where three teams get eliminated at basically the same time, immediately cutting our participants in half, which takes a lot of the wind out of the sails. But even with that, this battle royal is fun as hell. Aaron Epic hasn't been seen in CWF for half a year, and makes a nice return here, really throwing big shots, stooging when needed, and going after Biggs. Biggs also turns in a great performance as the biggest guy in the match, lumbering around chopping people and squishing them into corners, walking Kool Jay to a press slam elimination (so many press slams in battle royals weirdly don't end in eliminations, it's good to see one actually come to its logical conclusion). I loved one moment where Biggs was slumped in the ropes and just reached out and chopped someone who wandered near him. It felt like King Kong swatting away a compy who had come to investigate if he was dead or sleeping. Cain understood proper battle royal behavior, wearing a shirt to the ring specifically so he could choke people with it. Dirty Daddy also made the most of his time, throwing some of the nastiest strikes of the match during his camera time (he had a downward strike elbow to the back of the neck that was absolutely brutal). I even laughed at Schwanz' elimination, as Schwanz keeps barking and saying words that aren't, while Donnie Dollars keeps asking "Are you kidding me!?" I wish it didn't wrap up so suddenly, this was shaping up to be a barnburner.

PAS: Battle Royals are mostly punches and kicks, so you want a match full of good punchers and kickers and CWF is loaded with them. Lots of wandering around and throwing forearms and guys like Otto and Dirty Daddy have awesome forearms. I loved Biggs in this too, and the Biggs vs. McAllister showdown was great with both guys just laying into each other with chops and headbutts, McAllister is really fun and perfect for Battle Royals. Unsurprisingly Kool J takes the sickest bump of the match, getting press slammed to the floor by Biggs (which seems like kind of a dick move for a face to do, no need to kill the kid.)

Aaron Biggs/Snooty Foxx vs. Aaron Epic/Abel

ER: I much prefer this kind of finish to a battle royal, where the two survivors then have an actual match. The match is short, but good, with Abel and Epic keeping Snooty away from Biggs with simple stuff, I liked a basement dropkick from Epic, and I think Foxx is just a super strong babyface. His selling during the beatdown was really good, he's a guy with size who can garner sympathy, and Biggs is great on the apron wanting the tag. I wish we could have gotten more once Foxx tagged out, as we fairly quickly go to the finish with the Biggs press. I'd like to see an actual tag match between these two, not one coming at the end of a battle royal, but a good 12-15 minute tag. I think all would match up really well.

Arik Royal/Mace Li/Rick Roland vs. Chet Sterling/Lucas Calhoun/Proletariat Boar of Muldova

ER: Roland is a big guy who's been around for awhile but I don't believe I've ever seen him, and he's filling in for Roy Wilkins in "the clean up spot". This match gets a lot of time, 17 minutes, and I think it was strong but could have been much stronger. Sterling put in a good babyface performance getting beat down by the All Stars, but I think his babyface work was kind of negated by Calhoun getting the hot tag and immediately working all of his comedy karate spots. It's kind of amazing to me that guys go along with those spots, but it's just not my bag. We do get a real nice second life to the match, as Mace Li of all people comes in to put a stop to Calhoun's five finger death punch nonsense, and Li puts in some of his finest work that I've seen from him. So we get a second nice All Stars control segment, a bunch of silly abdominal stretch heel work, with Li getting leverage from Royal on the apron who gets leverage from Coach who gets...and we get a nice Sterling run where he absolutely dumps Royal with a half nelson German, fun match overall with nice peaks and valleys. I was also really impressed with Rick Roland. I had never seen him before although I'd seen his name and I know he's been around awhile, but never heard much about him. He's big, looks almost the exact same as Parrow, and wrestles like a way better version of Parrow. His power offense lands heavy and he has a couple awesome tricks, like this slingshot rolling senton from the apron that absolutely splats onto Sterling. I'd love to see more of Roland and think he would fit in awesomely at CWF, hope he's not one of those guys who just shows up once a year on CWF shows.

Ethan Alexander Sharpe vs. Hurricane Helms

ER: Cecil Scott goes around ringside and gets a fan to pull Helms' title challenger out of the fishbowl, and the fan sees Sharpe's name and doesn't even want to say it in the mic, just tosses it back at Scott and walks off while rolling his eyes. Awesome. CL Party looks down at Cecil and says "No good?" Funny moment once Sharpe comes out and you realize who the kid was eye rolling about. Helms pins Sharpe quickly, and we go right into a tag match with Helms' mystery partner.

Ethan Alexander Sharpe/Cain Justice vs. Hurricane Helms/Ric Converse

ER: Pretty simple tag that I think needed Sharpe Justice to work a little more stiff to make up the size difference. Without that it felt like Helms and Converse taking 80% of the match while Sharpe and Justice just kind of clubbed away during their control. Helms even dominated the submission parts of the match, locking in his really cool figure 6 submission a couple times, and then reversing a Cain armbar attempt into a cool triangle, hooking his long leg around Cain's jaw. So Hurricane got the big submission moments, Converse got to come in throwing big punches and a big sitout powerbomb, Hurricane got to hit a big trapped arm facebuster on Sharpe, Cain took a big bump off a clothesline, really felt like my boys got a little steamrolled here. Sharpe hit his nice jawbreaker but I needed more out of my guys, and definitely didn't need them easily tapping to a dual submission (Hurricane's figure 6 + Converse's figure 4 = takes us to a figure 10, as called by Smith Garrett). CWF has a ton of guys they use, really think we can do better than just having Cain tap to a figure 4 after not being in the match a ton.

PAS: I thought this was a fun send the crowd home happy big star tag. Helms looked really good, all of his offense popped and the figure 6 is a great looking submission, I also loved the countering of the armbar, I am a big Helms fan from way back, and I never thought of him as a mat guy. I get Eric's beef with the heels getting dominated, and it does seem like they are shifting Cain to more of a stooging tag worker, but he is pretty great as a stooging tag worker, and the Cain/Sharpe team make a fun pair of John Tatums to get bumped around a ring.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE CAIN JUSTICE

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CWF Mid-Atlantic Worldwide Episode 151

Episode 151

Aric Andrews vs. Matt Houston

ER: I'm all for Houston getting some TV singles matches, just as I'm all for Andrews now that he has facial hair again. Houston is a 0.4 on the "Dick Murdoch abilities" scale, but a 0.8 on the "Dick Murdoch physical likeness" scale. And that's a pretty decent combo. He gets a lot of room to work opposite Andrews, Andrews is a little like Stevie Richards, tall and lanky and without a lot of offense. So Houston gets to show off his surprising agility spots, hits a gorgeous heavy dropkick, drops both atomic drop varieties (atomic drops are missing from wrestling today, and that's a shame as it also robs us of atomic drop selling), and misses a guillotine legdrop with conviction. I liked Andrews going after the leg, whipping it into the mat, yanking on it, hyperextending it with some stump puller type moves, working a long compelling figure 4 with a nice simple reversal moment that fans universally get behind. Houston has these great skinny white legs, looking like a million dads at a million summer cookouts, and Andrews hits a whale of a mule kick low to end this cookout. I'd love to see more Houston in the Sportatorium, and Andrews has purpose again.

PAS: Glad to see Andrews back looking like a total sleaze, he is really good, doesn't have a lot of fancy offense, but everything he does looks good. This is the most I have enjoyed Houston, tubby guy with a good right hand is right up my alley and I loved his pair of atomic drops. Andrews is really good at using his length as an attack, everything is thrown from distance, and his figure four looks great with such long legs. Short match, but very entertaining, CWF really knows how to run undercards.

John Skyler vs. Trevor Lee

ER: I've been a big fan of the Trevor Lee title run. Eight of his title matches landed on our 2017 Ongoing MOTY List, three of them in the top 20. And this match had me hooked, as I actually thought there was a chance that Skyler could win the belt. I'm not sure the last time I actually thought there was a chance Lee would lose the belt. Maybe the 2017 CWF Rumble? If not that, probably the Nick Richards match from June 2017. I've loved a lot of matches that weren't those matches, but I never thought Lee was losing the title. And after this match I don't see him losing the title. It seems more likely now that they retire this specific title if he ever opts to sign elsewhere, and rename it the Trevor Lee Title, or that he loses it in an Ogawa/Akiyama way to someone like Cain Justice. They've now built up this potential moment for so long, that I think my interest peaked and has since been dipping. I'm sure the right contender would get me interested in a big title fight, but this was the first match where I got Hulk Hogan vibes out of Lee, where you can do all the damage you want, but at some point he's just going to get up, superkick, finger break, and STF you.

