For the Love of Pro Wrestling: Lee Moriarty vs. Cheeseburger

Lee Moriarty vs. Cheeseburger Labor of Love PHL 4/25/26 

Cheeseburger loves pro wrestling. 

It's undeniable, right? You follow his career. You watch him wrestle. You see what he posts. He loves wrestling. Undeniable. Pure wrestling. Technical wrestling. Tricked out holds, reversals. Fundamentals. Clear as day. Even as a layperson, it's obvious.

In a world with so, so many belts, the ROH Pure Championship belt means something. It stands for something. What does a TV Belt stand for in a world of streaming in 2026? It's only as good as the champion, right?

But the Pure Championship stands for something. It's not just the rules, the rope breaks, the judging. The person who holds it is a pure wrestler, is someone who finds the art in technique, who finds beauty in joint manipulation, in the secrets of the craft. 

Lee Moriarty is an artist. He's an artist over multiple modalities. Hell, there was his art up on the wall during this match. 

But if you're reading this, you care most, like I care most, that he's an artist in the ring. He moves with style and swagger, with confidence. The ring is his canvas and upon it he paints victories of twisted limbs, clever escapes, and the ever-driving, inescapable knowledge of the rules of the game. He paints outside the box at times, but all eyes go to the center nonetheless.

He's going to put you in danger, is going to force you to use up your rope breaks, and is going to have you looking every which way as he ties up any possible chance you might have to beat him and take his title.

Cheeseburger might be world famous, but the world comes to Moriarty. He's the champion. That's the difference.

And it's everything Cheeseburger wants. Not the fame, not the fortune, but the validation, the proof, the opportunity to be that person that everyone in the world hunts to prove their technical superiority. To show it's all been worth it. The title is a symbol and object. It's what it represents that Cheeseburger wants. 

And here, in front of a crowd that saw him as the home team, in a match he had trained for, had prepared for, was ready for, he was going to do everything possible to get it.

Things were friendly enough at first, playful even. There was a sense of exhibition, of showing off for the crowd. Look, Lee might have been from Pittsburgh and given recent hockey happenings, maybe he was a natural antagonist in Philly, but they welcomed him well enough to start. There was a "Both These Guys" chants. It was congenial.

The shift happened quickly. The first exchange ended with Cheeseburger taking Lee down, but finding himself unable to hook on a hold in the face of Lee attempt at an early Border City Stretch. The second exchange had Lee turn Cheeseburger's wrist control around, allowing him to flex and preen only for Cheeseburger to kip up and twist and turn his way out, leaving Lee staring at his hands in mild disbelief.

That was bad enough. What made it worse is that in that twisting and turning, Cheeseburger took the crowd along with him. No longer were they chanting "Both These Guys." Now it was "New Champ." 

Over the next few exchanges, Cheeseburger pressed his advantage, always seeming one step ahead of Moriarty, half out of a hold before Moriarty could even lock it on, anticipating where he'd end up next, hands already outstretched. To their credit, it never seemed collaborative. Cheeseburger come off as just that good and Lee came off as just that frustrated, and it all worked. 

Lee was able to jam Cheeseburger's attempt to mount him, was even able to knock off a rope break with a Border City Stretch, but Cheeseburger was undaunted and finally did mount him and wrench both arms back at once. Lee's only escape? Grabbing the ropes with his teeth as the judges took notes before him. 

Bad had gone to worse and now, despite the ground Lee had gained back, things were even between them, and the humiliation was starting to sink in.

How dare Cheeseburger? How dare he ride him, stretch him, humiliate him? This is Taigastyle Lee Moriarty, longest Pure Champ ever, who beat Shibata, Blue Panther, Nigel McGuinness. 

The tiger saw red and lashed out. Cheeseburger fought back but Lee honed in on the gut, pressed hard. He pressed too far and too soon though, was emotional, was heated. He went to the well once too often and Cheeseburger was able to fight back.

The rope breaks felt like goals in a soccer game. 1-0, 1-1, 2-1, 2-2. It was wrestling as art and wrestling as sport all in one. The sport was the trappings; the art, the means, the purpose, the impression it left with you.

And like all great art, there was humanity underneath, Lee's frustration, Cheeseburger's desperation, and both men's pride when it came to their chosen art/science/trade. 

Lee utilized a camel clutch, not one of his usual moves, but it was a way of presenting Cheeseburger's pained faced to the crowd, to the judges, to the world, nowhere to hide as he used up one of his rope breaks. 

Cheeseburger, firing back, hitting bombs, almost scored a win with a clutch seatbelt cradle. It was one of those nearfalls where, even watching it back, knowing the result, it still gets you just a little. That's how good it was. 

