AEW (And Friends) Five Fingers of Death: Week of 5/16 - 5/22

Only one AEW match this week but Eddie Kingston's been barnstorming, and since Phil has to watch them all for the Ringer, we're on top of all of it.

AEW Dynamite 5/18

Blackpool Combat Club (Moxley/Danielson) vs. Peace, Love, and Pro Wrestling (Matt Sydal/Dante Martin)

MD: I am heartened, but not hardly surprised, by Phil picking this match over the Hangman Page one for AEW's match over at the Ringer, and go over and read his review there. I'd put Woods vs Yuta up there as well for the week and even Bear Country vs Workhorsemen, but I'm happy to write about this one. This is the first time in a short while that we've seen the BCC up against babyfaces instead of heels, interesting given that they are in a program now against the JAS. The match was structured accordingly, with an immediate rudo ambush and no shine. It meant that both Sydal (paired primarily with Mox) and Dante (hitting everyone but especially paired with Danielson) got to be the recipients of hot tags and got to be houses afire. It did mean that we missed out on some early feeling out or a quick exchange with Sydal or Martin and Danielson. There's a twelve minute Danielson that's going to be very exciting some day but for now it was just a taste on the comeback and then Martin getting stomped out and surviving up until the point he didn't in the stretch. Regal and Jericho did a great job getting over the discrepancies between the two groups as the match was going and you know Jericho's going to design a "Money, Merch, and Sports Entertainment" shirt out of the exchange, whereas Regal was great at indicating that he knows everyone's weaknesses and that he was the one who had been there for Hager from the start, not Jericho. We missed out on a shine but two comebacks of Sydal and Dante doing their thing surrounded by Mox and Danielson beating people to a pulp works pretty well too. 

Eddie Kingston vs. Isaiah Broner AIW 5/21/22

MD: The match is on IWTV, and Phil wrote it up on the Ringer. It was a war. There are explicit narratives and implicit ones in wrestling. Explicit ones are more along the lines of long limbwork or big vs small or a southern tag where there's a lot of cheating with hope spots and cut offs or even shine-heat-comeback. To me, an implicit narrative is more about making everything take effort and struggle and filling in gaps, by making the match absolutely airtight. This match was airtight. Everything was worked for. Nothing was given. Eddie wasn't going to get a single throw without battering Broner first. Broner could heft Kingston up but he'd have to put him back down and smack him around a bit before tossing him too. Eddie chipped at the arm, not to actively dominate the story for five minutes, but to passively make it so Broner's killshots weren't quite enough to kill him. That's the other half of the equation. If a match is airtight and violent but nothing's registering, if nothing has impact, it's just going to be noise. Here they hit hard and then sold the impact of what happened. They recoiled. They staggered. They sold. So everything took effort, but once it hit, it was worth the effort. That was from the first chops and Broner's killer forearm all the way to the finishing stretch where he could show his toughness, where he could get up in the face of Eddie's best stuff, but once he did, he was helpless to do anything but to take the next shot. Nothing was glaring. Nothing was telegraphed. Nothing was over the top. Yet it was all violent and it all earned and it all meant something and it all mattered. When a match can pull all of that off, it's a hell of a thing.

Eddie Kingston vs. Davey Richards Glory Pro 5/22/22

MD: I haven't seen a Davey Richards match since chain suplexes in and out of the ring were involved. It's been a decade probably. That said, he's an interesting and unique Kingston opponent, not to mention older and maybe wiser. I'll say this: you watch a Davey Richards match and you're going to get commitment. This is a guy who is always on, who is always feeling it, who is always in the moment. I may not have always liked or agreed with those moments during his career but you never doubt his belief in himself and what he's trying to portray. You may end up disbelieving what he's trying to portray, but you end up believing that he believes it, and in this day and age, that is a special quality and it's worth something. That gels with the notion that with Kingston, what you see is what you get.

