Cain Justice's Been a Mover He Don't Need No One to Slow Him Down

Cain Justice vs. James Ryan BCW Pro Wrestling 8/11/18 - FUN

ER: Cool battle between two of the younger and best NC indy guys. Ryan we've seen a couple times getting smooshed on CWF, and I also liked him on an Action show. This is the first I've seen him in a more competitive match, and I liked what I saw. It's also fun seeing somebody work heel against Cain. It's not like Cain works ultra super babyface here, but Ryan comes out and calls my man a tub of lard, and well, babyface Justice. Ryan is long and lanky with great floppy bumps, but also uses his long limbs to sneak in strikes, and he's got great strikes. So we get a lot of moments of him reaching in and popping Cain with a nice right, and some cool moments of Cain catching a long leg and inflicting damage on those long limbs. 

I loved early when Cain was bending at Ryan's wrist and fingers, and then began standing on one of his hands while fully extending and bending the other. It looked so cool. I really loved all the standing exchanges, which is not a statement I often use when talking about modern pro wrestling, but there were two sections - one on the floor, one down the stretch in the ring - where they're laying in shots but not really taking turns, both kind of off balance, a big right from James gets a big headbutt from Cain as a receipt, and they managed to do a bunch of cool exchanges within that. Cain matches always have a great habit of not overstaying their welcome, and here we get a succinct exclamation point running knee finish, nice and simple. You knew Cain was the goods, but I thought Ryan delivered big time (and I didn't even praise his tights-with-fringe!).

PAS: I was less high on Ryan in this match then Eric, I thought he was fine, but didn't bring much to the table outside of a nice hesher look and some trash talking. I thought a lot of the of standing exchanges were pretty C+, Cain looked good, he mixed his stuff up and landed some nice moves, including some really nasty elbows to the back of the neck, Ryan just threw forearms and not great ones. It was interesting to see how much babyface Cain worked like Trevor Lee, the early mat work, the smacking of the hand, the twisting of the knee, you could really tell who he was trained by, way more then when he works heel. If I had gotten a cool twist ending, I could see this sneaking on a list, but I needed a bit more flash.

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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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ACTION Wrestling 10/26/18

Arik Royal vs. Bobby Flaco

PAS: This was Royal kind of working as a one man Da Hit Squad against sort of a southern Elax the Exploited child. Flaco hit some high flying moves, including a couple of running dives off the stage, but much of this was Royal mauling him with power moves, including a big running tackle which sent Flacco through the ropes to the floor and into a wall. The tackle which Royal finished it with was awesome too. I didn't think Flaco hit everything cleanly, but this is match structure I am always going to be into, and Royal is great.

ER: I really liked this one, looked like a Darby Allin match but with new and different participants. We don't get to see a ton of lucha base Arik Royal so it's great seeing him catch dives and takes complicated armdrags as well as he does everything else. I thought Flaco had a nice bag of tricks, thought his two planchas and his cannonball off the stage area looked great, and Royal helped that by really getting absorbed by them. Flaco was good at sticking and moving, and Royal was great at sticking Flaco when he caught him. There was one moment that really showed the match saving professionalism of Royal, they looked to be going for a backdrop but Flaco got a little hung up, so Royal just continued muscling him through and slammed him to the mat. Flaco is really good at getting demolished by Royal's best stuff, and Royal is really good at making his best stuff look great. I love Royal's diving shoulderblock to an opponent on the mat, and Flaco was really good at taking spills to the floor (Dylan saying Flaco was lying "prostate on the floor" is a good example of why I don't try to use the word "prostrate" in conversation), and I love how his big shoulder tackle pounce is used as a killshot against smaller guys. My kind of opener.

AC Mack vs. James Bandy

PAS: Mack has been the discovery of these ACTION shows, he has quickly turned into one of my favorite current wrestlers to watch. Bandy is a WWA4 alum as well, and this was similar to the Austin Theory match, as it was a match between two guys who have trained together. There was some nifty stuff, I liked Bandy's big tope which landed right next to a baby carrier with a sleeping baby (love family wrestling shows), and Mack using a fan to hide behind before landing a cheap shot was a nice bit of heel business. Bandy had some big moves but I think his connective tissue wasn't that strong, and I did think Mack kicked out of some big stuff, only to end the match pretty quickly, but this was pretty enjoyable overall, and Mack is must watch.

ER: This was a hot 7 minute sprint, and Mack is great at moving those types of matches along. He's a guy on constant attack and even when he's kicking out of a move he's already looking to kick at someone's knee or shove them off, get himself into a better offensive position. This whole thing didn't let up much at all over its run time, Bandy starting things off with a great tope into the aisleway, and gets some cool nearfalls on Mack over the brisk runtime. Dylan Hales was good at putting over the excitement of this, sounding like Adam Sandler's "Excited Southerner" when Bandy jumped Mack at the bell. Mack is so smooth and violent, no matter where he's at in the ring he's ready to drop something mean, loved his shot right to Bandy's throat, loved him yanking a woman out of her seat as a shield before tossing her back down when his plan worked, love his targeted body attacks that don't come off as any kind of memorized combo, just him attacking whatever part of Bandy he can reach. That short kick to the knee into his twisted pedigree is a solid finish to a fun match.

O'Shay Edwards/Alan Angels vs. Lynch Mob

PAS: Tag match which had it's moments, but I think overall got a little Young Bucksish for me. O'Shay is a big menacing looking dude and had some nice power stuff although there was a couple of weak spots too (at one point he just didn't go over when getting backdropped). I enjoyed Angels as a pest who spent most of the match laying in cheap shots. Both teams had elaborate double teams, which were about 50 percent cool, 50 percent dumb, lots of complicated ways to put on a neckbreaker. Joey Lynch missed most of his moonsault again, and I think his "King of the Moonsault" gimmick might be a Chikara style comedy gimmick I don't get. I liked Edwards and Angels getting the win and setting up a match against the ref and Bandy for the next show is some classic old school Southern Wrestling stuff.

Kevin Ku vs. Ike Cross

PAS: Stiff sprint in which the energy made up for some of the shambolic execution. Ku comes forward constantly swinging and eating shots, screaming at Cross to hit him, and I dig the pace he sets. This was the most I have enjoyed him and it makes me want to seek out some of his more pimped matches, even if some of his stuff doesn't hit clean or is a little indy. Cross has a boatload of potential, but this is the first time I have seen him against another young guy and you can see the seams a bit more. His big moves are still explosive, but I think he needs a veteran like Hollis or Slim J to fill in the stuff in between. A match that was more about potential greatness then current greatness, but it was still enjoyable to watch.

ER: Agree with all of Phil's assessments here, they both moved fast and went hard, so even when something didn't totally work they were already onto their next bit of business, really showing how far some big energy can go. Cross has absurd speed for a big man, even something like him rolling out of the ring after getting popped looks impressive as hell, and both of them have such quick body movement that it gives them some cover. Ku has no problem flying hard into Cross (loved that diving shoulderblock) and Cross makes moves like avalanches and that spear - moves that a lot of people do soft - look super explosive. Phil told me that Cross is apparently retiring from wrestling, which is a damn shame as he's someone that, once I saw him in SCI, I went out of my way to see any available footage. He was one of the people in wrestling I was most excited to see grow.

Cain Justice vs. Fred Yehi

PAS: This was a rematch from a great match from the first ACTION show, and while this had its moments, it didn't live up to that match. I liked the dueling limb action with Justice working the arm and hand and Yehi working the foot and leg, including pounding Justice with fists right in ankle and upper foot. These are normally really crisp wrestlers though, and things felt a little off. I liked the use of the hooks on the ringpost more in the other Cain matches, although Yehi turning the tables on him was nifty. Match ended with Royal coming in and cheapshotting Yehi, and the whole match kind of felt like they were killing time until a run in.

ER: Yeah something felt a little off here, felt like we had a few moments where one wasn't where the other thought he would be, felt like Cain especially was holding back shots (I don't need guys punching each other in the face, but a lot of things landed uncharacteristically light), and the set ups and transitions weren't quite as neat as these two can make them. I do appreciate them furthering the "Cain uses ring hooks" story, since Cain always wedges those ACTION hooks into his matches, nice to see the tables turned on him but agree with Phil that it didn't really read very well, came off a bit flat. Obviously there were going to be great moments with these two, it would be weird if there somehow weren't; here I especially liked Yehi rushing into the corner with a hard as hell elbow. Too many times guys leap into their corner elbows, like they're doing a Stinger Splash but with an elbow, and I liked Yehi just running in full speed with a short elbow to the jaw. But on paper this is a match that seemed almost guaranteed to land on our MOTY List, and this didn't approach that.

Team TAG vs The Carnies

PAS: The Carnies come in as Matt Griffin's hired guns as part of his feud with Team TAG. Like a lot of Carnies matches this had a bunch of fun spots, and some dumb ones. I liked the Chris Spectra vs Kerry Awful big boy showdown, although I wished they hit a little harder (I think the Big Japan trios match I watched earlier spoiled me), and I dug the Awful spinning clothesline and some of the Carnie shtick. They are a little enamored with complicated double teams, but this was mostly a solid tag with four solid performances.

Slim J vs. Billy Buck

PAS: A match with some really great moments, that was marred by overbooking. J dominates early with Buck doing a bunch of Zbyszko stalling, and J locking on some really cool submissions. We get a Team TAG run in, and much of the rest of the match is the ref being distracted and TAG running in. There are some really cool moments in the end run, Buck has great execution on his moves, he obliterates J with a spinebuster and beheads him with a superkick, and everything Slim does looks great. I loved his combo flipping STO and diving neckbreaker, and he has great execution on his little things. Still I feel like the match was sacrificed to advance the Matt Griffin vs. Team TAG feud, which is kind of a lame thing to do to a main event match. Love both guys, need to dig in the archives and find a better match between the two.