But in 2026, this is Lee Moriarty's world, and no matter how much heart Cheeseburger showed (even valiantly fighting his way back up from what looked to be a knock out shot), and no matter how hard he trained, once Lee got that third rope break, it was the beginning of the end. Cheeseburger crawled to the ropes to escape another Border City Stretch but that left him open to a rope assisted Camel Clutch and he had no choice but to tap.  

Cheeseburger loves pro wrestling, lives it even, but so long as Lee Moriarty holds that belt, he IS pro wrestling.

So where does this leave Cheeseburger? Was it truly all for nothing? After a match like that, after inspiring a crowd to support him, after pushing the Pure Champ to the limit, maybe, just maybe, he can take a step back, and find validation within. Pro wrestling, like life, is a journey. The true practitioners never stop learning, never stop growing. So long as that's true, they never know true defeat and there's always tomorrow. And sometimes it takes a match like this to remind us of that.

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D3AN~!!! Day 4: SAMMY~! MORTOS~! DRALISTICO~! CHEESEBURGER~! ISOM~! TITUS~!

DEAN~!!! 3 9/6/25

LFI (Sammy Guevara/Beast Mortos/Dralistico) vs Cheeseburger/Eli Isom/Rhett Titus

MD: Let's embrace the chaotic indie spirit of a random match popping up out of nowhere. We don't have a choice after all and embracing it would be a very DEAN thing to do. And why the hell not, right? Look, DEAN liked all of these guys. Yes, DEAN was great at finding things to like about almost anyone who had something to like, especially in the early 2020s, but he was also great at highlighting what those things were. More on this at the end because of Sammy's promo. 

This was definitely structured as an enhancement sort of match with name talent. Powers and Roma and Brunzell on a late 80s Superstars and that's okay. It meant that Isom could fire back a bit and give everything just a bit more dramatic weight. You know what to expect with Mortos (that headbutt) and Dralistico (throwing himself into his offense for good or ill, here good), but Sammy was the one to watch. 

Sammy's been paying his dues as Dustin's little buddy for the last year+, title belt or no, putting in the effort as a babyface. But now he gets to stretch and preen. They're still working it out. Him matching Rush's Tranquilo pose with his little bit of breakdancing works great. It didn't work quite as well with Mortos and Dralistico just standing beside him. Otherwise, they were a pretty well oiled machine here.

And of course the post-match promo was funny for what it was. Surreal to a degree to hear Sammy talk about Dean. Bobby Heenan is on record for giving someone advice in WCW that instead of saying they hated the fans, they should say they love them (the advice was not taken) and Sammy more or less did that here. Him referencing "pillars" in 2025 is a good bit. And then saying that he, and his stablemates were Dean's favorite wrestlers. Also a good bit. Sammy's online, of course. He's got that "Where are my five stars?" promo that he's never going to live down (Sorry), but I can't imagine him in these circles. So the fact that he didn't and wouldn't and couldn't know that DEAN was big on guys like Mortos and RUSH, but that he absolutely loved Sammy's JAS run with Tay, for instance, makes it even more funny. 

No, Sammy was not one of Dean's favorites, but in his own inestimable way, Dean loved wrestling more than anyone. And that meant he was going to find every awesome thing about Sammy and embrace them and shout it from the rooftops. There are absolutely things that Sammy does that I think are very good (and no, I'm not going to list them here), but I've written up a bunch of his matches with Dustin over the last year+ and while I’ve been fair and even-handed, I’ve not shouted anything from rooftops. So, though he didn't know any of this, though he was doing the right thing to get heat, what Sammy really did was remind me once again just what we lost when we lost the big guy. 

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2016 Ongoing MOTY List: Briscoes/Cheeseburger v. War Machine/Moose