It meant that that the early wristlock feeling out process was full of struggle and grit. They covered a bit of the match with work on Eddie's leg, and he was the guy, out of the two, you'd want selling, so that was a good thought. Eddie, maybe inspired by his opponent, hulked up after a bunch of insulting Kawada-style kicks and you can't say it didn't fit the match, and then the finish had Richards full on motion charging in only to run into a freight train. I'm not sure I need to see them run it back, but as a thought experiment and a clash of two very different styles but similar levels of commitment, it was fun and never wore out its welcome.

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Some Drop Science Super Dragon's Dropping English

Super Dragon/Davey Richards v. Jack Evans/Roderick Strong PWG 3/4/06 -EPIC

I was a little hesitant about digging into the Davey Richards tag period, so far I only reviewed Dragon brawls, and a long tags with Davey Richards of all people as his partner was pretty daunting. This however was fucking choice. Jack Evans is really best as American indy Kikuchi and Super Dragon lays a horrific ass kicking on him, stretching him in unnatural ways, dumping him on his neck and beating the grits off him. At one point he just pokes him in the trachea.  He also gives him a curb stomp on the side of his neck, and a bunch of different bits of violence I can't even describe.

Evans had some pretty offense, he cracks Richards with one of the best pele kicks I can remember, and hits a spaceman plancha into a 450, which was totally bonkers.  Richards was pretty much just doing Benoit shtick here, and kept it pretty simple, he did a little goofus selling, but was in the background enough so he didn't bother me. This did stretch, with three separate long beatdowns on the faces, still when the beatdowns are this nasty I don't mind it. Finish run was pretty exciting and the long finish runs were always what bugged me about PWG and the length here was fine.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE SUPER DRAGON

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EVOLVE 41 4/17/15 Review

ER: Show starts with the Premier Athlete Brand (Nese, Conley, SoCal Val, Andrea, Su Yung) coming out, and Nese running down Yung for his losses at the WM weekend shows, even though she wasn't there. Val is always amusing in her chief bitch role, but this can't really go anywhere that interesting to me. Are we building to a Yung/Andrea feud? Is the payoff going to be Yung triumphantly leaving the team to go stand ringside for a different team?

1. Anthony Nese vs. Martin Stone

ER: I liked this more than I thought I would. Martin Stone is a guy I hadn't seen much and I came away really wanting to see more. His dedication to little things means his matches have a higher floor than most matches. When you fly into everything, cut low on clotheslines, have a snug side headlock,  hit firm shoulderblocks, miss like you mean it, take opponents' offense great, etc. I will want to see more of you. Stone seems like a guy that would match up great with Busick/Thatcher/Gulak and I'd be excited for any combo of that. Nese is...trickier. I don't think he's bad, and a lot of things he does has a nice crispness to it. The guy is very athletic (if you didn't notice that on your own, just wait a minute and you're bound to hear the announcers fawn all over his body. Their affections play as if they learned commentary from listening to Kal Rudman call Tony Garea matches. "Look at the body on Nese. These aren't just 'show muscles' either, they're functional. The fucking camera lens steamed up at one point.) and has a similar snap to his stuff as Stone. But it's when he reverts back to his old life as "athletic indie wrestler" that he starts kind of sucking. If he was just a grounded asskicker who worked more like a black trunks young boy, I like that guy. A mean dropkick and a wrenched half crab, sure, gimme that shit. It's when we get into those stupid athleticism for the sake of athleticism spots that plague your workrate indies that makes me not like him, so we'll occasionally get a springboard moonsault that overshoots and sees his arms barely graze his opponent. He seems to be getting away from that mumbo jumbo and has been better for it. He's moving in the right direction. But yes, I enjoyed this. Nice tight work from Stone, no overkill, mostly good performance from Nese, fine opener.