ER: Yeah this kind of outside involvement is not going to get me into a match, especially when it didn't actually seem to affect the outcome too much. Slim didn't seem any more beaten down by the 3 on 1 situation than he does in normal 1 on 1 matches, and by the time the match devolved into the ref pretending he didn't hear a tandem powerbomb happening two feet away from him I had mostly checked out. But these two are great dance partners and we got two separate 5 minute segments where we were given just what we wanted. After the first several minutes of stalling the two of them went on an awesome 5 minute tear, then some BS, and then another hot 5 minutes before the rest of the BS. Those 10 combined minutes had the best stuff on the entire show, you got to see how incredibly these two take offense and dish offense, like Slim hitting a cool ropes assisted headscissors (loved the low angle bump Buck took off it), or Buck hitting one of the finest superkicks you'll ever see. You give me those 10 minutes straight and nothing else and this lands on our List with ease. Whenever it was just the two of them fighting with no distraction, it was everything you'd want out of a wrestling match.

PAS: This was a sort of a disappointing show, first ACTION show without multiple MOTYC list matches, tons of talent on these cards, I loved watching almost everyone, but it felt like everything was a little worse then it should have been

ER: I had a good time with this show, plenty of fun moments and nice performances. But all of the shows preceding this one have been so damn good that a show like this is gonna feel like a major step below. This show would have probably ranked towards the top of live wrestling shows I've seen in my area the last few years, but I can't really compare it to my local scene, I can only compare the show to prior ACTION shows. Still, the fed is clearly filled with a ton of talent, no way we'll be tuning out.

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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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ACTION Wrestling 8/17/18

Ike Cross vs. Slim J

ER: Hot opener, tough to start off a crowd with something this dynamic. Everybody else on the show is going to be working from behind. I just saw Cross for the first time while watching the recent SCI, so I saw him there as this great babyface. Here he's a heel and just as fun, and very different than his SCI performances. Slim is a great babyface, really he's AJ Styles without a TV deal. If people out there think AJ Styles is great, there is no reason they wouldn't love Slim. He's strong as hell, gets crazy height on everything, hits hard, and can take a beating. A really great babyface. I think Styles is clearly a great, but right now Slim is better. He and Cross do a really fast rope running bit, Slim has an amazing high dropkick (and later a cool spinning kick of the top), and I love it when AC Mack starts running distraction on the floor. Cross drills Slim with a brutal running elbow to the back of the head, and Cross is really great at finding ways to get the ref's attention while Mack interferes. Cross played powerhouse here, and he pulls out some real stunners: a ridiculous sky high Dr. Bomb, a deadlift tilt a whirl backbreaker, and a uranage type slam where he just yoinks Slim up and plants him face first. It looked like something that should have finished the match. These two matched up really well here, and this kind of had the feeling of a tryout match, with both guys keeping a quick pace and breaking out impressive tricks. I pretty much need to be tracking down every match from both of these guys.

PAS: Fun stuff, interesting to see Cross as a heel, he is a great traditional babyface, but here is a fun trolling heel. Lots of shtick distracting the ref while AC Mack mugs Slim, he also stomps Slim in the corner and pretends his leg is spasming to get in some post ref break shots. Slim has decades of experience getting a crowd behind him, and all of the early stuff really got them into the nearfalls. I loved all of Cross's power moves, working heel we didn't see as much of his vertical leap, but he was beasting Slim, that lawn dart into the turnbuckles looked like Slim was 2 inches shorter post match (inches he can't afford to lose), and that reverse uranage thing was awesome looking. That final bump Cross took on the electric chair headrop was harrowing, that is big dude to be landing on his neck like that. Great stuff and another example of Slim J being this gem hiding in plain sight for years.

Alan Angels vs. James Bandy

ER: First time seeing both guys, and I came away seeing a couple cool things I hadn't seen, and liked this take on the modern indy match. Bandy had a few nice full extension suplexes, Angels was good at taking suplexes, and neither guy held back on strikes and kicks. Bandy had a nice kick to the chest and Angels hit a cool spin kick. We also had Angels working Bandy's arm in some cool ways, whipping his arm into the mat and breaking out the wild Rings of Saturn after rolling through with a Tim Horner style armdrag. I've not seen that attempted before, and I dug it. The arm stuff didn't really go anywhere, but I liked it peaking with that armdrag into the Fujiwara, into Angels throwing elbows to the ribs. When Angels tries it against he gets his momentum reversed and caught with a quick curb stomp. I liked a lot of what I saw here.

Kevin Ku vs. Tommy Maserati vs. Bobby Flaco vs. Dani Jordyn vs. Matt Sells vs. Shawn King vs. Teddy King

ER: I might have a name or two wrong on this one, only seen about half the talent before. And this was a perfectly fine scramble match, although we didn't always have a great use of time, and a LOT of people disappeared too often for it to really have the chaos of the best scramble matches. As it was, we got fun snapshots of what everyone can do and would up with a few memorable moments. Jordyn has a powerlifter build and got to throw a bunch of fun suplexes (and especially launches Flaco who bumps high and hard), and has a cool Jeff Cobb-like momentum reversing slam on Shawn King (?) late in the match that looked cool, and that guy also leaned in . Ku looked like more of a bully than I'd previously seen him, I got a kick watching him run as hard as possible into corner attacks, really pushing the pace faster than anybody else. I don't love his need to get some kind of lungblower into a match, but he was a good dominant mid-match presence. We get a couple of big dives to the floor, a flip dive that takes everyone out (and sends some kid in an orange hoodie running for the hills), and then an awkward set-up/fun result slingblade from Flaco, springing off the ref and delivering it to Ku on the apron while he basically stage dove across the other workers. Weird/cool landing, clunky set up, but these are the moves you need to be breaking out in a scramble match, so it totally works. Maserati is a great bumper, even if I don't like how his kicks land, he at least makes offense look good. I wouldn't mind seeing more from some of them, so as a showcase the scramble did its job.

Cain Justice vs. Dominic Garrini

PAS: This is one of my favorite current matchups in wrestling. They had a match last year in CWF which went super high on our 2017 list, the second match was fun although not as mind blowing and this is the rubber match and the first outside of CWF. These guys are both super skilled, super interesting grapplers, and they have a couple of really cool scrambles to open the match, Garinni especially is whipping out really cool stuff, including a couple of super tight chokes with Justice finding cool ways to escape. Garinni has gotten better at landing his shots in the last six months, and he hits some big bombs including a nasty spinning back elbow. Justice is really great at using his environment, the Action ring has these hooks on the outside of the ringposts and Justice has used them in cool ways in all of his matches, here he traps Dom's foot in the hook and torques on the metal. Garrini did a great job of selling a damaged foot on his throws for the rest of the match. My one quibble in this was that Justice was back on offense too quick after the Screwdriver, but I did really like finish run. I am excited to see both of these guys grow up together, and I hope we get to see some more classics. I would rank this a little below their first match, that match coming out of nowhere really made it special, but this was good stuff for sure.

ER: I think this one falls as their third best match together, which isn't really an insult to this match, as I really liked those two matches. This felt a little more disjointed. Their first two matches didn't necessarily establish a match long narrative, but this one stood out because of that weird Screwdriver thrown in there. That move, and Cain getting up from taking that move at almost the same time as Garrini and going right back on offense, really made the match feel like they were just doing stuff until THAT moment. It felt really out of place the way it was used here. I would have loved it if that had finished things, going from grappling and striking to a sudden unexpected exclamation point, Justice beat in an instant because he wasn't expecting something like a Screwdriver. Instead we just kind of get up and do a little reset, Cain working for the Twist Ending and Garrini working for a triangle, gaslighting us into thinking we hadn't just see that big spot. I liked the bulk of this (though I thought the finish felt a little tacked on, even though I liked Cain winning with leverage to reverse a triangle). I really liked the grappling in this match, especially thinking Garrini looked sharp on the mat. He looked like he was calmly setting traps for Cain, dropping down in a certain way to get Cain to go one way, opening up his leg which was Garrini's goal all along. There was stuff that looked fluid yet nasty, and it looked like you got a cool insight into Garrini's crazy muscle memory, knowing what all his options are on the mat at any given moment. I loved Cain using those ringpost hooks, as Dylan Hales pointed out on commentary, he uses those every time he wrestles in this ring, and I love him for that. I liked some of the striking in this, but thought other parts focused to much on making a slap sound. I don't need a slap to know Garrini is hitting a nice kneelift. Now, a silver lining in that Screwdriver spot: They set it up close to the ropes, so Cain got his foot up. I still don't like what came after, but I'll give credit to both for clearly setting up near the ropes to avoid an unnecessary kickout. In retrospect, I think my favorite thing about the match might have been Cain's irritated glances at children while he was on the floor, being booed by kids. Just a bunch of kids booing him, while he shook his head at them, hands on hips.

Kavron Kanyon vs. Fry Daddy

ER: Short and sweet, didn't really get much of an idea what Fry Daddy is about, but I liked our Kanyon squash. Kanyon looks like a smaller Chris Hero, had a big kick combo (I really like a good high roundhouse kick, the type of kick Eric Bischoff would call a "back leg front round kick") and he finished it off with a brutal knee to the face. He had Daddy up for a package piledriver, then tossed him straight out and met him with a knee. It looked brutal enough for a finish, so I was pleasantly surprised when it was the finish.