I really loved the first 2/3 of this, with Skyler stalling, being the first to strike (and then amusingly rolling to the floor) but building to a strong, focused attack on Lee's ribs. Skyler had a bunch of great stuff focused right at Lee's midsection, and I love a heel with a nice focused body part specific attack, with also a couple of moves that can be established and reversed later. He hits a couple of his big spears, dropped these cool falling headbutts into Lee's side, great kitchen sink knee to the guts, kneedrops to the ribs, heavy senton, a couple of brutal Finlay rolls, and a Boston crab that made my back sore. Just a nonstop centered attack that gave Lee a couple openings (catching a spear, shifting position to catch an armbar on a senton attempt), but Skyler would go right back on the attack. But at a certain point I think my core hurt more from watching Skyler's attack than it actually hurt Lee. I don't think Lee did a great job of putting over the damage that was being done. Once we were through the targeted body attack portion and moved into the "big moments" (ref Charles eating a punt, big belt shot from Sklyer) portion of the match, there was just no service of any kind paid to it. As I was enjoying all the body work done by Skyler, not only was I thinking a Lee loss was possible, but I was excited for all the neat stuff they could do with Lee winning with an injured core. I was excited for Lee locking on the STF, or an armbar, but not being able to hold it because his core couldn't stay flexed long enough to get Skyler to tap. I always love a match where someone with established moves and killshots, suddenly has to find new ways to win when those are taken away from him. But those tools never really felt like they were taken away, we just hit a point where it was in homestretch Lee mode. There were still engaging moments down the stretch, and finish was clever and well executed, with Skyler aiming for a belt shot, eating a drop toehold, hitting his face on the belt, allowing Lee to lock on a painful as hell Regal stretch. But the danger of the opening 2/3 was gone, the match that was looking potentially special was turned into something more expected. For a 42 minute investment, I was hoping for special, and it looked like we were really getting special.

PAS: I liked this a lot more then Eric, I thought all of the early work was interesting and they did some very cool reversals. Loved Lee countering the Senton with an armbar, countering the second spear with a brutal knee, and kicking out the back of Skyler's knees and locking on a sleeper hold. I think Eric is booking a match in his head that wasn't on the screen, Skyler worked the body over to tire out Lee, take his wind from him, just like a fighter will bank body shots for later. Lee sold fatigue fine, but there was never any cracked rib selling he ignored later. This was more a traditional long heavyweight title match, then a match built around body part selling (outside of the vicious late match arm attack which Skyler sold great.) The elbow stomp and finger break is so nasty, it seems so unnecessary when Lee does it against Donnie Dollars or Ethan Sharpe, I like him breaking it out in a desperation flurry during a match he is losing. I thought the couple of near falls on Lee were really good, he will lose this belt eventually, and the ref bump, belt shot STF KO seemed like a plausible way, and I thought Lee's desperation roll through was really cool. I didn't love Skyler going back to the belt in front of the ref like that, but that final Regal stretch was epically painful looking, Lee is one of the better stretchers around. I think they could have easily shaved 10 minutes or so from this, but I thought overall this was very good.

PAS: We are going to throw the Lee vs. Skyler match on our 2018 MOTY List, and we are back on our CWF grind.

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CWF Mid-Atlantic Worldwide Episode 150

Episode 150

John Skyler/Mace Li vs. Aaron Biggs/Keith Mac

ER: This started out rough, with none of the stuff featuring Mac looking good. He threw a bunch of bad hiptosses, the kind that looked like a local high school PE teacher got in the ring to pop the crowd while the wrestlers bumped around for him, and then Mac capped it off with an ugly dropkick. Bad start. But Skyler willed this thing from the grave with a fast sprawling bump to the floor, and once Skyler/Li take over on Mac I get into it. Mac takes a great bump to the floor thanks to Skyler holding the ropes open, and Skyler/Li don't do anything spectacular to pick apart Mac, but they keep things engaging, keep Biggs away, Skyler is good at things like that. I especially liked how he occupied himself to allow Mac draw out the hot tag to Biggs: Skyler had eaten a facebuster and wandered around the ring holding his jaw, in total disarray, going to the wrong corner to tag in Li, all good stuff to let Mac build to that tag. And Biggs is a super fun hot tag, obviously, smooshing the other two and ending things once Li gets whipped into his rib crushing Thesz Press. This recovered quite nicely after

PAS: This is a good example of how a classic southern tag structure has a really high floor. Mac wrestles like a veteran in his 70s still working nostalgia shows (does Thunderbolt Patterson work Georgia indies, imagine that), good shtick, but utter inability to execute offense or take bumps, he is the Ricky Morton in this. Despite that, some good bumping and shtick by Li and Skyler and an awesome looking hot tag by Biggs make this a plus match. Get the crowd behind someone, and delay the gratification for a bit and it is going to be entertaining.

Otto Schwanz vs. Chet Sterling

ER: Is Otto the best (only?) guy to pull off a "tough guy/goofball" persona? He comes out in his velour Fila track suit and comically large chain, jump scares little kids, gets in the ring and does some combination of amateur rolling and warm-up break dancing, looking kind of ridiculous and yet kind of dangerous. "Kind of Ridiculous and Kind of Dangerous: The Otto Schwanz Story". I really liked this match, and loved Otto tossing Sterling around. Sterling would fire back with punches and I thought Otto did a good job picking and choosing which ones to take seriously, and which ones to storm through and ignore. Sterling rushes in with some body shots, Otto chuckles and doesn't slow down a bit; Sterling pops him in the jaw, Otto gets rattled, eyes widen, he cracks Sterling back harder. Otto has this one punch that I really love - and a few big guys use punches like this - where he throws one big shot horizontally across the jaw. It's a cool angle, stands apart from normal stand and trade punches, reminds me of the visual of when Andre would punch across his opponents face and body. I thought Sterling was good firing back with hard overhand chops, loved Otto sinking in bearhugs and elbow drops, thought Sterling bumped around great for Otto (and love that Otto charging shoulder in the corner, that sent Sterling through the ropes to the floor), and the nice high cradle is a believable way to get a pin on a bigger dude.

PAS: This was pretty good, Sterling has some dodgy offense, but is a good bumper and good at getting the crowd behind him, so having him eaten up by Schwanz is a good match structure. Otto is great at making simple things look devastating, nasty bodyslam, really great ragdolling bearhug, nice straight punches, nasty backbreaker. He reminds me a lot of Mark Lewin, who would be the answer to Eric's question for tough guy/goofball combo. Great match for the crowd, who really got into Otto's shtick and Sterling's comeback.

Dave & Zane Dawson vs. Dirty Daddy/Kool Jay

ER: At this point, every Dawsons tag feels longer to me than it actually is. I thought this match went 20, was shocked to see it was just 14. I don't know why, but it feels like there are rarely any changes in pace throughout their matches, they just kind of continuously operate at one level, and the Dawsons are just a bit too dry. They've shown flashes, they've had decent matches, but there's zero nuance to their performance. They sell for opponents in minute one of a match the same as they sell in minute 13, so there's never the impression that a babyface time is making headway or falling behind in a match. They're essentially always equally about to win or about to lose, and that makes things drag. Teams never gain or lose ground against them, they just do stuff to them until the match ends. They're not great at setting up offense for their opponents, but I still enjoyed Jay and Daddy here, thought both had nice punch combos. Daddy had some nice moments showing his really excellent attention to detail, and it's a shame he's been kind of lost at sea for the last few months. He'd be a far more interesting guy with a tag belt than these two. A great detail moment I loved from Daddy was him getting caught by the Dawsons in a crossbody, leading Jay to missile dropkick him, sending him into a pinfall on the Dawsons. But Daddy comes up selling his back, which is huge, as it rarely happens with that spot. Somehow in wrestling physics, if you get hit with friendly fire you don't have to sell it. But Daddy is a smart worker and it really lends credibility to his matches. Dawsons on the other hand make taking a headscissors look about as plausible as Kenny Omega bumping for a blow up doll. I liked Jay taking big bumps and getting planted by the Dawsons, Zane threw a great punch in the corner at one point, but overall the match dragged for me.