2. Caleb Konley vs. Rey Horus

ER: Well this one didn't do much for me, especially with the time allotted. It was not bad. But it went too long and neither guy's offense is something I'm into. I've seen Horus look better, I've seen Konley look worse. A lot of Horus' offense kind of reeked of dated early 2000s indy lucha spots, a lot of "hold my hand while I scale on the ropes and then bounce on them a bit before my armdrag!" or both guys going up top for a move but at a certain point they're just standing up there for way too long trying to help the other guy get balanced, instead of actually looking like guys that want to fight. I mentally prepared for Konley to have to hold himself balanced over the middle rope while Horus did a legdrop, but it never came. Horus needs to watch some more Scoot Andrews tapes. Konley throws a nice left elbow but both guys kind of get a little too cute with a lot of spots. Konley is part of the new wave of do-si-do indy workers, where so many of their reversals and reversals of reversals and scouting of the opponent is so up inside their own ass that it no longer resembles wrestling at a certain point, it looks more like pairs square dancing. Just hooking elbows and do-si-doing around each other.

3. TJ Perkins vs. Biff Busick

PAS: Perkins is a fun addition to the grappler EVOLVE crew. He throws in a really luchaish vibe to the matwork, lots of cool headscissors, and cartwheel counters out of Busick takedowns. Perkins is just silky smooth, really reminds me of El Hijo Del Santo in the effortlessness of his movements. Busick is a bulldozer as usual, he really has some cool throws and shots when he could get his hands on Perkins, finish was very cool as TJP avoids and avoids until he slaps on a cross armbreaker with heel kicks to get the tap. Makes me excited to watch Perkins v. Gulak and Thatcher.

ER: Perkins is a guy I've been seeing live since at least 2001. One weekend in 2007 we saw him in 4 matches in 3 days for 4 different feds while working 4 different gimmicks. He is a guy I'm quite familiar with. He's also arguably one of the most hit and miss workers that I watch semi-regularly. It is never a shock to see him in a meh match, just as it is never a shock to see him in a really really good match. I saw him live twice WM weekend, on an Evolve show and on the WWN show and did not think he looked great in either match. He looked better in the WWN match. I was disappointed in the Gulak match. So I tell Phil how I was disappointed in Gulak/Perkins and Phil is bummed because he liked the sound of that on paper. And now we have this match where Perkins looks really great and now Phil thinks I'm just a liar. Phil thinks many awful things about me, but he normally doesn't think I'm a liar. Perkins flaws are tough to work out, because they can also be his strengths. Sometimes I think he tries to do too many styles: lucha, workrate indy, grappling, faux-mma stuff, etc. Sometimes all those things jammed into a match doesn't work. Sometimes the execution isn't there. And then there's a match like this where he gels wonderfully with Busick and it's precisely because of his different styles. The opening was a really great mixture of Perkins' lucha mat stuff with Busick's more stretching style. At one point Perkins went for an armdrag and Busick rolled through and flawlessly rolled into a hammerlock. It looked outstanding, like something you could try and do several more times to make it look so natural and just never be able to. Both men managed to do a reversal style of wrestling without making things seemed rehearsed to the extreme. Little sequences like Busick blocking a kick, throwing an uppercut that gets caught into a backslide attempt, which Busick reversed into his great side headlock came off so naturally, these two just really gelled together. Ending was even cooler than Phil described it as Perkins rolled through into an armbar with Busick trying to reverse, so Perkins hammers down on Busicks face with his calf and heel until Busick starts to go out, his arm flopping on the mat, and the ref stops the match. Busick immediately comes to and has no idea why the match ended, as he didn't tap. Sometimes the MMA winks can get a little too cute, but I thought this finish was a cool use of it.

4. Ethan Page vs. Rich Swann

ER: You have never heard a quieter crowd than during Ethan Page's entrance. Even the crowd at WM weekend when he turned on Gargano was not this quiet. That weekend was my first time seeing Page, and I did not love what I saw. Nothing he does ticks any of my boxes in what I look for in wrestling. Swann I like more, but like him more in tags than singles. This match had a couple moments I liked, but didn't really care for the structure and pacing. So lets hit the things I liked: I liked Page's low angle leap Ace Crushers, starting from low and leaping up into it, delivering more of a spike. I loved Swann reversing one of them by hooking his feet on the ropes, sending Page crashing. It looked kind of freaky, but plausible. I also dug Swann's no hands pop up rana when Page went to the top. So those are some good things. The rest? I didn't care for the looooong Page control section, just stomping and slowly controlling Swann. Swann came out swinging before the bell with some nice punches, but from there the action slowed waaaaay down. All of Swann's comebacks came after taking some theoretically rough stuff, like a Gotch piledriver on the floor. We even went one worse than the standard forearm exchange portion, as instead we get a trade off of kicks to the head. The finish run seemed false with the tacked on long control stuff. If big kickouts were what they wanted they kind of wasted their time and everybody's time by having Swann sell so much so early. He sold far more when he was taking meager stomps from Page than when he was taking finishers. Overall just didn't work for me.