Arik Royal vs. Fred Yehi

ER: Damn, boys, you go get it. I loved the dichotomy of this, with Royal being bigger, but Yehi hitting harder, and I loved the build. Royal is the king and Yehi basically had the best August of any other wrestler I watched. We get a fantastic lock up to start, both men all in and getting low, and Yehi blew up Royal's spot here, not letting him breathe, and Royal is one of my favorite "falling behind" wrestlers, making great faces and fun wobbly selling when he's getting overwhelmed. Yehi slams Royal into the ring apron and Royal comes up selling as if he were a man stumbling lost out of the desert. Yehi keeps ramping up the vicious, peaking with two spinning back elbows/fists to the back of Royal's head. But the big moments were yet to come, as once Royal uses his size, Yehi flies around like a popped balloon. Royal absolutely upends Yehi with his tackle, getting low and exploding; Yehi looked flew like he was riding a banana boat that got hit by Jaws. Royal throws Yehi back-of-neck first into the bottom rope (feels like a great lost Finlay spot) and in something I don't think I've ever seen, skips Yehi across and out of the ring like he was a damn stone on a pond. Royal had a couple of great biel throws in this, but here he just skipped Yehi across the damn ring. Awesome. We got a couple cool momentum shifts based on failed charges by both men, and Yehi sinks in a crucifix bomb before rocking him with that brutal Koji clutch-with-elbows. What nastiness. I think the match should have ended there, as afterward Yehi got freaking blitzed by another great tackle, sending him soaring, and a hard lefty lariat from Royal. And the finish was a little confusing as Yehi ties him up and a grounded kind of octopus, and the ref counts the pin even though Yehi looks more pinned than Royal, so it was somewhat deflating after all we'd been through. But damn still a total banger.  Post match Royal is the best, always, and he draws out all the sympathy from the crowd, acting despondent from his loss, holds up Yehi's hand to a couple sides of the ring, lets the crowd know Yehi was the better man. And then, as we all wanted, levels Yehi. This was all great.

PAS: I liked how the commentary mentioned that both guys do things a little differently, and this was a traditional big match indy formula just turned 10 degrees to the left, enough variety to really make it interesting. I love how Yehi is always moving forward, his pushing the pace is treated like a real advantage. He wrestles like a pest point guard who picks his opponent up full court, like the Patrick Beverley of wrestling. Royal has some off the charts power moves in this match, the spot Eric mentioned where he skips Yehi across the ring like a ground ball was a spot of the year candidate. Yehi is great at mixing in nifty pieces of offense and bumps into his match, he really reminds me of Finlay in that way. I thought we had some really great nearfalls, with Yehi smashing Royal with backfists and chops and Royal throwing him. I dug the flash pin, and the post match nicely sets up a rematch, which I am excited to check out.

The Lynch Mob vs. Team TAG (Chris Spectra/Kevin Blue)

ER: More of an angle than a match, with TAG jumping the Lynch Mob and eventually ending things prematurely by bringing in a couple chairs for the DQ. We've seen Team TAG work some more violent matches, including that awesome WarGames from last year, and I was less interested in seeing them work their way into Joey Lynch tandem spots. They both have tassels which is a plus, and I like a brash cheapshotting team.

AC Mack vs. Austin Theory

ER: Really fun match, the most I've enjoyed Theory, and further cemented how much I dig Mack. Austin Theory is a smooth athletic move-chaining wrestler, except in other matches there was always some hesitation. Here he and Mack worked together extraordinarily well, as if they had come up together and worked dozens of times. Both guys worked really quick and snaked some cool sequences. They worked fast rope running spots, really on your toes stuff. Theory's offense looked really tightened up, but damn Mack can GO. Mack gets crazy height on spots (what is with Georgia workers getting unreal height on bumps and offense?), and I liked every single thing he did in this match. I loved the smoothness he used to get into position for a low dropkick to a seated Theory (kick looked great too), and there was one spot where he leaped practically halfway across the ring to hit a superkick on a slumped-in-the-corner Theory and I jumped out of my seat. Some of Mack's movements seem so impossible, and then they hit flush and it's just...WOW. We get some fun learned behavior moments, like Theory catching Mack's uppercut on his knee/Dustin uppercut spot, and a couple of very believable nearfalls. Now, what's weird, is mid match we get a Theory knee injury. Theory misses a springboard stomp and begins limping around. Pulls off his next piece of offense, but goes down to the mat yelling about that knee. Great, I'm thinking, now we get a bunch of cool cocky attacks on the knee from Mack. Except that didn't happen. Theory continued barking and screaming and emoting about the knee, all while hitting increasingly bigger moves. Theory hit more moves after the knee injury spot than he did before. It was so weird. He was acknowledging it the entire time...except he was on a dominant run of move after move after move, huge sitout powerbomb, huge (great looking ) running blockbuster, a freaking running buckle bomb, getting Mack onto his shoulders for a fireman's carry, just...none of it made sense. The match did not need this knee injury whatsoever. It got really comical after a few moves. If they had changed nothing about the match, but made no allusions to a knee injury, I think this would have easily been high up on our list. Mack gets this hard low blow for an awesome false finish, and Theory comes up holding his balls...and his damn knee. This match was still very good, but that knee injury was such an unnecessary addition to the match. Mack came out of it with a big unexpected (to me) title win after an awesome hard kick to the knee and then his variation of a pedigree. I loved how the finish happened, with Theory just wanting to throw down fists and Mack laughing and agreeing, tossing off his gloves before just kicking low, what a great dickhead heel move. It really did feel like the preceding low blow would have been more than enough to justify the Theory loss, without needing any kind of knee injury angle. I mean you took a hard shot to the balls, nobody would think you didn't fight hard enough. But working in that knee injury without it every coming into play AT ALL just felt truly bizarre. Still, again, with it, the match was very good, and Mack is a guy I'm going to need to see every time he shows up.

PAS:  These guys are both WW4A trainees, and this match had the feel of a classic post match Ian Rotten speech touring showcase. I haven't had much time for Theory before, and his knee injury after a move/knee is fine during a move, is exactly the kind of dumb Seth Rollinism I can't stand. Still he has some pretty great chemistry with Mack and they pull off some really breathtaking stuff. Mack's vertical leap and speed almost feels like a tape glitch, they have a spot where Theory knocks him off the top rope and Mack hits a spinneroonie into a leaping enzigiri directly into this jumping superkick from three quarters of the way across the ring, it felt like watching Zion Williamson dunk, people aren't suppose to move like that. I agree with Eric that if you edited out Theory's weird unnecessary knee selling this would be a better match, but I did dig how it played into the finish. Mack nut punches Austin for a near fall and Theory gets up holding his balls and limping, he screams at Mack to come and fight, and Mack takes off his gloves, and then sneak kicks Theory in the patella, cross arm pedigrees him and pins him. Such a great bit of heel prickishness, fuck fighting like a man, win a match. Mack is a must see guy, what a star making performance.

ER: This was a tightly run, very fun show, with some genuine bangers, fun matches top to bottom, and even standout performances in the lesser matches. You could tell people were working hard, and that's always going to make me seek out more from a promotion. Can't imagine us being not fully onboard for what ACTION has in store going forward. Indy wrestling shows with diverse, killer action and a sub 2 hour run time? That's the market inefficiency right there baby. We placed a whopping 4 matches from this show on our 2018 Ongoing MOTY List, and I'm sure we'll have more ACTION matches on that list before it's done.

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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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ACTION Wrestling 6/29/18

AC Mack/Ike Cross vs. Lynch Mob

ER: I really like the team of Mack and Cross. I like them so much that I'd rather see them not team, as having them in singles matches would mean they'd be spread out across the show more. Burning both of them in one match is too much of a waste! Plus, I'd rather see them against many other people than against the modern indy Nova stylings of the Lynch Mob. Ike Cross is super talented, but I'd rather not see those talents impressively utilized selling doofus "I make you get DDT'd by your partner" double teams. Cross can take a mean DDT bump, and he takes two of them here, under the dumbest of circumstances. Cross and Mack looked great here, both are super smooth and great at feeding lame offense, and I loved how they worked Cross' spear into the match, surprising Joey with Mack leapfrogging Cross right into Lynch. Cross' forearm to the back of the head is genuinely finisher worthy, so it's annoying to see it used and then brushed off. I dunno, I guess the Lynch Mob are a thing, and their finish looked fine, but their hyper-rehearsed superkick style does very little for me.

PAS: I thought the Cross/Mack team was great, really feels like if tag wrestling was a bigger thing, they could be big stars somewhere. Cross continues to blow me away with his potential that inverted standing senton was nuts, and I loved his bump to the floor, and Mack really held things together nicely, I am a big fan of the heel pulls down the guy on the apron to break up the hot tag, and Mack timed it really nicely. I thought some individual stuff the Lynch Mob did looked OK, their finisher combo was nice looking, but they are basically the Cracker Barrel Young Bucks, and that is very much not my thing. Joey Lynch doing two separate versions of the DDT your own partner stuff, the state of the world is traumatic enough, I don't need to see that too.

James Ryan vs. James Bandy

ER: This was fun, two tall guys having their Velocity match, keeping things to 5 minutes or so. Ryan is a great tall and lanky ragdoll, with those long limbs like Alicia Fox that flop all over when he bumps. Bandy has some fun stylish offense, a nice jumping kick, a couple of really cool axe kicks (not quite an axe kick, but more of a yakuza kick with a slightly downward trajectory, if that makes any sense), nice right hand, big sliding kick on the floor diagonally past the ringpost (through the ropes), I liked it all. This felt like more of a Bandy showcase, but Ryan got in a couple nice cut off spots, had a good nearfall, and the whole thing was enough to make me want to see both guys more.