PAS: Kool Jay is a great pinball and takes some big time bumps by the Dawsons, and I actually think this would have been a pretty good match, except for Dirty Daddy's lethargic hot tag. He is usually so good as both the hot tag and the face in peril, here it felt like he mailed in the big comeback a bit, which took some steam out of the crowd. Dawsons title reign has taken a bunch of steam out of the tag titles, not sure I have really liked any of their title defenses, this had some moments, but was too long and never hit third gear.

Donnie Dollars vs. Trevor Lee

ER: I've never seen Dollars come out in his button up and 1994 gaudy tie, and I like it. He looks like an IRS/Big Bubba cross, and the IRS look makes sense with his name. If he's supposed to have been some kind of equity trader then I have totally missed that. I dig Lee dismantling big guys, and I've been waiting for a longer Donnie Dollars match, so I was excited for this one and thought it delivered, although less than other Lee main events. Dollars was fun using some shortcuts that a huge dude shouldn't need to use, but I love seeing a heel cheat just to cheat, so Dollars pulling the ref in between he and Lee so he can blast Lee with an elbow, or Dollars kicking the ropes while Lee steps through them. Lee never really felt in danger in this one, which lands this lower than other title matches. Lee was mostly one step ahead of Dollars, with Dollars being the one to get occasional hope offense (like a big running boot), which is kinda backwards. But Lee is fun working ahead on a big guy, stomping early on Dollars' elbow, which Dollars never really recovers from. Dollars was really good at keeping that elbow stomp present, even though we never went back to it. His selling was good enough (without being constant) that it played as a rough move that set him back early in the match, that gave Lee the advantage the rest of the match. Lee would be kicking at Dollars' body, and he would be holding his elbow and leaving himself mostly defenseless against kicks, and it really made it seem like his elbow was messed up if he was willing to take these kicks to protect his arm. Lee amusingly baited him a couple times, like hitting a running elbow in the corner and duping Dollars into following him so he could hit him again. The end was never in doubt, and I wish Dollars had a bit more of a showing, but it was fun.

PAS: I tend to really like lesser Lee title matches, he is more interesting when he works around a formula worker, then just having an indy classic. The structure of this was kind of unique with Dollars playing a heel underdog big man, not a combination I can remember seeing before. Lee almost comes off heelish here, do you really need to break Donnie Dollar's elbow to beat him? I agree that Dollar's elbow selling was great and I thought the built a couple of nice near falls for Donnie. I think this match would have been better if Donnie went on a bit of winning streak before it, so the crowd might buy him a bit more, or if it had just been a sprint. Going this long without Dollars having any chance of winning was kind of odd.

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CWF Mid-Atlantic Worldwide Episode 149

Episode 149

Ethan Alexander Sharpe/Cain Justice vs. Michael McAllister/Nick Richards

ER: This starts out as a fairly genial, crowd pleasing house show match, the kind where you can see it continuing this way and being a match where Cain and E# show ass the whole match, or one that has a turn in the middle with the heels finally taking it to our 90s Create-A-Wrestler-Singleted duo. So we start amusing, with Sharpe not getting anything rolling, and we have fun house show moments like Richards booing Sharpe from the crowd. I should note that I also really love not just the Chapel Hill crowds, but the giant mural on the wall that often shows up in shots; front and center is a little girl smiling and reading a book, but she's wearing something bright white, and the design always tricks my eyes into thinking it's a big white beard. So this girl looks like Black Jesus holding a giant tome, or Grady from Sanford and Son. It brings joy every time I see it. Anyway, match gets really fun once Cain and Sharpe isolate Richards. Those two are so good at working a crowd like this, and Sharpe keeps adding fun new simple offense that fits his personality (the wind-up elbow drop that ends with him posed over Richards is a keeper), and his 12-6 elbows while standing over a seated Richards looked nasty. Cain throws a bunch of nice kicks, makes me laugh by sticking out his foot for Sharpe to tag in, and always impressed me with how quickly he can get from the ring out to the floor. I also like how he kind of cockily rubs his belly while trash talking opponents. Once you see it you can't unsee it! McAllister trips on his hot tag, so makes up for it by pasting our heels with forearms, hard lariats, and a big back elbow. Sharpe misses his KO uppercut, really swung hard for McAllister's jaw, and Cain makes the cutter look like a worthy finish. Fun match.

PAS: Great example of a formula southern tag, and what a great formula that is. Both Cain and Ethan are great as shit stirring heels. Cain can really stir up a crowd, and is great at flipping the switch between bumbling and vicious. He had some great kicks and stomps. I really dug McAllister's hot tag, he tripped going into the ring, but makes up for it, by throwing some really spudsy clotheslines. I also really dug McAllister's STO which planted Sharpe on Cain. Hargraves Community Center crowds are the best in wrestling and it was fun to watch them do this dance in front of this crowd.

Aric Andrews vs. KL3

ER: Andrews has some facial scruff back and there's no sign of that ponytail wearing smooth faced weirdo who was hanging around CWF for several months pretending to be Andrews. And I'm sorry to KL3 and his family, but Andrews needed a TV win like this. We get GOOD Andrews, dropping high elbows down across KL3's neck, knocking over ref Charles and pointing at Charles to watch it, hitting a great classic kneedrop, holding those hands over the head and then bringing that whole body into a crunch as his knee drops onto KL3's temple, and finishing things off with a couple of big uranage slams. Sinister Aric Andrews is back, and he's got that Golden Ticket!

PAS: Total squash for Andrews, and he looked good, that knee to the temple was brutal. KL3 looked awful, his 15 seconds of offense had no impact at all, including one of the worst kicks to the stomach I can remember, he also bumps really awkwardly on the Asphalt Spike. I am all for Andrew's squashes, but KL3 needs another couple of months in the training center before going back on TV.

Chapel Hill Street Fight: Arik Royal vs. Snooty Foxx

ER: I'm already well beyond hyped just watching the entrances of both men. Royal entrances are maybe my favorite in wrestling (and I'm the guy who writes about Metalico), a real crowd worker. I remember a Norm MacDonald story where he worked the WHCD while Clinton was president, and after his set he was backstage eating a pickle. Clinton comes in and works the room, one person at a time, saying something different to each person, and gets to Norm, shakes his hand and says, "I see you have a pickle" and keeps on going to the next person before Norm can even process what was said. It's not groundbreaking stuff, but it's a person to person unique touch. So Royal goes around the ring, he's waving his big Duke flag (so I know Phil is into this, big Duke supporter, not their sports teams, just their general vibe), he's getting into it with individual fans, mocking one guy with baller motions, making bug eyes at a little girl, purposely whiffing a high 5 with an even smaller kid, making fun of a woman's hair, simple making the rounds stuff you can tell he loves. Snooty comes out and it's night and day, people are overjoyed just to slap hands with him. The fans in Chapel Hill treat Snooty likes he just showed up at the cookout thrown in honor of him finishing his tour of duty serving our country. It's the best.

And this brawl totally delivered. Both guys brought it and were able to work a full 30 minute match without any drag, all while giving us a detailed site map of the Hargraves Community Center. And the cool thing about this brawl was that I dug the in-ring stuff as much as the wild crowd brawl. If it hasn't happened already, this just might be the official Snooty Foxx coming out party. Dude is here, he keeps getting better, and I get the feeling crowds anywhere would have been going bananas for him. Royal stalls to start, leading to Foxx rushing him with a hard forearm shiver, slingshots him into the ring, and then puts on a show by hitting turnbuckle 10 count punches on him all around the ring. Foxx has genuinely great 10 count punches, which is by far one of the hardest punches in wrestling to perfect. Snooty even hits a super early powerslam, with a great battle over whether Royal would slip out of it or not. We go through the crowd and it's all good stuff, love these two hitting each other hard in front of kids, Royal gets tossed through some chairs and kids are running up trying to touch him, merch table gets messed up, and you know we're going to go outside. They fight up on the trailer they use to haul the ring, and it should be noted that Cecil Scott and Smith Garrett were really great on commentary for the duration of the match, but really excelled during the outdoor portions. "Pretty sure we're getting shoplifted while we're out here, not for nothing." "That's a sturdy 1983 vehicle too, that thing is hard as hell" "That's the heartbeat of America right there." "So here's a recap, Arik Royal just hit a child with another human being." Royal throws Snooty off the flat bed just right into the huge crowd of fans that had gathered around. Foxx looked like he was stage diving, just a low fast dive right through a bunch of people, totally crazy looking. They both take great bumps into the fence around the baseball diamond, Royal finds an old hose and does some great chokes on Snooty, even drags him back into the building with that damn hose. Snooty takes a great beating, eats a couple shots with a shovel that Coach brought in, gets one of Coach's batting helmets busted over his head, and we should also note that Royal is someone who understands how to dress for a street fight. I want an action figure of "Street Fighter Arik Royal", complete with Duke flag. Snooty's comebacks are all excellently spaced out, and we get a great near fall that ended with Coach diving onto Redd Jones with his whole body to stop the count. Snooty clearing ring on the All Stars was primo fan stuff, taking them out with a huge dive off the top, hitting his nice one armed spear (so many guys would make that look trash, and he makes it look like a kill shot), and Royal gets perfectly in position to take a top rope bulldog face first into a chair. You know the knux come into play, and while I wish Snooty really waylaid Royal with the final blow, both sold it perfectly. Awesome, awesome match. These Chapel Hill shows are always a big ol' bank full of money. They're the heartbeat of America.