15. Briscoes/Cheeseburger v. War Machine/Moose ROH 3/12

ER: It's hard to beat a good 6 man tag. You can get guys with loose allegiances, different styles, and different skillsets, but as long as things keep a certain pace you can hide a lot of weaknesses and have an insane amount of fun. Whether you credit the format or the wrestler, this is the best I've seen Moose look, the best I've seen Cheeseburger used, and the most fired up I've seen Jay Briscoe in over a year. Cheeseburger got to hit some shoteis, some splashes that were never seen as threatening, he got to do some Mikey Whipwreck avoidance spots where the larger guys would just hurt themselves (including a nice run where Moose flies into the ringpost and Hanson bronco busts the turnbuckles), and most importantly he gets used as a weapon. We get several great spots with him getting thrown into other guys, the craziest being him getting caught on a dive and then thrown back into the ring by War Machine, only to get caught by Jay which leads directly to Mark hitting a wild tope and then Jay taking out War Machine with an even meaner, faster, low tope. Jay was awesome in this, and his brawling segments with Rowe and Moose were the highlights. Rowe is clearly the worker in War Machine even though Hanson is featured more, and he and Jay kick the shit out of each other. Later on when Moose and Jay are taking turns kicking each other it's like Moose finally turned the corner into becoming a good worker. I mean it helps when Mark Brisoce flies insanely into your spinning lariat, but still Moose looked good. Cheeseburger gets a nice triple shotei spot, only to see everybody recover and all kick him at the same time from different angles. He gets tossed around a lot here, as he should be, but usually the tosses aren't so mean. Moose planting him with a low angle german after catching the alley oop from Hanson is worth the price of admission. 6 man tags are just the perfect structure for 6 guys of varying ability to go in and have a great 15 minutes of action, and this all held to that philosophy.

PAS: This was a nice example of the strength of a six man tag, because outside of the Briscoes I am not sure if any of these guys are good wrestlers and I really enjoyed this. I had never seen Cheeseburger before, and he is Haiti Kid level skinny, he might weight less then 100 pounds and has no muscle development at all, I mean most tiny indy guys at least have some bulk to them. He does take a brutal beating and I liked how he avoided guys and made them hurt themselves, I am not sure I ever buy any offensive move as anything but a comedy spot though. War Machine look awesome, but there stuff should really be more violent, I want Ray Rowe to kill folks, and he just never does it for me. This did make me remember how much I love the Briscoes and I should make a wrestling resolution to watch more of them.


2016 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Ring of Honor on Destination America 9/2/15 Review

1. Adam Page vs. Jay Briscoe

A match born out of DISRESPECT! How many times have they gone to that "no handshake" well? But whatever this segment worked. Jay kicked the hell out of Page, stomped his neck and hit a killer tope. Page throws a chair at him then hits the Rite of Passage on a bunch of chairs. Mark comes out throwing chairs and Colby Corino just has zero body chemistry whatsoever. But for a match ending the way it did this was the perfect time and made me want to see more.

"When I beat you...I get those BOYS". Silas Young as closeted gay predator has made him seem so much more interesting. He and Castle can run the Chris Keller/Beecher Oz arc and I could see it being feud of the year. Silas Young becoming one of Castle's boys could be glorious, but only if it ends in him eventually giving in to his desires. The heat and homophobia from the audience during Young and Castle's first kiss would be off the charts, but there will be an extra layer of the audience hating themselves for how good it makes them feel.

2. Cedric Alexander vs. Caprice Coleman

Eh, this was okay. Alexander isn't that good, a whole bunch thigh slaps and some bumps that don't really look connected to the move he's taking. I like his apron kick, that always seems to look good. And I like Veda Scott's goofy scowl faces. Peak was really the postmatch, with Moose decking Cedric with a wrench-loaded punch. Alexander crushed the selling. He charged right at Moose who timed the punch perfect, and Cedric just crumbled immediately and ended up draped over the bottom rope. It was real satisfying, like catching Bald Bull during his Bull Charge.

3. Brutal Bob Evans vs. Cheeseburger

For two guys who really aren't good, I really enjoyed this. You have to throw out all execution expectations. Most of the things these two do don't look good. There's always a disconnect with their bumps, strikes look poor, most of Cheeseburger's stuff whiffs, no actual emotion in either of their faces...but if you just go in expecting things to look poor and just watch the layout, this totally worked. Again, I really enjoyed it. Cheeseburger hits a neat somersault senton on a chair, Bob punches him a bunch in a headlock and rips at his nose, and we all build to that table spot from TV almost 3 months ago. They take their time setting it up which could seem ridiculous in other matches but felt appropriate here, really adding to things as you knew Bob was taking the bump through that table. And certainly, Bob takes a clumsy mapped out bump that in no way looked like the way a person would fall after getting limply punched. But again it totally worked within the context of who these two are. Bob takes a planned careful back bump that still sees him smack the back of his head, and for something bad this was overall very satisfying.