Tragedy Ann vs. Aja Perera

ER: I liked the vibe of both of them, Ann has dead eyed doll makeup and comes out with a strand of doll heads, Perera has a good look and comes out to music that makes me want to break out Zombies Ate My Neighbors! (it's been too long), but a lot of this felt pretty rough. We had a couple odd falls, some moves that didn't really work, nothing quite BAD but nothing really clicking either. We had a couple of moments where I wasn't actually sure what move had been done, and who was supposed to have taken it. There were things I liked, especially Perera's log roll to trip Ann, with a nice follow up low cutter, but overall too much clunk. Still, Perera had a lot of charisma and feels like will get better, and Ann looked pretty new. They kept it short, minimal harm.

Cain Justice vs. Anthony Henry

ER: Nice pairing, with Henry bringing stiff shots and Cain bringing a bunch of good crowd work and stooging. All of their grappling and rolling was really good, really quick, Henry hanging on more than maybe Cain expected, and Cain going for a Twist Ending way too early, leaving him open. Flustered Cain is one of my favorite iterations of Cain. I love him rolling to the floor, his surprised faces when the crowd cheers the other guy more, it's all really fun. Henry brought a bunch of nice overhand chops that gave Cain's chest some good color and looked to be outclassing Cain, even amped things up (too much) by dumping Cain hard with an exploder across the front row of chairs, moving the Hales clan in the process. Back in and Cain blocks a suplex off the top, and - this being an ACTION ring - Cain jams Henry's hand into one of those ring hooks. I thought Henry sold his hand really nicely, and Cain was awesome still opting to sink in a cheap low blow even when he already had the advantage with Henry's bum wing. There was one major part of the match I didn't like, that felt totally different than the rest of the match, and felt really below each guy: Cain shot Henry into the corner and then just ducked down for a backdrop...and there was way too long of a pause before Henry came back out of the corner. So after Cain is just sitting there bent at the waist for a few seconds, Henry sunset flips him and we get a silly seesaw Malenko/Guerrero 2 count sequence that just felt incorrect. Every part of the sequence felt like it belonged in a lesser match, with lesser guys. Oddly distracting. But I liked Cain's low blow to Twist Ending win, and love that he still won't shake a hand after a match.

PAS: I thought this was rolling along to be one of the best matches of Cain's career. I loved the early rolling on the match, the takedowns were super explosive and the reversals looked great. I really would love to see these guys work a straight shootstyle match, I really dug the chops and Cain's stooging later in the match, but it felt like they could really do something special in a more pared down format. I am a fan of a guy getting his chest worked over, and Cain is great at cringing as the blood vessels get popped. As a Finlay superfan, I am always going to love a spot where a guy uses the ring in a cool way, and Cain fucking up Henry's arm in the ring hook was dope. Finish was great too, with Cain escaping the ankle lock by grabbing the ref's shirt and hitting a low blow and the twist ending. I have to agree with Eric about that sunset flip/Malenko Guerrero section, it was a bad idea, badly executed, if I could edit it out Lucha Underground style we would have a real high end MOTY contender. It's list without it, but man was that a stinker.

Michael Spencer/Chance Rizer vs. Team TAG (Chris Spectra/Kevin Blue)

ER: I dug this, and it kinda snuck up on me. It looked like it was going to be an extended TAG squash - and it was, technically, but it had enough extra moments to it that with another save or brief hope spot from Spencer/Rizer would have been enough for me to nominate it for our MOTY list. TAG cut off the ring and kept knocking Spencer off the apron, taking apart Rizer with classic 90s double teams, like a powerbomb/neckbreaker (loved Dylan bringing up Kanyon/Raven breaking Villano IV's neck with that move on Nitro, which is a great reference point. I remember watching that live with my buddy James and we both exclaimed right when it happened), and Spectra bullying him around with avalanches and clubbing shots. The fun comes when Spencer, knocked off the apron one time too many, comes in for a save and hits an awesome knee to Blue's face. Rizer gets a believable visual pin, and Spectra shoves Spencer back over the pin to break it up. The whole thing was a really great sequence. TAG end it shortly after, Rizer took a couple nasty bumps, and even though I was really hoping that last pin would be broken up, one last ray of hope, I still really liked what we got.

Billy Buck vs. Cabana Man Dan

ER: I'd seen Cabana Man Dan's name pop up on indy cards and results for years, but I hadn't actually seen him. I was picturing more of a Colt Cabana goofball crossed with the easy misogyny of Straw Hat Guy. Or a Chris Hero bod with an orange sunset Hawaiian shirt but without much wrestling ability. Or a chubby version of Bill Paxton in Club Dread. Cabana Man Dan is not those things. He is short and packs a nice wallop on kicks. This had some sloppy moments, but they kind of added to things, like Dan trying a Gedo clutch but not really doing it right, so instead repeatedly slamming Buck's face into the mat. I liked a lot of Dan's dropkicks and thought he had good babyface charisma, though flip flop shtick doesn't interest me a lot (and it seems like Dan might come with a fair amount of flip flop attack shtick), but there was enough to like. Buck has one of the best superkicks in the game, a guy like CW Anderson who could believably use his as a finish, and I liked Buck roughing up the smaller Dan.

Slim J vs. Cam Carter

ER: Damn J is some kind of marvel. This is a match style I typically don't love, that big kickout, mirror move, pop up off the mat after a big spot kind of modern indy match, but damn Slim is just so good that I still got sucked right in. Slim throws arguably the best forearms in wrestling today, just snaps them off and really makes exchanges feel life or death. He is super athletic and always does something in a match that I really don't see coming, always dipping into that bad of tricks. This match had a bunch of "athletic guys doing athletic things", but Slim is so great at all of it that it's easy to look past some annoying things. You know, like dueling reverse piledrivers. It's a silly spot, one guy takes one, pops up and delivers his own, but they at least put some style into a burnt spot, with Slim taking his whipped around hard on his belly and Carter taking his more vertically and then sliding on his knees like at the end of a break routine. Slim can go through complicated sequences without ever getting that distant stare in his eyes, never looking like a guy going through mapped sequences, always keeping that unpredictable feel to things. When he catches a wild leaping DDT off the ropes or leaps backwards with a flipping kick or a diving elbow, it feels like he can go anywhere once he leaves his feet. He's also a master of taking offense, making offense look great, getting his body to respond in ways that seem impossible. The match ends with an absolutely vicious cradle brainbuster, and Slim comes crashing down like he was the cartoon on the side of a diving board, warning against diving into an empty pool, and it's more than just his landing, it's how he stiffens his body after, how he keeps his arms believably rigid as if he'd been KO'd. I didn't love the finish, with Slim hitting a big superplex and rolling into a guillotine, and then Carter basically just powering out of the guillotine after a (long) while and hitting the brainbuster. But there was a lot of this match to love, just on execution alone. Slim also leans expertly into a couple Carter spin kicks, and throws the most violent missed clotheslines I've seen. He cuts so low and whips his arm impossibly fast. If I attempted to whip my arm as fast as Slim on a missed clothesline I'd at best end up with a sore triceps for a few days. He throws these great stiff arm ambidextrous lariats, hitting with a thump on Carter's chest, really some of the meanest things tossed out in the match, and it was a match with Slim taking fast suplex bumps high on his shoulders. Carter is really fun, and this is among the very best I've seen him look...and I don't think it's a coincidence that it happened against Slim J.

PAS: I also don't love this match type, but both guys put a ton more violence into their fancy stuff then this kind of match usually has. Carter busts J mouth up with a hook kick, J throws these thumping lariats like he is Stan Hansen's mini, and really adjusts Carter's jaw with elbow smashes. Eric is right about how great J takes moves, he really spikes himself on all of drivers, taking everything like Wiley E. Coyote falling off a cliff. I didn't love the trading poison rana's, and a couple of other things weren't sold as long as they should have been, but man for a juniors match between amazing athletes this was top notch stuff.

Arik Royal vs. Tracy Williams

ER: Big main event that may have went a little long, but I liked all the places they went so I didn't really mind. Williams works this as a tough Nishimura, peppering him with hard elbow strikes and working him over with quiet arm work, a deeply sunk in octopus, heavy flat foot clotheslines, great flat back missile dropkick, and holding on for life to absorb a Royal beating. Royal was great, attacking with shots to the body (I liked an early exchange where Royal swatted a Hot Sauce elbow out of the air, and Sauce immediately got the forearms up on a chop, and from there Royal didn't even bother with chops, just went body), palm strikes to either side. Williams yanked on Royal's arm a bit, and Royal spent the rest of the match shaking that thing out, and didn't really get ahead on Williams until a vicious hotshot, one of those really great hotshots that looks like a guy gets snapped over the top rope and hits every rope on the way down, like a cartoon character falling out of a tree. Royal is mindful of the arm but uses it as he needs, breaking out a few Face Jam variations. Williams is nice and crafty, pulling out neat things like a DDT while placed on the top turnbuckle. It wasn't a flashy DDT, but a whip smart logical one, just dropping straight down and letting gravity and physics work. I think we got maybe a couple too many kickouts on some pretty big moves, like an absolutely disgusting stuff piledriver on Royal, or Royal literally upending Sauce with his chop block (Williams flew like a kid getting bounced off a lake blob). Both of those spots looked so match ending that I wish they didn't have to get kicked out of, maybe take advantage of being close to the ropes in both instances. The match finishing Fujiwara was satisfying, and Royal's consistent selling of it always kept it there as a potential finish, so when he was going up for a dodgy springboard Face Jam it was there in my brain that Williams could catch him. Good overall match, on a good overall show.