PAS: This is the way wrestling used to be, hot crowd disinterested in seeing MOTY candidates, instead totally invested in watching a beloved babyface beatdown a group of cheating jerks. Foxx is an all time great ticket seller, as he has packed the crowd with his entire neighborhood, there are multiple black ladies in their sixties who might be Snooty's great Aunt. Royal is world class at firing up the crowd too, taunting kids, stealing folks hats, talking trash, one of these days a drunk cousin of Snooty is going to take a swing at him. The Duke flag is a classic troll move, but the batting helmet signed by Coach K is another level. Of course that Coach K signed batting helmet gets busted on Snooty's head. The outside stuff was really great, I loved Snooty getting his head slammed in the truck door, and both guys really flew into all the fencing. Arik Royal tossing Snooty into a 4 year old girl could have gone badly, but instead it ended up being great. Everything didn't land as cleanly as you would hope, Snooty is still clearly early in his career, but the old school heatseeking greatness of this match made up for any execution issues.

PAS: We put the street fight pretty high on our 2018 MOTY List and added the tag match to our C+A Cain Justice

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CWF Mid-Atlantic Worldwide Episode 148

Episode 148

No Ropes: Trevor Lee vs. Roy Wilkins

ER: Writing about a match like this always seems like I'm stepping on eggshells, as I didn't love it, but am aware that many people did, and I much prefer writing posts based around "this is why I thought this match was awesome!" instead of posts framed around "here's why I'm the low vote on the match". And I guess the reasons for not liking it are fairly simple: I don't think the work within the match was interesting enough to pay off the stipulation, I don't think the No Ropes gave the match any more drama than it would have had with Ropes (ropes could have possibly been more interesting with the same rules, as it would allow for submissions to be applied within the ropes, with no breaks), and I don't think the work within the match justified the near 60 minute run time. I think certain parts of the match peaked too early, while other parts took too long to get moving. I also thought Wilkins looked weak offensively in spots, especially on his stomps. There was one moment where they spilled to the floor and Wilkins threw some of the lightest stomps, and capped them off with a really soft superkick; later, during our big and expected All Stars interference moment, Royal and Li threw more weak strikes to a grounded Lee, making it seem like they were fake putting the boots to a guy with shingles (Li threw a couple especially bad ones, but I think stomps are the weakest part of his game. He should consider dropping them from his repertoire). Overall, the match just didn't work for me.

I think you have to do something pretty special to justify an hour run time, and I don't think there was anything in this match that couldn't have been accomplished in half the runtime. And, I think the longer it went did more of a disservice to the submission attempts. With no rope breaks, we just ended up with several submission attempts that just ended up being applied, and eventually let go by the applier. Rope breaks are a great tool, a great way to build drama and structure some big moments around a narrow escape. But when a guy applies a move, doesn't get a tap, and just drops the hold, I thought it made the subs lose their luster. I can only see a submission being applied so many times, and then being broken without a tap, before it makes the guys look like they must not be very good at applying submissions. I also thought they could have integrated the unique ring set up more than they did. I've had similar complaints when guys worked a mostly normal match inside a cage. Some of my favorite spots in the match integrated the lack of ropes, from simple things like the early match lock ups with each man trying to back the other off the apron, or Wilkins teetering on the edge a couple times, to bigger things like Lee hitting a huge punt while Wilkins was climbing up onto the apron, an angle that would not have been possible without ropes. But the match was overly long, and even the Sportatorium crowd didn't start getting into it until past the 30 minute mark. When you sense a match is going long, you either get an excited reaction of things ramping up (like in Almas/Gargano, a match that ran 25 minutes less than this one, but had the crowd hooked from minute 1), but here it felt more like a "we know this is going long, the first half doesn't matter" reaction. And there were things that didn't matter, that I think happened at an odd part of the match: We get a finger break that didn't prevent Wilkins from doing anything the rest of the match, and not long after we got Lee posting and stomping Wilkins arm, which never stopped him from attempting subs. I liked the home stretch, where it became clear that Wilkins was a corpse and Lee was just going to keep propping him and and setting him in place to wreck him over and over, I liked Lee yanking off Jaray Caray's pristine white kicks - signing them! - and tossing them to the crowd, I liked the babyface locker room running off the All Stars, I liked the babyfaces pounding on the mat while surrounding the ring, but overall the match didn't land with me. It's not easy to work a near hour match, and I hope they're proud of that, at least. Ballads are being sung, but not for me.

PAS: I liked this a fair bit more then Eric did, overall I thought there was enough really great stuff in the match to recommend it overall, but there were some maximalist flaws which are present in a bunch of Lee's biggest matches, and especially his big and long matches which kept this from being on my MOTY list. Nearly an hour is really hard to pull off, especially in a modern wrestling environment which is going to demand big bombs and moments through out. Lee smashed his ankle into the post early which led to concerns of a broken ankle, but the match probably went 35 minutes after that, and we had several mid match KOs which didn't end up going anywhere ect. The run in had the great moment of Lee signing Carey's white shoes and sending them into the crowd, but otherwise was just overbooking and felt out of pace with the rest of the match. There were also some fatigue strike exchanges, which looked soft and kind of overacty.

Despite those complaints though, there was a lot to really love about the match, I was all in on the no ropes stip, and I thought it led to a bunch of very cool twists, especially in the early excellent grappling sections. I loved how Trevor used different levels to apply holds, sometimes coming from below to get torque and sometimes locking stuff on from above. I also thought all of the work around the figure four was cool, the lack of rope breaks added to the drama, Lee had to reverse it to break it, and the end with Wilkins taking a cool unprotected fall onto his head. I also really loved the finish with Lee just pounding Wilkins down and out with big shots until the ref stopped it. Exhaustion KO finish is a great finish for a long match, it makes sense that at some point shots can't be blocked or stopped. It is damn hard to make me want to watch a match this long with a modern work style. This had those flaws, but mostly kept me engaged, and I continue to be fans of both guys. I want to watch their first no ropes match, I imagine four years ago, they might not have had the need to go so big, and I might enjoy it even more.

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CWF Mid-Atlantic Worldwide Episode 147

Episode 147

Dos Hombres vs. Michael McAllister/Nick Richards

ER: Dos Hombres are Kamakazi Kid and Matt Smith. Kazi is a guy with a belly who seemingly works the greater NC area under assorted masked gimmicks (we dug his match against Cain Justice as "Number Dad") and Matt Smith is a younger former CWF guy who dropped out of wrestling for awhile. And I dug them both here. McAllister rocks a beard nicely, and Richards has clearly been busting butt to get into shape, he looks 20 pounds lighter than the last time I saw him. I really had no expectations for this tag and came away thinking it was a real blast. Hombres felt like a last minute gimmick but now I'd love to see them in the Kernodle Cup. They both did really cool things, Kazi snaps off a nice rana and hits a nasty headlock takeover, Smith has impressive energy and tosses in some things you don't see enough of, like his running jumping knee to McAllister's back and a weird (and awesome) flipping fistdrop. McAllister and Richards are really gelling as a team, and I love how stoked they seem to be teaming with each other. McAllister hits a big palm strike at one point that turns Kazi inside out (and I'm pretty sure it was just a great worked palm strike, don't think it actually made any contact) and Richards spikes his cutter (I think Kazi made it look more dangerous than anyone so far), just a ton of fun simple tag match. And looking back at what I wrote, it's pretty clear I came away most impressed with Kamakazi Kid (Hombre #1?). He does so many great little things, really talented guy.