4. Hanson vs. Jay Lethal

So I actually enjoy Jay Lethal as fighting champion, defending both belts and doing it with braggadocio. I just don't really like Jay Lethal singles matches. So that's somewhat problematic. Still, his presentation and the way he carries himself is important, and he's been doing it well, so that counts. Hanson should be better. He should not do fucking springboards or cartwheels. Those things rarely look good anyway, but when you can't actually do them well...get this...they look even worse. Hanson just can't abandon them. And here they noticeably took away from the match. Just do a normal lariat, you don't need to get attention by being a larger man who can do a so-so cartwheel. His moonsault to knees was better, but it fell flat coming off his horrible handspring to whatever. Lethal's run to the finish was good and things were mapped out well throughout, but eh, neither guy does much for me. So I'm left in this weird conflicted area where I like neither guy, but they laid out their match in a nice way, and mostly stuck to it...so we'll just say it was solidly not bad-ish.

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Ring of Honor on Destination America 7/29/15 Review

So last week was a real dud of an episode. Let's hope for a wee bit better show this week? I already had a laptop blow up, fiscal year end kicked my butt, and I need a good show here.

1. The Kingdom (Mike Bennett & Matt Taven) vs. Corey Hollis & Jonathan Gresham

This was a decent enough extended squash, got over the Kingdom as it intended. Gresham took some nice bumps into the railing, and man is he tiny. I kind of hate how Hollis bumps. I had never seen him before. I'm okay with that. We go through a long awful stretch where Bennett is repeatedly duped by Gresham essentially running back and forth in the ring. Taven on one side, Bennett on the other, Gresham running between them and getting grabbed by Taven, then slipping out with Bennett chasing him back and forth. It looked terrible, just an awful run of cat and mouse. They did it so much it looked like the moment when you noticed HHH set up every single one of his moves with an Irish whip. But, that was just the middle. It was fine. Not fine to the literal dictionary definition; but fine, as it's most commonly used. Which is to say, it was okay.

Destination America regularly pushes a show called "Killing Bigfoot" which...I gotta say I do not understand. Destination America has (no less than) 9 shows dedicated to Bigfoot. A cursory check of some well known science journals confirms that as of this writing we have still discovered zero Bigfoots. But apparently there is an entire show dedicated to killing a Bigfoot. I am looking forward to watching other Destination America programs like "Sanding Down Unicorn Horns" or "Shitting Down the Long Neck of Loch Ness".

2. Caprice Coleman vs. Brutal Bob Evans vs. Silas Young vs. Cheeseburger vs. Moose vs. Dalton Castle

God hearing Kevin Kelly try to explain Silas Young's gimmick is the worst. "He's in a baaaad mood...and...he's angry...and he thinks people like Dalton Castle are what's WRONG with society." Really? That's what you got? This wasn't that good, but really who was expecting it to be with these participants. I liked some of Castle's cut off spots. Coleman had some nice moments like a weird little moonsault to the floor that Bob and Cheeseburger whiffed on catching. Moose is one of those guys like Uhaa Nation who is a large impressive black man who has improbably soft offense. His little flipping spear looks so super gentle (and really to use that as the finish directly after Mike Bennett used his spear to set up the finish, come on). Highlight was pretty easily Castle hitting his hardway German on Moose, really slooooowly lifting him up and over. Really impressive spot. Cheeseburger continued his run of terrible by being way late for a pinfall break-up, so Sinclair had to stop the count for no reason before the 3. Evans had his feet on the ropes, but Cheeseburger was clearly supposed to break up the pin. He was way late, Sinclair just stopped counting the pin. And it was immediately before the finish. Tough spot for Sinclair to be in, and after he tried pretending like he had seen Evans' feet on the ropes, but he clearly stopped while still looking down. Yuck.

Corino and Kelly are so bad during these Whitmer segments. I don't know what they think they're going for when they do reactions shots, but they're failing. Kelly is sub-Tenay when it comes to expressing realistic outrage, and Corino does some sort of weird fake cry/trying not to laugh face.

3. ACH vs. Bobby Fish

Hey this was fun, and pretty easily the best match on a show with zero competition for that title. ACH's apron kick looked great and his handspring moonsault was crazy, also liked a couple of his kicks to Fish's calf. End got a little sloppy with kicks landing when they were supposed to miss and then subsequently not sold because they were supposed to miss, and things getting overall way too cooperative. But, I like Fish and ACH has some fun athletic spots, and for a short little TV match this was much more of what I was hoping for.

Better show than last week, but it would have to be historically bad for that to not be the case.

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Ring of Honor on Destination America 6/10/15 Review

Actually liked the Kazarian/Daniels promo to start this, and "Hey I liked that Christopher Daniels promo!" doesn't feel like something I've said a whole bunch in my adult life.