PAS: I thought this was amazing, easily my favorite match I have seen from either guy (and these are both guys I like a fair amount), it felt like a big time title match. I didn't think it went too long, because it was worked at a deliberate pace, much more like an NWA title match then a indy overlong kick out fest. Both guys landed huge nasty shot early, everything either guy landed just thudded with impact, not the sharp snap of a thigh slap, but much more bass in every sound. Both guys have some unique blows, body shots, shots to the side of the neck, the shoulder blade, it really felt like both guys were putting damage in the bank saving up for the end. Willams was landing these thudding clotheslines, all impact, no bump. I loved how both guys sold the moves while applying offense, Royal couldn't get Williams all the way up with a press slam so he reckless hurls him into the ropes, Williams bad back didn't allow for a full piledriver lift so he spikes Royal with a short piledriver, their injuries made the moves worse for their opponents. I have seen a bunch of Royal and Williams did an incredible job selling his offense, the Space Jam looked like an Ogawa STO, and the Royal chop block felt like something which would be in the Wide World of Sports agony of defeat montage. I really liked the ref bump, too, the ref Daryl Hall (no relation) didn't lay down forever so we could get a table or have a run in, it just slowed him down enough for Williams to get a desperate kick out, great job of keeping Royal strong.

PAS: Three matches on a MOTY list is pretty class for a start up indy. ACTION has been a hell of start up, and I love their talent pool. Would like to see them really run some angles and build up some feuds.

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Scenic City Invitational 2018 Night 2 8/4/18

Darius Lockhart vs. 2 Cold Scorpio

PAS: Really glad we got to see Scorp wrestle twice in this tourney, and he and Darius make a fun paring. It must be thrilling for young African American wrestlers like Gray and Darius to work with a total legend. Darius came straight with the stiff shots early including really laying into Scorpio in the ropes with nasty uppercuts. Scorp hit some big time elbows and a nice bodyscissors to take Lockhart to the floor. Finish was cool with Lockhart stopping to jaw with the fans and getting caught with a kappo kick, and then Scorp goes up and lands the diss that don't miss with both legs landing right on Lockhart's chest.

ER: There must be things that I don't know because it's weird to me that Scorpio isn't signed somewhere, either as a worker or as a trainer. He feels like a guy who should have been far more involved in the wrestling business over the last decade. This was really fun, Lockhart showed big stones by bringing the strikes to Scorp, knowing he was going to get leveled in return. Lockhart had some nice uppercuts and a spectacular diving clothesline that really made me sit up. I've seen Lockhart a bunch and don't remember him throwing something like that. Lockhart also impressed the hell out of me with his hammerlock cradle DDT; Scorpio has a lot of size on him and it looked really cool seeing him lift him up and over. Scorp still hits his spinning sidekick with tremendous force, and I've always loved his bodyscissors takedown to the floor. It's a real nice physics move that makes a ton of logical sense, and it's odd we don't see it used more (outside of Mysterio it's not really something I recall people doing). He can also still make skinning the cat look effortless, and Lockhart took a nice sprawling bump to the floor and then ate a nice baseball slide. Scorpio had a bunch of things I liked here, a nice kneedrop, and a mean chinlock where he was digging into Lockhart's face with his elbow. Scorpio's Drop the Bomb is certainly a finisher of all finishers, always getting super height on the moonsault and it looked like he did the most spectacular Bombs Away in history. Scrape Lockhart off the mat, boys.

Nick Gage vs. Corey Hollis

PAS: Gage maybe the most over guy in this whole show. He bumps Hollis all over the arena, including throwing him down the bleacher stairs. Hollis get virtually no offense, until the ref takes a hammer from Gage allowing Hollis to kick him low and roll him up. Fun showcase for Gage's offense and Hollis bumping, but not a particularly competitive match. Something that works better for a live crowd, then on tape.

ER: It didn't really bother me that Hollis had basically no offense in this one. He didn't have much offense in the Cross match either, relying mostly on stomps and some strikes. It kind of gave me a sleazy Stevie Richards vibe, a guy with minimal offense but a lot of energy and personality who will bump like mad. Stevie was able to craft a bunch of really fun 5-7 minute matches around stuff like back rakes and rubbing his boot eyelets across a guy's face. So I can get into a Hollis match where he gets his ass kicked around a high school and then wins with a hard kick to the balls and a snug small package. Hollis takes a bunch of great spills around the gym, flying through tows of chairs, brawling up the tall bleachers and falling down every seat, getting smacked by someone's cane, a fun beating. I thought Hollis made all of this work great, and really liked the finish, and especially him sprinting back through the curtain immediately following the 3 count.

Jake Parnell vs. Gary Jay

PAS: This is a big feud in the St. Louis area and they really went after each other. They really laced into each other with shots and it stood out in a tourney that was already pretty stiff. It had more of a ragged fight feel, then just trading shots and staring at each other in between. I especially enjoyed their open hand Ronnie Garvin chops, a really underused chop overall. I like Parnell's double stomps and how he used them both as offense and as a way to get laid out. That finish was class, with Parnell hitting the huge stomp to the floor, Jay barely beating the count, Parnell going for the finishing blow and getting dropped in midair by the KO elbow. Love how they have set that move up in this tourney, and this was even a cooler use of it, then in the Cain match.

ER: This felt like a much better version of what Stallion/Lynch was going for the night before. Rehearsed segments don't bother me if there's a little rawness to them, and not someone zoning out so he can concentrate on hitting the 3 in the 1 and a 2 and 3. These guys just kept socking each other and refreshingly didn't pause for any fighting spirit silliness or double fist pump yelling when rising from the mat. The big turning point for me was when Jay was laid out in the chairs, and Parnell started clapping and running around the ring. "Here it comes," I thought, "Here's were they get overly cute. I hope Jay just meets him halfway and levels him." Well, what they did was even better, even crazier, and hooked me in for the stretch. Parnell comes running in, all the way around the ring, and Jay gives him a huge backdrop right into the rows of chairs. Take my money, guys. Jay absolutely levels Parnell with a couple elbows in this one, total jawbreaking shots, and I thought all the striking, all the chops, played really well and came off vicious. There was no "catch my leg and spin me so I can hit an enziguiri that bounces you in the ropes so you can hit a rolling elbow and then we breathe heavy while clapping happens", none of that, just two dudes putting a pin on the map. Parnell nicely plants seeds for that double stomp of his early in the match, missing one off the apron, foreshadowing his late match stomps. Shout outs to the camera crew as I really loved the visual of him climbing to the top to hit one more to the floor, as we cut to a great wide shot of the venue and see the crowd start to rise as Parnell climbs up. Jay's KO punch was expertly set up in the night 1 Cain Justice match, but it still surprised me to see him hit it here. I thought he was finished. I like that in two matches they've now established it as a confident KO shot, and as a desperate half court buzzer beater.

AJ Gray vs. Fred Yehi

ER: Another fun match, that although it had a couple indy spots that I didn't like, I absolutely liked how they treated those specific spots within the match. The spots came during the home stretch of the match, and started with Yehi giving Gray a spider German suplex from the top rope, and saw Gray stagger back to his feet. At first I bristled, as you instinctively see a guy just popping up from a German and running back into action. But Gray was flipped over and landed more on his knees than anything, so really took no more of a bump than if he had missed a standing moonsault or something a bit higher, so seeing him stagger to his feet and run back and dropkick Yehi (still hung upside down in the ropes) made sense. I didn't love his RVD/Scoot Andrews-ish dropkick right after, with Yehi doing his best to occupy himself while hung upside down, and the kick didn't land great...but it totally worked for me because Yehi didn't treat the kick as if it landed great either, instead freeing himself and then teeing off on Gray. Both guys had nice moments in this (although Yehi is easily THEE GUY in this tourney so far), with Yehi hitting those bruising chops and sharp dropkicks, Gray taking a huge spill to the floor and throwing several really good punches in a couple different varieties (I like how he throws a Jeff Hardy whip style punch, but keeps a tighter fist during it). The finish was just brutal, with Yehi stomping Gray and locking on the Koji Clutch, losing it, and then taking it right out on Gray, stomping even more viciously, locking the Clutch back in, and beating him across the face with the meanest blows. Good call on ref stoppage, and considering I've seen plenty of bad stoppage finishes in the last 5-10 years of indy wrestling, it says a lot about the wrestlers involved that we got two good ones two nights in a row.

PAS: Yehi is pretty undeniable so far in 2018, it really feels like he was energized by parting ways with EVOLVE and WWN (and boy could they use him back, that roster is slim). I am not sold on Gray yet, he clearly has a lot of athleticism ( I loved him in that AIW 10 man from last year) but he doesn't seem able to full put it together in a singles match yet. I loved Yehi's viciousness, every time this match threatened to get dancey, Yehi would stomp or throw a big right hand and it would turn right back into a fist fight. The finishes in this tourney have been great and Yehi locking in that Koji clutch, landing huge stomps and crossfaces until the pass out was great stuff. What a killer.