PAS: Eric breaking kayfabe by outing masked guys, for shame. I really liked this too, McAllister and Richards are a really fun team, and the Hombres started out as a comedy team, but ended up being really fun.  I loved Rojo River Jack trying for a step up rana and ending up eating a stomach breaker, and Negro Bart's fat guy snap rana was dope. I loved the wheelbarrow cutter finish that Redemption was using, and thought the Hombres were a fun Conquistadores style masked team, I want to see them against everyone now.

Chet Sterling vs. Brad Attitude

ER: What a slaughter! Attitude cuts one of his great Las Vegas poolside interviews about how he's not there and he's in paradise instead, has the Hombres jump Sterling (with Kamakazi taking the big half nelson suplex bump as Sterling comes back), and then Attitude himself comes out in slacks and a dress shirt and just wastes Sterling with his hard rolling travel suitcase. I don't think I've ever seen one of those used as a weapon before, and as I fly down to Phoenix later this week I'll have to keep that in mind. Attitude chucks it - hard - at Sterling's face, really beats him with it. I mean if you're going to debut a non-canon weapon into a pro wrestling ring, you gotta show why it's a weapon. If that was the worst thing that happened to Sterling in this match, he'd be bad off. Sadly, Attitude catches a plancha and rams him painfully into the ringpost, and then hits probably the nastiest apron powerbomb I've seen. There's no great way to land one of those, but this definitely isn't the way you want to land, head whipping hard and body going right into the edge. I've really gotten into Sterling's comebacks, he makes good use of his great right hand, but the second the ref disposes of a chair Attitude boots him low. This has to be setting up a big time No DQ match, and if it even approaches this 4 minute teaser, that match will SLAY.

PAS: Man is Brad Attitudes entire shtick just gold. The whole promo in the pool with Dolph talking about seeing Vince Neil and drinking beers, what a masterful cock that dude is (Brad Attitude video cameos are BY FAR the best things Dolph Ziggler has ever done in his career). The roller bag hurled at Sterlings face was super nasty, as was that apron powerbomb. Hell he did a Kudo Driver as a set up move. Despite my long established Sterling skepticism, the blow off for this feud is going to be awesome.

Donnie Dollars/Otto Schwanz vs. Aaron Biggs/Kool Jay

ER: Oh man I really like the Dollars/Schwanz team! I don't think we've gotten that pairing before and I love it. Otto is fun in this, rolling around and acting like a kook, and Dollars is probably my favorite underutilized CWF guy. But what sets this match apart is THAT moment. I already thought this episode HAD that moment, maybe a couple of those moments, from Attitude destroying Sterling. You know, one of those moments that makes you exclaim out loud while watching something by yourself. This match is going along fine and then then Jay gets whipped across the ring...straight into an Aaron Biggs avalanche. Jay runs into Biggs like an Eagles fan trying to catch a train, just totally takes the wind out of the room. Awesome moment that was totally unexpected within the match. The reactions from Dollars and Otto are classic, both laughing in stunned amusement at the flattener and the flattened. And we get a nice and long and active control segment from my new immediately favorite tag team, with Dollars dropping some big heavy legs and his patented Kool Jay-destroying bodyslam, Otto snapping off quick elbow drops and squishing Jay with a bearhug, and Kool Jay - you heard it here - is a guy who will absorb a beating. He fights back with what he can, throwing nice body blows at Otto (that get mostly ignored) and really running face first into Otto's boot, propped up in the corner. Dollars and Otto are fun to watch deliver a long beating, Jay makes a long beating go quick. I do wish there was more of a match after the Biggs hot tag though. Jay hits a big stunner on Dollars and gets the tag, Biggs flattens Dollars with the Thesz press, and Jay takes a bit too long hitting the winning frog splash. The ending was a little too neat of a bow, and while it was pushed as a big deal that Jay pinned Dollars, it felt a bit like Cornette tagging in to get the pin after Eaton hits the Alabama Jam.

PAS: Really fun tag team, every time Dollars is in the ring with Kool Jay it is tinged by the horror of that powerslam chokeslam thing he did to him last year. The announcers never mention it, but for me it hovers over the entire match, Kool Jay then eats the accidental Thesz press and it comes off nearly as insane and violent, it felt like surprise car accident in a PSA about wearing seatbelts. A lot of the recent Kool Jay stuff has been based around his offense, which is fine, but his insane bumping is what makes him special. I liked the beatdown by Dollars and Otto and the finish was fine, but I am not sure how many more defining moments Kool Jay needs, is pinning Donnie Dollars in a tag  a bigger deal then beating Mike Mars for a title (a match that has been blackholed), it isn't like Dollars has been kept strong.

Ethan Alexander Sharpe vs. Ric Converse


ER: Fun unique match-up, with Cain being a great equalizer on the floor for Sharpe. Converse is a really great heavyweight, throwing big hands, great big boot, muscled Sharpe through a powerslam, all his stuff looking real good. I love Sharpe going for his big KO uppercut the second Converse is distracted by Cain, and Sharpe brings a nice attack to Converse, especially liked the draping elbow over the ropes, ending with Sharpe casually resting and posing over the middle rope/Converse. There appeared to be some shenanigans as I noticed a cut in the match - and I usually don't notice subtle clips - but Cain was helping Converse back in the ring, and we get a camera cut and Converse is draped over the bottom rope. The finish is a fun bit or horse business, with the ref KO'd Cain pump kicks Converse in the chest and Sharpe gets the roll up. I really loved how Ric sold the pump kick, like he had been poisoned and was just now realizing his heart beat was changing.

PAS: This was fun stuff, Sharpe has really developed into an effective offensive wrestler, and I actually buy his offense hurting Converse. Cain is nearly as great on the floor as he is in the ring, and the pump kick interference was pretty awesome looking. I am looking forward to seeing more of this tag team, although it does seem like a bit of a side draining of Cain who really should be feuding with Trevor Lee over the title at this point.

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CWF Mid-Atlantic Worldwide Episode 146

Episode 146

Arik Royal vs. Dirty Daddy

ER: Damn what a keg of dynamite this match was! Ferocious Royal is an absolute king, and this was some of my favorite Royal stuff ever. He worked this as an aggressive Junkyard Dog, lunging in hard at Daddy with diving shoulderblocks and booming headbutts, jumped him at the bell with big punches, just kept on him the entire time. This is some of the more vicious work I've seen from Royal (and makes me more grumpy we got robbed of TV champ Royal doing this stuff every week), and then he ramps things up with a crazy spinning backbreaker, then yanks Daddy's limp body off the mat into a short arm clothesline. I don't know if I've seen someone pull a guy off the mat into a lariat before, and I loved it. Daddy's comeback was a good one (he's a great babyface), and I loved him beating down Royal with chops and forearms and a big running elbow. Daddy always has what looks like a weak delivery on chops and elbows, usually no big wind-up, but they always land hard and look like something that could drop a big guy like Royal. Royal kept at those grounded attacks, and the big upending shoulder tackle is a favorite of mine. Awesome battle.

PAS: Yeah this was a really great compact brawl, this kind of six minute fight is something CWF does really well. Royal is so good as a stooging, shit talking, stalling heel, but he is also really great as a focused killer and he was brutal here. Daddy is also great at intense brawling and I loved his chop and punch beatdown in the corner and his diving clothesline which really hit with a thud. Royal has great explosion, he would have been an awesome middle linebacker, his tackles and cut blocks look great and part of the reason is that he can go from 0-60 so quickly.

Mace Li vs. Snooty Foxx

ER: Fun match and a fine Foxx performance, impressive that he can make someone like Li seem credible, and not just credible because of Coach and Royal at ringside. It's an important distinction. Li is still a hard guy for me to pin down, he'll do something great one moment, then get lazy a moment later. There was a weird moment where Foxx hit a back elbow but Foxx was the one who sold it, and Li went right back on offense. Not sure what happened there. Foxx is really good at big man leapfrog exchanges, love seeing him move quick and time that leaping back elbow, always looks great. I also thought the fight through the crowd was fun, these fans are always right on top of the action and it's always cool to see the workers not hold back right next to them. Finish was probably better on paper, with Royal holding Snooty's boots so he can't kick out, even though his boots were practically hanging off the apron. He's breaking the plane of the ropes, ref! The aftermath is simple match building, Li and Royal jumping Foxx all building to Foxx crushing a huge spear, instantly made me excited to see them fight back in Chapel Hill.