5. Davey Richards vs. Johnny Gargano

ER: For reasons none of us will ever know or understand, 22 minutes of my feed for this show were missing.

6. 2/3 Falls: Timothy Thatcher vs. Roderick Strong

ER: Thatcher has been my boy for quite a few years as he was a nice little well kept secret out here in the Bay Area. So seeing him get gigantic reactions WM weekend was super exciting. That Hero match really felt like it took him from crowd favorite to big star, and it was such a great moment seeing him win while the people who he came up training with were screaming their heads off across the aisle from me. This guy is way over now and it's exciting. I don't get to be in on the "ground floor" of many things, people.

This was a really really good match, my favorite on the show. Strong is a guy I kinda put in the same bucket as AJ Styles, as he's a guy I like, who is also sometimes trapped in a bad promotional style which leads to matches I don't care for. There always seem to be Strong matches that I dig, but also long stretches where he's working a certain style or certain opponents that I don't care for at all. But I think it's safe to say that the last 6 months of Roderick have been the best of his career. All of his cute offense has been dropped and now he's all about mat work struggle, nasty knees and elbows, and logical nearfalls. The first fall was almost all mat stuff and it ranked up there with any of the best Busick/Thatcher/Gulak stuff we've seen so far. I loved little things like Thatcher holding a go behind and trying to shift his hips to toss Thatcher over, but Thatcher just dropping down and widening his base to prevent it. Strong wins Fall 1 with a nice crucifix roll up, which sprang nicely from Thatcher going after Strong's arm with the blinders on. There was a nice moment where Thatcher uses Strong's leverage against him to grab the arm in the first place, but Strong uses it right back to hold onto the snug crucifix. 2nd and 3rd see us move into some nasty strikes. Strong throws some mean elbows and his leaping knee from a standing position is one of the best things in wrestling today. Outside Strong chops a post and even though it's a spot that gets used more now, the sound of a hand clanking off a metal pole always makes me gasp. Thatcher smells blood on that arm and it sets up the eventual armbar finish for the 2nd. We get some nice near falls in the 3rd. You know that leaping knee I mentioned as being one of the best things in wrestling? Well, Thatcher's momentum cutoff headbutt is even better. I never see it coming and it always looks great. Here Strong nails a pick left, spins around for a roaring back elbow, only to be met with a short thrust headbutt to the chin. Strong goes down great, and Thatcher drops to his butt. The whole match was filled with all sorts of awesome struggle. These two went great together, awesome stuff.

PAS: Very good match, I am concurring with Eric about how good Strong has looked lately, he really puts weight into everything he throws, he just lands some crushing looking stomps, elbows and knees here. Watching Roderick stomp Thatcher in the chest might have been one of my favorite spots in wrestling all year. The chopping the post spot in the second fall was great as Thatcher possums him in and has this great shit eating grin on his face when he slides down and Strong cracks the ring post. Thatcher did some nasty hand work right after that, although it got forgotten later in the match. Third fall was good too, although it got a little indy wrestling at the end for me with big moves and two counts. I also thought the ending was bit sudden which is strange for a match that went this long. Still all over a great match and a nice addition to both guys resumes for 2015.