Joey Lynch vs. PCO

ER: So they definitely captured the excitement of the room with this one, even if there were parts of it that kept me from wholly digging it. The craziness and the oppressively constant pace of this was definitely its strength as they started at high energy and kept trying to peak things, mostly successfully. My main gripes were that both guys seemed very married to sequences, so if something didn't hit or didn't look great, it was treated exactly the same as something that looked absolutely devastating. There was plenty of devastating stuff in this match, and it sadly felt much less devastating once every move was sold essentially the same. The energy was there in spades, and that goes a long way, and contributed in big ways to the moments that worked. PCO has no problem taking stupid stuff now that he's 50, just taking some of the absolute worst bumps of his career. He comes off a bit like a geek show attraction though, and there's an odd sympathy to seeing him get kicked in the face or take a rough spill on a gym floor. One night after I was throwing out praise for them doing a big tournament without any crazy apron spots, of course we get an apron spot crazy and dumb enough that I wouldn't be shocked if they ripped it from the Hell Storm/Crazy Crusher ladder match, with PCO eating a suplex from the top to the apron. Lynch hits that "run around the ring attack" spot that I loved getting reversed in the Jay/Parnell match, but of course Lynch is going to be the guy who does it. Both guys take bumps through chairs, Lynch took a really hard chokeslam bump through several of them (though it looked a little goofy as he leaped up for the chokeslam way before PCO had begun the move, so it looked like Lynch just leaping backwards into chairs while PCO stood nearby), but they transition from that right into hitting big moves in the ring, and somehow made a lot of big stuff come off same-y. We get a couple of big nearfalls from both men off of moonsaults that didn't connect. PCO overshoots, Lynch overshoots twice, fans are into it and Cecil Scott is selling his freaking ass off, but I thought it looked bad. However, I really really liked the finish. Lynch finds his distance after a couple moonsaults, and then just hits 5 more moonsaults on PCO, all connecting flush. That was a great visual, and there were amusing moments throughout the moonsault run where PCO kept doing Undertaker/Frankenstein's Monster sit-ups (although I wasn't a fan of Lynch's loose thigh slap superkicks to knock him back down), but the consecutive moonsaults as a finish worked for me.

PAS: I thought this was unquestionably great, easily one of the PCO performance on the comeback trail (I would only put the WALTER match above it.) PCO is at his best when he is IWA-Japan Terry Funk, an old lunatic taking crazy bumps, delivering beatings and making weird faces. That apron bump was insane stuff, as was all of Lynch's bumps into chairs. I thought Lynch's tope to open the match set the tone nicely, and actually looked good (there have been some dicey topes in this tourney, I am looking at you Gary Jay) These kind of stunt brawls always work better as crazy sprints, and they kept this one moving, it felt like one of the great Necro Butcher brawls in the mid 2000s, although a step below the truly transcendent ones. I actually liked that PCO's moonsault didn't hit clean, he landed his head right into Lynch's stomach, I don't want Chris Daniels execution from a fifty year old French Canadian cyborg. I thought the multiple moonsaults was a very cool finish, although I do wish the superkicks hit cleaner. I get why this was such a hit live, and although I liked Yehi vs. Warner better, I think this was the match of night 2.

Marko Stunt vs. Shaggy vs. Matt Lynch vs. Ike Cross vs. AC Mack vs. Cyrus the Destroyer

ER: This was about as much fun as you could reasonably expect from a scramble; everybody got to showcase what they could do, and I came away really impressed with Cross, Mack, and Cyrus. Cyrus was the big beast at the center, throwing hard strikes and being involved in a bunch of cool spots. He amusingly no sells a AC Mack dive, takes an unexpected rana from cousin Shaggy (nice rana too) and later catches a second rana and plants him with an apron powerbomb, misses a big boy crossbody, gets plastered by a cool in ring dive from Cross, goes over hard on an assisted German, a real good big-man-in-a-scramble performance. Mack was someone I'd never seen before but now I want to see a lot. A good heel in a match like this always makes these things better, and he knew right when to stooge and right when to be mean, so it was fitting he got the opportunistic win. I really liked how he carried himself, seems like he would play well in singles. Cross impresses again, just like his eye opening performance on night one, here he breaks out more new tricks. I love the way he disposed of Cyrus, this crazy shoulderblock dive that took both men from in ring to wildly tumbling to the floor. The guy is such a freak athlete he even wound up landing on his feet after a tope con hilo. I also thought he was good stalling on the floor while waiting for Marko Stunt's big Cyrus-assisted moonsault. It's pretty easy to see why Stunt broke out this weekend, he's super small, fun-sized, but makes the most of his moments. He hit a cool sunset flip after leaping over a Cross spear, was real good about quickly getting into position for his shots (he had a super fast smooth kip up that looked especially good), hit a nice springboard dropkick to help German suplex Cyrus, and a couple times he rolled guys into cool looking knee lifts. Multimans like this seem impossible to mess up, but they end up working less often than not working. You end up with guys lying around too long, people not knowing how to busy themselves until their turn to hit stuff, guys getting in each other's way, etc. There was none of that here, just good action.

PAS: I could have done without the Marko and Shaggy comedy section and the beyond played out tower of doom spot (although Cyrus turned the power bomb part of that move into an impressive show of strength), but outside of that this was a blast. I thought everyone looked pretty good, with Cyrus especially doing a great job as king kong swatting down planes. Cross impressed me again, his diving tackles into a prone Cyrus would be 15 yards in the NFL and ended up being one of the coolest spots of the entire tourney. If I was running WWN I would sign him and push him to the top of the fed, let him work his way up to the skill level of the other guys like Riddle did. Marko is fun, I am not sure if he is better at what he does then Cool J or Weird Body, but he definitely has a lot of charisma and great timing.

Cain Justice/Mance Warner vs. The Carnies

ER: Pretty disappointing. There were portions of this that felt like the Carnies just working on material at home in front of their friends, and maybe that's what this is. There was an over-reliance on double team cooperative tandem stuff, and a lot of it felt like one of those old ECW Eliminators showcases, where they just kind of moved their opponents into position as if they were lifeless crash test dummies. We went through a few Carnies set pieces, had a couple dumb looking RVD missed chairshot spots, where both Carnies had to slowly miss chairshots and then hold them in front of their face, while Mance stupidly headbutts the chair and Cain kicks a chair with his bare feet. None of it looked good. Then just a few minutes into a short match we get a silly teeth-gritted "We're in a WAR" tandem strike exchange, with both teams running back and forth in stereo. Some of the strikes looked good, but the set ups all looked so phony that it just didn't work. So naturally we end with a needlessly dangerous spot for a rushed match like this, with Warner getting recklessly piledriven off the apron through a table. Totally felt like it happened in a different match, way out of place and unnecessary. Afterward we get one of those bad indy show of respects, with open hand outstretched for a respect handshake while the other hand is holding the body because of the war that just happened. Warner accepted, Cain thankfully said nuts to this and walked away.

PAS: There was some stuff in this I liked, I thought Cain was pretty good, and the stuff with his knee felt like it belonged in a different, better match. Especially nasty was when he got the chair kicked right down into his patella. Mance throwing the chair right at Nick Iggy and Cain spinning right into the crossarmbreaker was a super cool spot too. I agree that the Carnies wanted to show off all of their Nova and Frankie Kazarian tag offense, and a lot of that was really dumb, but I think this had enough cool Cain stuff and Kerry Awful clotheslines for me to mildly recommend it.

Corey Hollis vs. Fred Yehi vs. Joey Lynch vs. Gary Jay

ER: Kind of an end of tournament letdown for me. It felt like something put together and worked like a Joey Lynch match, who obviously went on to win in the match. Lynch was probably my least favorite guy in the tournament, so there were going to be parts of it that didn't work for me. I thought Yehi was the MVP of the tournament, and he was eliminated first here. He wasn't focused on much before elimination anyway, but I really liked his backpack Oklahoma Stampedes, those look vicious as hell and nobody else does them. Hollis stayed out of a lot of this too, which was kind of his shtick, running in to capitalize on the moves of others, running while getting chased, working more comical cocky southern heel. But it basically made this a Gary Jay vs. Joey Lynch match, which would have been my last pick of possible singles pairings out of these possibilities. Their stuff wasn't bad, but some of it wasn't my thing. There was a modern Malenko/Guerrero 2 count sequence that felt so weirdly and annoyingly out of place, but there were some real nice punches from Jay, a mean shot to the back of Lynch's head, a pretty wild spot where Jay only grazes Lynch on a dive, so Lynch grabs him and hits a hard Angle Slam on the floor. But there were some ugly patches, like Lynch hitting a wobbly twisting press to the floor that somehow none of the other three catch. Lynch fell hard and fast, right through everyone. So it was a little disheartening to just see him doing his thing after that. I know, he was going to win, but man it was a bad spill. He also just needs to ditch that moonsault. I don't think the two he used at the end looked good, they were overshot and didn't look nearly as painful as other stuff in the match. Plus, there was some badly thought out spot earlier where he broke up a pin with a moonsault but due to positioning he ended up almost breaking Yehi and Hollis' arms. This guy seems to be doing a 1998 Billy Kidman "bad landing for everyone involved" highflying tribute. I also really didn't need several Canadian Destroyers. Lynch doesn't hit them very well and they just felt really out of place in the tournament to me. I did really like the big Hollis ball kick on Lynch. After it happened I immediately wanted that to become the culmination of the weekend. We've already seen Hollis effectively moving up that ladder by targeting balls, and if the tournament had ended up being a showcase for the virtues of ball kicking. Hollis working his way successfully through a tournament just by kicking balls would have been legendary. They went a different way though, and at the end of the day I just really, really needed more ball selling from Lynch. Man treats getting kicked in the balls with no gravitas? That's not a man I can relate to. I can remember each individual time in my life that I've taken one to the balls. It hasn't happened often, but everyone reading this has a memory of taking an unexpected shot. I wanted more.