PAS: This was a match where both guys had good ideas, but still lack the execution to pull everything off. The idea of defensive wrestler Li catching a break and damaging the power guys knee. There were parts of this that looked great, but then Foxx would throw a dodgy punch or mostly miss on a clothesline, or Li would really poorly apply an Indian deathlock and I would be taken out of it a bit. These guys are basically still rookies, so the fact that they have good ideas is promising, and I am sure the execution will come.

Cain Justice vs. Cam Carter

ER: I could easily see the Cain/Sharpe team making a nice long run in the Kernodle Cup. Let me rephrase, I want Cain/Sharpe to make a nice long run in the Kernodle Cup. I don't believe we got to see their match from earlier this year, but it's no surprise that these two match up nicely. Carter is slippery and Justice has no shortage of mean tricks, so it's a fun combo. I dug all of Carter's flips out of Cain's wrist control, and Carter has a bunch of precise kicks and knees, and Cain is always game to lean into a kick or knee (that flying knee off the top looked like it bounced right off his jaw). This is a bit different than most Cain matches, as he has Ethan Sharpe running interference on the floor, and I don't recall him ever having someone interfering on his behalf before. I like how Cain typically structures comebacks in his matches, so the interference took away from that a bit and made the result less in question, but the action was good, and I liked Sharpe giving him leverage on an armbar. I don't think I've ever seen someone lock in an armbar and then hold it with one arm while grabbing his partner's arm with another. Carter sells the arm nicely and we get some fun moments, like Cam dodging a crane kick, sidestepping Cain and tripping him into the ropes to set up the 336. Cain is really great at removing or shifting gear to accentuate a beatdown. When I was a kid I would always get a kick out of Greg Valentine turning his shinguard before locking on the figure 4. I had no idea the significance of it, but it seemed cool to me. Cain is good at shifting a kneepad, removing a shinguard, something to signify that this next knee or kick would be somehow even worse. I loved Cam holding onto the ropes while Cain yanked on his arm, and the Twist Ending is always especially mean when he holds the arm and kicks it before locking it in. Tons of fun.

PAS: Cam Carter comes into Square Biz by Teena Marie and immediately vaults hugely up my favorite wrestlers list. This was another great Cain match against a relatively limited opponent. Carter has great athleticism, but doesn't always hit everything cleanly (I know I sound like a coded racist Sports Announcer right now, but he really does get great snap and height on his moves), Cain feeds him some big comebacks and is great cutting off the ring and really doing some vicious arm work.  Justice landed some vicious short kicks on the arm to loosen it up, and he is really great at violent focused attacks. I love how he varies the speed on it, he does the methodical Arn style arm work, but will also be frenzied, and the set up to the twist ending here was great. The commentary mentioning a rumored leg submission he is keeping secret got me excited, I can't wait for him to pull that out to win a huge match.  I do agree that Sharpe was a bit OTT on the outside, and some of the ref distraction spots didn't make a ton of sense. still I loved this match it made our 2018 Ongoing MOTY list and continue to be 100% all in on Cain.

Zane & Dave Dawson vs. Matt Houston/Louis Moore

ER:What a weird, unnecessarily long match. We have now written up over 60 episodes of CWF, and this tag is the 2nd longest tag match during that time! Why did this match go over 20 minutes!? There was not nearly enough happening to fill 20 minutes, and the last half felt like tired tubs lying around gathering their breath for their next move. Having a match this long really played up every participant's weakness: The Dawsons don't have enough interesting offense to be in control for that long, and they're genuinely bad at setting up opponent comebacks, so they took forever to get to the Outlaws' run of offense, and when it finally arrived they didn't do them any favors. This match dragged so much that when the 20 minute mark was announced I called my computer a damn liar. Houston is a guy I want to like. He's a spitting image of Dick Murdoch, skinny legs and an even bigger belly and even facial similarities, and his moonsault was surprising as hell. But the Dawsons have no clue how to set up his hot tag. Seriously they are terrible at finding ways to occupy themselves while waiting for spots, so they end up just standing frozen still, or awkwardly wandering. I had never seen Moore before and I liked how he bumped for a big chop in the corner, but man did he eat it on a rolling somethingorother to the floor: Houston had been "caught" by the Dawsons on a plancha (they dropped him, but he was kind enough to be lifted and held into position, and Moore rolled into everyone with a senton...except he corgi legged the jump, barely hit them, and splatted directly to the floor. I like a couple Dawsons eyepokes, liked Zane's big lariat for a nearfall, but this was just way too long and way too slow. There is no reason to have the Outlaws be the toughest opponents yet for the Dawsons. I'm pretty sure the crowd at one point even started a "This Match Sucks" chant, which is stunning coming from the familial Sportatorium crowd. This really felt like one of those rookie matches where they repeatedly miss signals from the back to go home, and the fed has to start flashing the lights in the building to get their attention. I have never watched the Hero/Punk 93 minute match, and I'm not totally sure how time and space works, but I bet I could have watched Hero/Punk in the time it took me to watch this match.

PAS: This was really ponderous, it felt like they were waiting for someones flight to arrive, like one of those WWF house show matches where Ron Bass and Tito Santana sit in a chinlock for 8 minutes because there was bad weather into Tulsa. Eric talked about Zane's lariat, but I thought Houston straight armed the taking of it, so it looked bad, Zane responded by straight arming the belt shot a second later. I did like the finish, really great looking accidental head smash into your partner and the double powerbomb looked good, but if you just showed me pictures of these four guys I would be totally jazzed for this match, and instead they basically laid an egg.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE CAIN JUSTICE

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BCW/CWF Mid-Atlantic Tap Out Cancer 11/12/17

ER: I saw the full show got posted online (Lee/White Mike, the 4 way, and CW/James aired on CWF TV) and the rest of the card was super intriguing (especially that main event!) that I figured I'd check it all out. This will all surely lead to me doing a NC road trip and doing a road report. I really love the scene they have there and need to start documenting as much of it as is available.

 Chris "TNT" Taylor vs. Beastly Brody

ER: Perfectly acceptable match on a card like this. I've not seen Brody before but he works a little more like Barbaro Cavenario than Bruiser Brody, and an American indy Barbaro would be a welcome thing (although this one has a little more respect for his knees). Taylor is getting there and would probably be better if he dropped some unnecessary flourishes; just focus on throwing a decent lariat or punch, not the 360 spin before the punch or lariat. Both guys do some things I like, Brody commits on a splash and has good energy.

Snooty Foxx vs. Tre G

ER: Pretty simple match with G trying to go toe to toe early, running into a lariat and Snooty's great leaping back elbow, then spending the rest of the match trying to cheat or trying to get Foxx to make a mistake. G is good at stooging into Foxx offense, like jawing with fans leading to him turning around into a side slam. I like how Foxx keeps things simple. There are too many large rookies that get into wrestling now and want to learn a standing moonsault. Foxx is learning more valuable skills like how to be a large guy but still sell convincingly. The end got a little silly with G's second interfering from the floor, leading to a kind of missed ball shot, then some fine fake weapon hiding that Foxx kicks out of. The ending was kind of a mess. But I like Snooty's powerslam finish, and the match was worthwhile.

Ricky Morton vs. Matt Houston

ER: 60 year old Ricky Morton is plump, but still unafraid to wrestle without a shirt, and that still means something in this crazy world. And this was about what my brain pictured a 2017 Ricky Morton match looking like. It wasn't bad, it wasn't great, but there were enough moments to make it an enjoyable watch. Houston is a fat cowboy in his 40s, which is a worker I'm going to like, and he's good bumping around for Morton, running into a boot in the corner, nothing flashy but a good opponent for a 60 year old Morton. Ricky still throws a nice overhand punch, nice kneelift, and ended the match with a really great roll up. The match was probably worth watching for the roll-up. It was a gifable roll-up. He stopped his momentum in the corner by sliding down and grabbing the bottom rope, then yanked Houston by the trunks as he as he ran by, and got in tight for a snug roll-up. It was a roll-up that would believably win a match.