2015 MOTY MASTER LIST

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IWA Mid-South Top 18 Matches, #16: John Wayne Murdoch v. Davey Richards 7/17/14

John Wayne Murdoch v. Davey Richards 7/17/14



PAS: It has been a long time since I watched a Davey Richards match, and I would like to make it along time since I watch another. I got the sense I might like Murdoch more when he wasn't jammed in the Davey Richards match structure, but he didn't do much for me here. All of the obnoxious Richards stuff was here, but mainly what stuck out to me is what an awful in ring actor he is. All of his selling was so hammy, he looked like a bad 1st year UCB improv student doing a pro-wrestler gimmick. Just utterly takes me out of the match, in the past he has been a guy with good execution, executing everything wrong, here his execution didn't even look good. This wouldn't even be a top 20 match for a random month of cards in 2002 IWA, much less top 18 of all time.

ER: I actually liked this match more than Phil, while at the same time seeing zero reasonable way that this match could be considered anywhere close to a top 20 of any individual year of the promotion's existence. I really loved Murdoch in this, made me want to see a lot more of him. He leans into kicks, has no problem being punched, does these cool backhand chops to the face, throws weird elbows, great knee drops to the arm, has some nice mat stuff. He also really does have that pasty Murdoch skin, skinny arms and the exact same torso as Dick (with the face of Trevor!). But holy fuck what is Davey Richards!? Please do yourself a favor and watch him around 14:55 and 18:25 of the linked video. Please tell me what in the actual hell he is doing. In this first clip he is in the middle of a strike exchange, but I have never seen a human move the way he moves here. It's like he's trying to do wobbly legs but the example of wobbly legs he was trying to mimic had a bunch of missing frames or…something. I have no idea what he thinks he looks like when doing that. At 18:25 he's trying to prevent a sunset flip in just the ugliest dorkiest pants peeing hilarious way possible. If Shawn Michaels had done this against Hogan in their match people would still be talking about it today as the most memorable instance of Michaels telling Hogan to fuck off. When I saw Murdoch was working Davey's arm a bunch I groaned - not because I thought the arm work would get forgotten and no sold, but because I knew Davey WOULD try and sell the arm, and Davey Richards selling is just the most awful selling possible. Phil likens it to a 1st year UCB student, but NO 1st year UCB student has this much unwarranted hubris. To get your arm worked on and respond by going "OH GOD NOOO! GOD! OH MY GOD NO!" is just the worst possible read. If that shit was in Troll 2 it would get one of the loudest laughter reactions at showings. Just…what the hell is this guy?

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Rifling Through the Trash: The Unfinished Segunda Caida

We here at Segunda Caida all watch a lot of wrestling. We also start a lot of projects. More projects than we can ever ever possibly finish. We start watching something, write about it, don't finish writing about it, and there it sits. We have about 80 unfinished drafts dating back 4 years. Some of them may get finished some day (IWA-MS show reviews, WAR show reviews), others are kind of pointless to ever finish (old CMLL TV write-ups, reviews of WWE Superstars episodes). Still these write ups all took at least SOME time out of our schedules, and it's only fair that we get SOME use out of them. Tom used his best shitty tag team name from his "shitty indy name" rolodex AND made fun of RPGs in almost the same sentence.

The FINAL snippets from TomK's review of ROH's "Take No Prisoners":

Vulture Squad v No Remorse Corpse

TKG: Huh? Why? The bonus match from other show on ROH PPV is kind of a staple, but why this match? Did someone say “hey this show is missing a big moves workrate tag”? This whole entire card has been really well paced with every match being different than the one before, and matches ending without long finisher exchange sequences and excessive kickouts to protect the main event. There is a reason not to do a workrate tag with hot finisher train. The opening Ruckus v Rocky Romero mirror missed stuff was every bit as laughably bad as you’d expect. Where is Julius Smokes? Jigsaw without the mask looks like a guy who should have been on the second season of the Wire. Maybe not White Mike, but White Mike’s skinny cousin. When Ruckus eventually joins Eddy Kingston, I want a Smokes managed Jigsaw/Grim Reefer tag team. Is “Eight Myle” a shitty enough tag name? I also don’t think I’ve mentioned the shitty “pokemon” style tales of the tape that they’ve been doing before each match. I didn’t mind this when they used it for the Aries v Nigel main event as they where actually building the match around the idea that the two knew each others stuff. But really if these are the talking points, give them to the announcers to make. Putting it up on the screen really feels like someone is laying out the profile pages from a role playing game.