PAS: I came away from this match wanting to see a Corey Hollis vs. Fred Yehi singles match, and that was a matchup we hardly saw. I liked Lynch OK in the PCO match, but this was not his best stuff, the Canadian Destroyer into a Moonsault stuff is pretty bad looking, for a guy with King of Moonsault on his trunks, he over shoots it a ton. I actually liked him breaking up the Koji clutch with a moonsault, that looked like it hurt, which I never mind. I get why Lynch won, he is the local guy who finally climbed the mountain, but it wasn't for me.

PAS: I liked Night 2 fine, it didn't have the peaks of night one, but both Jay vs. Parnell and PCO and Lynch make our 2018 Ongoing MOTY list. I do want to give props to the guys who ran these shows, everything moved quickly, nothing wore out its welcome and the finishes were pretty flawless.

ER: Yes, despite not liking Night 2 as much as Night 1, I still love the presentation and timing on these shows. Two nights edited to a tight 4 hours (plus a brisk Futures show that I still plan on writing), with hardly any of the matches feeling "same-y". That's the kind of stuff that will keep me coming back to a fed/group. This tournament made me think that Yehi might be the best in the world, and made me want to seek out any Mack/Cross action I can find. I also don't think we mentioned the commentary crew as much as we should have. I thought Cecil Scott and Dragon Dan Wilson did a fantastic job throughout, truly captured the excitement of the whole weekend. Maybe I'll make my way to TN in one year's time...

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Scenic City Invitational 2018 Night 1 8/3/18

Curt Stallion vs. Joey Lynch

PAS: These are two of signature SCI guys, who haven't done a ton for me when I have seen them before. This was a solid US indy near fall, highspot match. Not a style I love, but it is a good type of match to start a show off with. I liked Stallion's in ring tope, stomps and top rope german suplex (although that move was so nasty that it was silly for Lynch to get the roll up after it hit. There were also too many variations of stuff for my taste, every regular move had a spin or ended on a knee. It had a nice pace though, and I never got bored, I imagine I will like other stuff much better.

ER: Yeah not my thing. That kind of get your shit in, GIF wrestling with improbable momentum shifts and a bad finish, with both men holding each other up with an embrace after it's all over. The more I see Lynch the more my thoughts are confirmed that he will have one match, exactly one match, and he will hit all of the dance step timing spots that he knows in that match. I liked a lot of Curt Stallion in this, thought he had some cool offense (that flying headbutt tope in the ring is a great spot) and is super smooth through potentially complicated sequences. But Lynch does little for me. Stallion felt like a guy with good ideas, stuck in a match with southern indy Kurt Angle. It's not like his stuff looks bad (although that thigh slap kneelift never gets quite high enough, and he overshot a moonsault that was supposed to be a dramatic moment of the match, and the fans kind of gave him credit for hitting it flush anyway), it's just that he has his stuff he's going to hit and he usually just opts to go to it. So Stallion will hit a nice DDT or big vertical suplex for a 2 count, and Lynch will just decide that he also wants to do a couple suplexes, so then stands up and does that. The Kurt Angle "my opponent is taking too much time selling" was strong. He also had that Kurt Angle "half ass the first part of this sequence to get to the good part", like when Angle would barely throw a clothesline that was supposed to miss because he was thinking about getting into position for the throw coming right after. Lynch does that a lot, barely hit one kick because he needs to be in position to spin around with another kick. He did hit a nice superkick down the stretch, and I loved how Stallion leaned cheek first into it, but man did I hate that finish. Stallion hits a big suplex off the top, Lynch takes it flush...then just rolls Stallion up with a crucifix. Man that's dumb. Stallion thought he had a good plan by hitting the biggest move of the match, but what he didn't realize is that big moves don't damage Lynch at all. Stallion should have scouted that.

Jake Parnell vs. Darius Lockhart

PAS: Darius is a guy I have liked a lot in CWF, and this is the first time I have seen Parnell. This was another solid opening round match. Lockhart opened the match flummoxing Parnell with WOS spots, including rolling Parnell up into a ball, and doing multiple somersaults to escape. Parnell took over with a double stomp off the apron to Lockhart's back and it proceeded into more of an indy juniors match. There were a couple of big shots I really liked, Parnell hit a really stiff crawling JYD headbutt and Darius landed a big straight right to Parnell's jaw, some of the other stuff didn't hit as cleanly. I liked some of Darius's wobbly leg selling too, especially right before the finish. Nice showing for both.

ER: I think this was a better version of the match before it, with really the only difference being the order of moves. I thought this one built much better and had a better finish (although that wouldn't have been difficult, just have the hurtiest looking move finish the match). I'd never seen Parnell and came away overall impressed. I liked this silly stooge elements like whiffing and hitting the match while trying to catch up to a somersaulting Lockhart, and liked his use of non-canon offense for a guy his size. He hits several hard splashes in a row, which isn't a move used a lot by non-fat guys (Cecil Scott says Parnell goes 195), but a splash in theory would hurt no matter the size of the guy doing it. It's still a body crashing onto a body. So I dug Parnell's aggressive falling splashes with a senton chaser. He also had a nice northern lights suplex, took a nasty hammerlock DDT, threw a great shotgun kick that ended with him kind of tied up in the ropes, went amusingly wobbly on a big stiff arm right cross from Lockhart, all nice stuff. Finish was indy fun and looked like a finish, with Lockhart getting absolutely dumped by a half nelson suplex (and then making the best of the planned spot, which needed him on his feet, and I thought Lockhart handled getting loopily to his feet well) and blitzed by an awesome burning lariat, finished off with a double stomp. This felt the right time, right pace, good match.

Corey Hollis vs. Ike Cross

PAS: This was really great. Hollis is a great sleazy veteran heel, kind of like a 2000s Tony Anthony, perfect guy to guide a green kid through a match Cross is a phenom, he is 6'3 or so, built like a NFL Free Safety, cut, and agile as shit. Match starts with a Cross explosion, he has this massive takedown, a great tope, and a crazy springboard spinning headbutt, he just launches off a springboard. Hollis takes over when he hurls Cross to the turrnbuckle and Cross flies out and lands on his head. We get some Hollis shit talking, and control, until Cross obliterates him with a spear. Cross misses a Superfly splash where he got more height then prime Snuka, and Hollis sneaks a low blow in for the win. Cross will be a big star somewhere, he seems about as can't miss an prospect as I can remember seeing. It almost felt like watching Sting for the first time.

ER: I was super excited to see Cross for the first time, and man oh man did he deliver. I don't ever remember being this excited by Sting. Phenom really does appear to be the best word to describe Cross, and I agree that he's as close to a can't miss wrestling prospect as you can get. Hollis was the absolute perfect opponent for him, the kind of guy who can stall and create space between all of Cross' best stuff, so the moves don't get all stacked up on themselves. Cross launches Hollis with one of the highest backdrops I've seen (really reaching that rarified Rick Rude/Todd Morton air), hits a super fast dive, hits a double leg that looked so strong that he probably could have ran around the building with him a couple times before slamming him, hits a springboard elbow that gets such height that it looked like he could have leapt across the entire ring. Hollis is great at slowing things down and expertly tosses Cross into the ringpost, and Cross takes an awesome painful bump into the post and then down to the floor, really made it look dangerous. Hollis knew how to play the match, focused on setting up big Cross spots, and made his own little things look good, like his pinpoint stomps. A dirtbag like him needs good looking stomps, those kind where he's holding the top rope while lacing into a guy's sternum. Finish was perfect for this match, as how do you stop a runaway train? You distract the ref and punch that train in the balls. Loved this.

Cyrus the Destroyer vs. PCO

PAS: Fun big boy battle, full of thumps and some pretty impressive agility by both guys. Cyrus's Eddie Guerrero flip senton which was totally nuts for a guy 400+ pounds, and PCO's moonsault looked awesome. I think the secret to an entertaining PCO match is the pace. If he works really slow you can see the seams, but if the pace is pushed it can be really entertaining. This was a quicker pace and was just as focused on big bombs as it was on highspots. Really what you wanted this match to be when it was signed.

ER: Not bad, but it kind of bums me out that I've been low vote on PCO since his comeback. I fully respect how he's reinvented himself and created this buzz, but I never seem to end up enjoying the matches as everyone else. This was fine, but if you had told the match was "big fat guy vs. old tough guy" without telling me the names, I'd be starting a 5 stars before the first guy made his entrance. Fat guys and old tough guys are my bread and butter, and I liked this, but didn't love it. PCO is kind of a stiff, doesn't always get into position for things very cleanly, sometimes just stands there with bulging eyes, but he also works plenty stiff and takes/does some crazy offense, so I clearly understand what the appeal is. I really liked Cyrus in last year's Anarchy WarGames, a big guy who has no problem taking a crazy bump, and I liked him here. And Phil is right about the pacing being important in a PCO match, he's someone who actually benefits from a go go go match, just keep moving him to the next set piece or explosion, and that's what they do here. I weirdly think the PCO thing I liked the most here was a kick he threw to a bent over Cyrus. Cyrus was in position to give a backdrop and PCO hit a great extra point kick right across Cyrus' chest and stomach, a really nice kick. I mean, a 50 year old cannonball and moonsault are obviously going to always look impressive, but there's something to be said about a kick that many wrestlers don't go all in on. Cyrus hit a bananas slingshot senton, and it sucks that with his size and that move, 20 years ago it probably would have at minimum got him Roadblock's spot on the WCW roster. Cyrus gets great welts and bruises on his forehead (from his nice headbutts? From stiff PCO shots?) and commits to missing a big IZU falling meteorite off the middle rope, all things I'm into. There were some things I thought didn't quite work, the two PCO chokeslam spots came off a little flat, but overall this was fine. PCO is seeming like someone who would come off better live than on tape. I'm optimistic though.