Dave & Zane Dawson vs. The Ugly Ducklings (Lance Lude/Rob Killjoy)

ER: You knew these teams would match up nicely, so that's not a shocker. These teams have their bit down, and it's always worth checking out. This had a bunch of fun "Killjoy using Lude as projectile" moments, like Lude rolling into a Killjoy-assisted backdrop or getting launched over to the floor (and caught) or soaring off Killjoy's legs to nail Launchpad McQuack. It's a real fun thing they got going. Dawsons really busted butt here, and they're both good at killing the Ducks while also looking vulnerable to guys so much smaller than them, eating a couple big dives from them and takings ranas (Zane flies all the way across the ring off a Lude rana), and doing Phillie Phanatic prat falls for them. I liked when Dawsons would just brute force their way through a Ducks flying spot, like Lude getting punched out of the air or Dave surprising with a dropkick during a rope running spot. It's a great thing they have.

Cain Justice vs. Darius Lockhart vs. Nick Richards

ER: The match goes a shade past 5 minutes, but they manage to get a lot of cool stuff into those 5 minutes. We get a couple great early moments of alliances turning on Justice, with Lockhart sending him running into Richards (who sidesteps him and sends Cain to the floor), and then Cain getting back in and getting punched by both Richards and Lockhart to send him to the floor again. The brawling around the floor was good, with Lockhart hitting a big flip dive as the other two brawled, and then doing some fun disjointed floor fighting. And by that I mean nothing was timed and dodged, nothing looked rehearsed, just a three man tangle with awkward shots like Richards getting elbowed in the back of the head. I thought everybody worked around being the third man well, and I liked the opportunistic finish with Richards hitting the cutter on Lockhart, but Cain hitting Richards in the eyes and stealing the pin. They made the most of their allotted time.

PAS:  Fun short match. Cain is really great at these small show benefit cards. He is such an expressive wrestler that he can really bring a crowd into what is happening. Even in a random three way with no stakes, he can make you want to see him get his ass kicked (apparently this fed ran Cain vs. Trevor Lee in a cage but that show is not on youtube, talk about a holy grail). I like all three of these guys a bunch and they really kept it moving and kept in entertaining. Cain stealing the pin is the perfect finish.

ER: We wrote up the next the matches (Trevor Lee vs. White Mike, CW Anderson vs. Mark James, and Royal vs. Sterling vs. Skyler vs. Tracer X) as part of CWF Mid-Atlantic Worldwide Episode 135. All three are worth watching, especially the singles matches.

Career vs. Career: Damien Wayne vs. Lee Valiant

ER: Real good match, and a perfectly respectable way to end a 10+ year career. Valiant was allegedly a babyface for a big chunk of his career, but I've only seen him as a heel and can't really picture him as anything else. But, against a bruiser like Damien Wayne it showed through. Both guys worked tight (as you'd expect in a big stips match) and both took some nasty spills. Wayne will take your punches, but he'll be right there to fire back with hard shots to the stomach (Wayne may have the best kicks to the stomach in wrestling) and chops that will be harder than most wrestlers you will ever face. Valiant takes a nice beating, including a Lawler level bump into the ringpost on the floor. Wayne goes in big on everything, so that leaves him open to some big misses, like a huge bump over the top to the floor on a missed charge, and those misses lead to a Valiant comeback. Wayne bleeds big on Valiant's comeback, but was a total monster throughout, hitting increasingly bigger and meaner elbowdrops (a big rotating one, a bigger, meaner, and prettier one off the top, and then the match ender off the top with Valiant under a chair), and a big sunset flip powerbomb off the top. Wayne never skimps on pins, using full body weight, making each Lee kickout seem like a big moment. Very good match, and hats off to some tertiary people in the match: I really liked the moment where Wayne was pissed about a two count and shoved the ref over (while the ref was on a knee standing up). The ref jumped up to his feet and got in Wayne's face that it was only a two count. It was done in a way where Wayne didn't act afraid of the fired up ref, and the ref didn't back down, but never looked like he was getting any kind of shine. And post-match, hats off to whomever filmed this video, as I really liked the looks at Valiant hugging friends in and out of the business, and the close-ups on the wrestling boots he left in the ring. Nice work by everyone involved.

PAS: This was really good. I have also only ever seen Vailant as a sleazy heel, but he was really good working under against Wayne. Damien Wayne is one of my long time favorites and he was a beast here, moving forward lacing Valiant with hard chops and all timer punches. I loved how he cut off Valiant's top rope attack with that hanging neckbreaker and hanging legdrop, such a hard combo to pull off without looking contrived and Wayne and Valiant pulled it off. The double juice helped the stakes of the match too, most of my Wayne experience has been from no-blood Virginia, but that was a great grimy blade job. I did think maybe Lee needed one more big near fall, if he was dropping his career, but otherwise this was great stuff, a quality coda to Valiant's career and a reminder of how good Damien Wayne can be.


2017 MOTY MASTER LIST

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE CAIN JUSTICE

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CWF Mid-Atlantic Worldwide Episode 145

Episode 145

ER: The YouTube thumbnail for this episode looks like a Ghost album cover.

Snooty Foxx vs. Ric Converse

ER: Good match, and one that I hadn't really considered since it's face/face. Converse seems really energized by the CW feud, and he knew all the right ways to feed Snooty here, knew how to leave openings for Snooty's strengths. The winner was never really in doubt, but he made Snooty look strong enough that the big bulldog was a legit near fall. I was really impressed by how Converse muscled him around, threw some nice back elbows (and I always like Snooty's back elbows, so we had some good elbows this match), took a huge fast tumbling bump to the floor, and I liked how Converse was working slightly more aggressive. This was face vs. face, but he didn't play it as two best buds shaking hands, he still acted like a man defending his title. Converse is putting in some of the best work of his career.

PAS: There was some awkward moments in this, but a pair of grizzlies pounding on each other shouldn't be silky smooth. I also really bought into the bulldog as the finish, and I loved the veteran getting one up on the rookie with the foot on the ropes. Hard to not enjoy a pair of rawbone guys throwing hands and this was a fun 7 minutes.

Brad Attitude vs. Hurricane Shane Helms

ER: I'm still a bit bummed that we didn't get the Arik Royal TV Title run. I pictured it being like when WWE was giving Matt Hardy, Christian, and Finlay 10 minute TV matches nearly every week with a variety of opponents, guaranteeing a money match. If Helms will actually be showing up regularly to defend, I'll be cool, but I think Royal would have excelled at that role. This never really feels like a title match but it was still good. It was mainly used to set up the Attitude/Sterling rematch, which is fine by me as the BattleCade match was awesome and this should be even better with some hatred sprinkled in. Attitude using the Zig Zag is a great modern dickhead heel shoutout to his modern douche bestie, though I do wish Hurricane would just wrestle as Shane Helms. I never liked some of his Hurricane comedy offense, really don't like his novelty chokeslam. I mean, people know him as Shane Helms, he's among friends. He doesn't have to be Robin Williams being "on" at a small gathering dinner party. But these two are pros, they'd work together well no matter the situation.

PAS: I liked parts of this, Attitude is a guy who is always going to bring fun stuff to every match he is in. He is good at stooging bumps and facial expressions and brought all of that to the match. Helms is also a pro, although he has really dated offense. Early 2000s was a nadir of wrestling offense and his whole arsenal is complete shots and twisty NOVAish neckbreakers and final cuts. Just the worst of Kanyonish innovation that takes forever to set up and doesn't look good. I did like his figure four variation he used, but that felt like a bit of a time killer. Sugar Shane Helms had cool offense, Hurricane Shane Helms does not. This was fine, but I agree with Eric felt a little throwaway for something which was the advertised main event.

ER: Eventually Phil and I will have to go back and watch the early episodes of CWF (or at least cherry pick) and see the original Wilkins/Lee match, but I liked the hype package for it. Wilkins was so skinny and Lee had some really bad hair a few years ago (though his hair against Wilkins was better than his mushroom 'do I've seen in other early Lee).