1. The Addiction (Christopher Daniels & Frankie Kazarian) vs. Kyle O'Reilly

This was supposed to be reDRagon (also, I don't understand the name. Pointless capitalization? Meaning I'm missing? Accidentally misspelled when it got back from the printers, so they just ran with it?) but Bobby Fish is on injured reserve, so O'Reilly takes them on solo. Match only goes about 4 minutes and is actually pretty fun, almost entirely because of Kazarian/Daniels. O'Reilly looked awful and nothing about his flimsy offense looked like it would keep two guys at bay. But Kazarian and Daniels bump and do pratfalls like crazy for him and somehow make a lot of it look plausible. O'Reilly throws these embarrassing hockey punches on Daniels (at least I think that's what those were supposed to be...whatever they were they were hilarious) and throws really bad regular punches where he kind of aims somewhere over his opponent's head. But Kazarian/Daniels bump for his stuff, fly into guardrails really tough, even set up for a wild O'Reilly dropkick off the apron into both of them, who had been placed improbably in a chair. Eventually Daniels hits him with the belt and the match is thrown out, but this was probably better than it should have been when you factor in the participants, and that it was a handicap match.

2. Dalton Castle vs. Jushin Liger

Well this was fun! I have never seen Castle before, and he's like a cross between Michael York, Cassandro, John Tatum and Blake from Workaholics. He has a couple of eunuchs with him who fan him with peacock feathers, even has sparkly tights (under his awesome glittery Bowie jumper/cape) with a glittery peacock feather on them. The dude has got the look. His work was good too as he bumped all over for Liger (loved his big bump off the apron from a Liger chop, and the way he took the finishing brainbuster and sold it after was great). Liger dogged it a little bit, had some lazy little palm strikes a couple times that looked like a kitten batting at yarn, but he flew into Castle's knees off a splash, threw some nice suplexes and jeez the guy is 50 and certainly works more athletically than most other guys who are 50. My dad already hated going on walks when he was 50. Castle knew how to stooge for him, this was plenty enjoyable.

3. Brutal Bob Evans vs. Cheeseburger

Bob Evans looks like a David Koechner character; or, a line cook at an actual Bob Evans. He does not look like somebody who should be wrestling on a nationally broadcast wrestling program. Yet he comes off as more of a wrestler than Cheeseburger, who seems like a guy who used to populate opening matches of IWA-MS shows because he sold enough tickets to earn a spot on the card. Nothing he does looks very good. He tries a springboard knee that whiffs by a couple feet, looks scared to go fullspeed into a turnbuckle or even the ring ropes (noticeably slowing way down before hitting the ropes or the turnbuckle), throwing lousy strikes, just looking like a guy who is only given a job because he was promised one after completing training. Bob throws some light punches himself although they are close to being salvageable. Something tells me at the age of 42 he won't be working too hard to improve them. He hits a nice enough shoulderblock and I did really like the sideslam off the apron through a table. I didn't see that coming so the surprise was nice. But man these are two guys who should not be featured on TV.

4. The Kingdom (Michael Bennett & Matt Taven) vs. Doc Gallows & Karl Anderson

Oh, god I have to watch Red Shoes on the program too? Cahmannnn. I was hoping I'd get to see him working his Billy Crystal routine with multiple televised feds. Bullet Club seems to be all the rage amongst live wrestling crowds these days. Lots of BC shirts and whatnot. I don't get it myself. Bullet Club matches usually just mean a bunch of poorly executed interference and matches that would have been better if there wasn't interference. Maybe it's just a cool logo that white guys like to wear? I had not seen Taven before this. I do not want to see Taven after this. Man he looked bad. Taven, Cheeseburger, Will Ferrara...are these the kind of guys the ROH school is churning out?? Good lord. Taven undershot every moved he tried by a few feet, peaking with him going for a moonsault to the floor and landing about 6 feet short, so that Gallows had to sprint several steps just to get grazed. Earlier he got caught with a Gun Stun leaping off the top to the floor, but to make it work required him to land - again - about 6 feet short of his target. Dumb spot. Bennett and Anderson throw some unconvincing Frye/Takayama stuff, shove Red Shoes a bunch, Red Shoes works his schtick where he doesn't actually do anything worthwhile as a kayfabe ref, and instead focuses far more on mugging. Gallows looked fine, Anderson tends to look better in a NJPW setting, Bennett looked good enough, Taven dragged the rest down. Match couldn't have gone more than 5 minutes before the non-finish.

Well, I really liked Castle/Liger, and the rest of the show was...well, not as bad as last week. So that's some progress. They still threw us a couple Brisco promos which are always a great thing. The promos from everybody are actually a far stronger part of the show than the wrestling has been. Eh, where do I have to go on Wednesdays? I'll keep checking it out.

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