AJ Gray vs. 2 Cold Scorpio

PAS: Scorpio is basically wrestling's John Witherspoon at this point I expected him to ball up his fists and tell AJ Gray that "These is all you need to be a man.. You win some, you lose some... But you live to fight another day" I loved his Uncle at the cookout dance moves, and his real willingness to lay in bruising shots. He hit Gray with a jump kick that put a cleft in his chin. Gray seemed to hold back a bit at the beginning, but once he knew who he was in with, he let them go. There was some awkwardness in this match which kept it from being a real MOTY list contender, but it really felt like a battle and Scorpio still has a gorgeous moonsault and some real pepper in his blows.

ER: I laughed at Phil's uncle at a cookout line, because I was watching Scorp dance and immediately thought of Sam doing the Detroit Hustle on Detroiters. This match had some problems, but they were mostly cosmetic. Gray doesn't really get up to deliver a rana, they flub a powerbomb reversal spot (but recover well enough), Scorp damn near Picasso's Gray with a Tumbleweed that falls short, Gray kind of awkwardly hold up on a frog splash, things like that. They were all over the match, but it's one of those things where if you had them go out another night and work the exact same match, all that stuff likely hits fine. So I don't get too hung up on cosmetic stuff like that, because I really dug the actual bones of the match. They worked a slower pace strikes match, with flying peppered in, which is a nice combo that most guys couldn't pull off. You need some heft to pull it off, and these two have heft. I love all of Scorpio's kicks (especially those no nonsense yakuza kicks), and this was a rare instance of me not shutting my brain off during a standing exchange. This captured the vibe of what I imagine most wrestlers are trying to capture when doing stand and trade, and the key to it is simple but difficult, because it just has to naturally happen. One guy drills another guy and it's probably the hardest shot of the match up to that point, and the other guy gets that "oh that's where this is, huh?" and drills him back. The back and forth has some meaning, some heft. The elbow strikes landed hard, the kicks and misses were great, and I thought for sure Scorp's moonsault was it (how far across the ring did he opt to set that up!?). Gray had an awesome sell on that short Tumbleweed, but, there's a great chance he was just feeling that numb heat that happens when someone flips halfway across the ring and nearly lops your ear off. Obviously I'm pissed we got robbed of Scorp vs. Cain (or Scorp vs. basically anybody), but wouldn't mind these two running it back.

Cain Justice vs. Gary Jay

PAS: This was a short sprint with a great flash KO finish, that still left me a little bummed. Jay is a guy who works a hard hitter gimmick, with some really stiff chops and Justice is a CWF boss and my favorite young wrestler in the world. Match starts fast with Cain Jumping Jay at the bell, and never lets up. Jay hits a trio of tope's in a row, before torching his chop hand on the ringpost, we have some arm and hand work by Justice interspersed with some shots by Jay. Match comes to an abrupt end when Cain goes for a move off the ropes and gets caught with a driving right hand to jaw, which led to a quick ref stoppage. It was a cool finish and I liked a tourney match having that kind of unpredictable finish, but I can't help but being disappointed that Cain was out of the tourney in four minutes. He was the guy I was looking forward to the most, and hoped he would get a mini run in the tourney, or at least a showcase match.

ER: Well color me a tad disappointed. Let me say that I really, really, really liked the finish. Also, I really, really, really didn't want to see this finish in this match, when it happened. That's tough to reconcile. I think the ending might have been the best part of the match, and yet I also didn't want it to happen. It wasn't the best I've seen either guy: Jay had a few of those thigh slap moments where the shot doesn't actually land, so you end up with a thigh slap on a high lariat or a missed big boot, and while Cain bumped great for both (big flip bump on the lariat and a great staggering slow drop on the boot), it felt a little bit too much behind the curtain. I also thought Cain went to the "take a move, bob back up with glazed eyes sell" wayyyyy to often. He was doing that after almost every move which started to come off more comical than "I just took a big move". Cain jumping him to start was great, I thought Cain was throwing some of his best shots, and I loved Jay hitting the post leading to Cain doing some hand work. Finish was great, but yeah, too many guys I wanted to see opposite Cain, when I'm not sure there would be other opportunities for those match-ups.

Mance Warner vs. Fred Yehi

PAS: Yehi has had a hell of a year, leaving WWN, where he was getting a bit stale, and having cool matches with a different variety of folks. Warner is a fun brawler, kind of works a little like a more athletic Roughhouse Fargo. He has some really fun expressive punches and takes big bumps. Yehi is one of the most innovative wrestlers in the world, in a really cool way, and there is this awesome spot where he jams Warner's arm into the hollow top of the ringpost and mangles it with punches and yanking it back and forth. Totally something I have never seen before and a contender for spot of the year. Whole match had a great energy to it, and I really enjoyed the finish run with Warner faking an eyepoke and hitting a DDT, and Yehi hitting a great folding powerbomb. My favorite match of night one.

ER: I think this is the best Yehi has looked in 2018, and Yehi is a guy who looks great almost every time I see him. He was ruthless here, finding all sorts of cool ways to torture clear local favorite Warner. Everything Yehi threw out looked fantastic, and I fully agree that him shoving Warner's arm into the ringpost to tee off on the arm was amazing. The shots to the arm would have looked vicious without the help from the ringpost, but the post really added something special to the visual. Yehi's low dropkicks hit with a ton of force, his chops looked among best of the night, he had this nasty diagonal strike to Warner's neck, all brutal stuff. Warner has a nice way of tapping into the energy of the crowd, he gets a good local reaction the same way Chet Sterling does. I actually liked how he still used the hand and arm a few times, and Cecil Scott was excellent at pointing out that he's still using it by instinct, but it's not as effective. And Yehi was always there with a stomp to remind him, and he does all these great mean things like stopping short on a snapmare so it's just him yanking Warner's neck forward. Maybe the best thing about the SCI tournament up to this point has been the finishes. We have gotten a night of logical finishes without anybody taking anything stupid on an apron, everyone avoiding excess while treating appropriately big moves as big moves. Yehi running him into the turnbuckles, then hitting a folding powerbomb is a great example of this. He didn't need to spike Warner into the mat, he hit a hard snap powerbomb and then expertly folded the legs over to make it near impossible to kick out of. Simple, effective. There were finishes that could have come off cheap in the wrong hands (Hollis winning with a low blow, Jay winning with a punch) but these finishes have all felt nicely tailored to the wrestlers advancing.

Kerry Awful vs. Nick Gage

PAS: This was built up as a legendary brawler from outside coming in and taking on the craziest guy in the local town. I liked big parts of this, with Awful taking some big bumps, including a suplex on the bleachers and it had some real energy with the crowd brawling. I liked Awful just putting Gage's arm on a chair and stomping on it. I do wish the shots had landed with some more steam. Necro Butcher brawls always had hard punches in between the bumps and stunts, I though Awful's shots had a lot of windup and not much follow though.

ER: The things we've both said about PCO probably being a guy who plays much better live can likely be said even more about Nick Gage. I match up pretty exactly with Phil on this one, as we get several great moments and a nice concise finish, but some of the meat and potatoes of the brawl portion felt lacking. He's totally right about Awful having great body movement and windup, but were lacking that weight, never feeling like they were landing with the expected thud that the delivery promised. He's kind of like an inverted Dirty Daddy. Daddy shots always look and sound like he's killing a guy, he has these great chops and elbows, but he doesn't have a lot of flash before the landing. Awful has all the movement down, but falls short on the landing. I'm someone who has watched more Jerry Lawler than I can remember, and while I'm still regularly amazed at how great he can make every punch look, after getting used to how precise the landing is on the punches you start noticing all the other things he's doing with his body to give his punches style. You could practice for a year to get your worked punches to come in fast and land soft, but there's so many other working parts: you need to figure out what your non-punching arm is doing, you need to figure out your footwork, you need to get your head movement down, you need to properly recoil your body after a punch lands, etc. Awful has all of the other things, but doesn't really have the connection of the strike. It's kind of like how hard Lance Storm tried to work his chairshots in ECW. He was a guy who never wanted to stiff someone and certainly didn't want to brain someone with a chair, so he worked on the windup and actual physical delivery of the chairshot, and then would hold up on the landing. It would get roundly booed by the deviants who wanted nothing more than full force shots to the frontal lobe, but I always saw and liked what he was going for. Awful takes a few really great bumps here, getting backdropped into the bleachers and eating a suplex through a couple of chairs, Gage gets run into the ringpost with a chair around his neck, gets his arm jammed into a chair and stomped on, all that stuff worked great. The brawling really didn't work for me. The finish was a heck of an exclamation point, with Gage just drilling him with a stuffed piledriver to put an instant end to things.

PAS: Fun first night, nothing mindblowing, but I liked how this show had a real variety of wrestlers, old crazy guys, monsters, mat workers. A lot of indy tournaments just have a list of pimped indy workers all doing 2.9 wrestling, this had a real appetizer sampler feel which I enjoyed.


ER: I had a great time with Night 1. They kept things simple and quick, and each of the guys involved stood out in their own way. That's pretty special. We've all sat through enough marathon 4 hour indy shows, and I think it's incredibly refreshing to see that both nights of SCI total 4 hours. It keeps things fresh and moving, keeps the crowd alert, and shows that guys can still do some absolutely crazy things without doing absolutely stupid things. A nice, welcoming and fun night of wrestling, with Cross/Hollis and Yehi/Warner being quality additions to our 2018 Ongoing MOTY List. Night 2 review coming soon.

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