PAS: I really liked a lot of the stuff they showed from that match, and it got me excited to check out the rematch. Lee looks like he has a bunch of fun spots around the no ropes stip, and I am sure has thought of some new ones in the last couple of years

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CWF Mid-Atlantic Worldwide Episode 144

Episode 144

Cain Justice vs. Ian Maxwell

PAS: Cain is really great at working with greenish guys and working around their limitations, it is the thing that is most impressive about him being a rookie himself. Maxwell has some fun highspots, and Justice is great at filling in the middle parts of the match around them. I loved his fake knee injury, and how it played off of the Battle Royal. I also liked how he used the ref to distract Maxwell a couple of times, including the awesome finish were he maneuvered the ref in between him and Maxwell who was perched on the top rope. When Maxwell finally dove, Justice snatched him out of the air with a cross armbreaker.

ER: This was a cool twist on the modern indy workrate match, with Cain constantly - awesomely - throwing a wrench into typical modern workrate moments. Every time it would threaten to devolve into This Is Awesome, Cain would just wash to the floor, jaw with fans, sip hilariously from a water bottle, stall, and generally just upset the rhythm. That style works great when you have a great worker upsetting rhythm. Modern indy workrate comes off too much like swing dancing big band, and you need an upsetter to introduce people to the irregular phrases and angular melodies found in bop. Cain as Thelonious Monk? I thought they hit the first armbar spot too long, as I never like when somebody is just able to casually survive in a Cain Justice submission, it does them a big disservice. This one was even weirder as Cain had a fully extended armbar and was looking to KO Maxwell with heel kicks, and with the armbar still extended they do a raise/drop the arm spot. That's weird. Maxwell doesn't pay attention to the arm again even though he was locked in the armbar for 30 seconds. But I liked the rest of this, always like how active Cain is during simple lockups and go behinds, reaching back between his legs for something, looking for hammerlock openings, grabbing for headlocks, punching Maxwell in the hamstring, etc. His elbows land so damn hard, short staccato bursts, and I like the offbeat timing he brings to the standing exchange. Nobody should get excited for back and forth match for match exchanges anymore. They're dull. So once this one starts, I appreciate them mixing it up and not robotically trading elbows. They brought kicks, elbows, a superman punch, and more, a nice variety that was offbeat and welcome. Maxwell has some smooth stuff, really liked his leaping rana, and he has nice timing on his enziguiris. I agree with Phil on how cool the finish was. There were a lot of moving parts, and it was still able to come off naturally, the somersault leap into the armbar was precise and looked great, really fun match.

Mace Li vs. Kool Jay

ER: I liked this one too, although I don't love an overuse of "I kick you and it causes you to stumble, and you sell on your feet until I get up, then you kick me" in a match, I thought they handled a lot of things nicely. I still can't really get a good read on Mace Li, even though he's popped up regularly over the last 4 months. Within a match he'll do some things I really like, here he throws a really great shoulderblock and an awesome missed elbowdrop, really sticking the point of his elbow, and late in the match he planted himself on a DDT; but then he'll do some annoying or lazy things, like a slo mo missed clothesline to get into position for the next bit of offense. But overall I liked him here more than I've liked him in other matches. I am still not over how they handled the Kool Jay RGL title win. It makes no sense to me. Kool Jay now acts like an established fighting champion, and I didn't even get to see him fight for his title win. It is not sitting well with me. It feels like we missed 70% of his story. I think CWF has been mostly really good about working people up and down the card, but Kool Jay already getting a title feels like I just skipped 4 months of TV. And I'm still adjusting to him getting a lot of offense, and I do still think he's a more interesting wrestling working from behind than working even. But I liked his body shot combo in the ropes, and his DDTs go down with a nice snap, so he's still going to be a guy I get interested in seeing. I just feel a little robbed.

PAS: I agree with the silliness of not showing Jay win the title, I do enjoy him as champ though. He has a nice arsenal of little guy spinning offense. I really liked his jumping complete shot and his DDT. Mace has some fun shtick although he definitely still looks a little tentative when he applies moves. The All Stars are a great act and you can pretty much slot in anyone around Jerry Carrey and the Coach and have it be entertaining. 

Faye Jackson/Aaron Biggs vs. Zane & Dave Dawson

ER: This was so-so, but I thought the Dawsons did well to put the whole thing over. Faye Jackson is fun and I like her vibe, like the big butt attacks and her rolling cannonball, but I don't think it really works with these guys. It doesn't help that she appears to gas out pretty hard at the end, taking a long time to leap into a sunset flip and then taking even longer to ready a chairshot after the match. Obviously I miss the Sandwich Squad, and Mecha was my favorite part of that team, but Biggs still brings value on his own. I won't ever get tired of a huge guy doing splashes and avalanches. But the Dawsons held this together, Dave especially was really mean to Faye, hitting a big dropkick under her chin (I liked her sell of it) and pulling on her hair while taunting her in a chinlock. I like the Dawsons cheating to win because basically why not, but they should also work a little harder to make their tag champs look like they deserve to be tag champs. It seems like every single makeshift team takes them to the limit.

PAS: Faye does have really fun offense, although she might be best used as a face manager who comes into hit some spots, kind of like Que Monito. I do love her rolling cannonballs. Biggs is fine, but I am not sure if he is ready to be the A1 in a tag team, he is a little like a good secondary scorer who has to take the majority of the shots when the star player leaves. He may get there, but I am not sure he is there yet. Dawsons were fun in this as dick heads, I loved the taunting of Biggs with the EAT chants, and Dave blocking the low bridge attempt by punching Faye in the face was great.

Chet Sterling vs. John Skyler

ER: I was skeptical when I saw the episode still had 25 minutes left, and didn't think these two could stretch things out that long without me getting restless and wanting the match to end. But I really liked this and came away impressed with how they used the 25 minutes. It was simple stuff but paced well and paid off nicely, with Skyler stalling to start, eventually attacking Sterling's ribs, removing a turnbuckle pad early, and that pad and the early rib work leading to the finish. It's all very satisfying, linear stuff. But what put it over for me is how much the fans in the Sportatorium love Chet Sterling. I was a slow convert on Sterling. We've probably seen 20 Sterling matches now, and it's been a slow burn. I did not like him on first watch, slowly accepted that he was decent in trios, slowly accepted he was good as the Ricky Morton in a tag, finally became a singles match convert after the Royal match, and now I enjoy Chet Sterling. Hearing the fans (and especially all the screaming kids) cheering for him when Skyler was beating him down really made the match. We have so many 25 minute matches where the guys are going to do their match no matter the reaction, and while this didn't feel like the crowd was dictating the pace of the match, it did feel like these two knew exactly what kind of match to give them. The rib work was set up nicely, with simple things like Skyler smashing Sterling ribs first into the apron, or hitting a fat senton, on up to bigger things like Sterling going for a crossbody but landing on Skyler's knee. Sterling's comebacks are good in tag matches, and it was good here. He throws his hot comeback punches from the same arm slot as Lawler's comeback punches. They aren't as good as Lawler's, but that's not a very fair expectation, because Sterling has great babyface punches. They do several moments that are hard to naturally pull off, where Skyler keeps missing offense while Sterling keeps moving out of the way, too tired to counter with anything of his own. The misses usually look hokey but Skyler did them well, especially crashing into the buckles chest first. The end pays off the early work nicely, with Attitude knocking Sterling off the top rope, making him fall on the exposed buckle, leading to Skyler planting him with the Finlay Roll off the middle rope. I got similar vibes during this match as I got during the Foxx/Royal Chapel Hill match, just a hot crowd rooting for their babyface as fans of the hero, not fans of "This is awesome".

PAS: I thought this was a heck of Skyler performance. I loved all of his shtick early in the match, stalling, demanding time outs, begging off, and then flipping the switch when he got an advantage. I loved him catching Sterlings dive with a stomach buster and then just pounding on him with head and body shots. Skyler was really focused on the ribs and small of the back in an entertaining way and they timed Sterlings comebacks really well to keep the crowd engaged. Timing comebacks is a really important part of a traditional face vs. heel match, wait too long and the match just drags and feels too one sided (This was the fatal flaw in the Wrestlemania main event), go too early and it is just a your turn, my turn match with no selling and it doesn't allow the crowd to pop at the comebacks. I don't love Sterling's 1997 ECWA offense, but it was timed great. Finish was awesome too, with Chekov's exposed bolt coming into play perfectly, we get some classic dickhead Brad Attitude and a great second rope Finlay roll for the pin.

PAS: Pretty good show, with everything getting a thumbs up and Skyler vs. Sterling making our 2018 Ongoing MOTY List. 

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