Notes for Phil: I think you liked this more than I did and thought the spike piledriver was a good finish and finish train wasn’t too long or something like that. You're wrong. But that's what you were arguing.

Phil reviewing IWRG 6/17/10:

Bombero Infernal v. Dr. Cerebro

PAS: This really felt like heavyweight professional wrestling. Just a pair of big guys throwing big bombs (indy lucha big, I am sure Dr. Cerebro is like 5'4). Infernal jumps Cerebro outside and whoops on him for the first fall. Cerebro has a really great looking trickle of blood rolling down his face. Cerebro fires back with some soup bones, including a spectacular elbow smash plancha which looked like the ghost of Misawa. Finish was decent, although the low blow finish is such a lucha cliche, I don't want to see it infecting IWRG.

Mickie Segura/Trauma I/II v. Los Gringos VIP

PAS: 2010 IWRG is so good that the baseline for an average match is pretty high. It will consistently put out solidly worked excellent matches with occasional flashes of brilliance, that it is kind of hard for a match like this to stand out. This was six very good wrestlers having a very good trios title match. We got a long first fall of mat work, it isn't normally what you expect out of the Lucha Libre VIP team (outside of Avisman, who is the guy who doesn't work the mat in this match), but they are pretty good at it. I especially liked El Hijo Del Diablo v. Trauma I, which was really a pair of powerhouse using their strength to move in and out of hold, Diablo is having a hell of a year. Second fall was rudo triple teams and brawling, which was done well, although there was no huge bump or blood or anything to distinguish it. Third fall was a traditional title match third fall, down to the step over toe hold comedy spot which you see a ton of in classic lucha (the spot which ends with the Technico wiggling in a pinning all three guys.) Good workman like lucha libre, which won't register when we look back at 2010, but is certainly well worth spending 20 minutes watching

Notes from EricR watching the 3/27/14 TNA iMPACT:

~Davey/Edwards vs. Magnus/Abyss: Wow Davey Richards is just a hilariously bad wrestler. I mean, not as horrid as Abyss, who seems to fight every natural way to take bumps and go against every body instinct to fall in the most ridiculous way possible. So Eddie Edwards always does a spit take bump in his matches, and here he took an elbow from Magnus and ended up accidentally spitting directly into Davey's (on the apron) eyes. And what's amazing is Davey sold it! He didn't just casually pretend another human being, his partner, didn't just accidentally spit directly into his eyes. He sold it. But he didn't sell it like a normal human would sell the indignity of feeling another human's warm spit hit your eyes and face, he sold it like Eddie Edwards was a Dilophosaurus and he was Nedry getting acidic mucous spit into his eyes. The goggles! They do nothing!!! He also later took the most hilarious back bump, where it looked like he was jumping up and landing back first on a big trampoline, just 11 year old me getting bounced higher and getting sick air, landing on my back. Or doing a cannonball into a swimming pool, with all the grace of a "mom watch me dive!" child.

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ROH TV Workrate Report: 3/14/11

So this might be it. I went to DVR next week's ROH TV and it was not scheduled. Maybe it's taking a short break for March Madness? Maybe this is done. I'll write this report as if it were the last time I was watching ROH on my TV.

Bravado Brothers promo to start!! Oh...it's the same promo from like 2 months ago.

1. Bravado Brothers vs. Grizzly Redwood/Bobby Dempsey to start! We don't get to see these guys that often, so I'd rather have this on my TV than one last Chris Daniels match. Dempsey has the most unfortunate fat face. He looks like a bad present-day Artie Lange. Dempsey hits a great headbutt and tags in Grizzly. I'm not sure which Bravado is which. I think Harlem has the straight hair, and Lance has the curly hair. Grizzly gets thrown around really nicely, and Lance has a nice forearm shot. Harlem works a bearhug on Grizzly, and it's a little disappointing that Grizzly doesn't have a bearhug in his arsenal. Call it the Haggerty Hold. I dig Dempsey's one-armed singlet. His hair is a disappointment to fatties everywhere. It would work if he was a heel. Bravados pull out their San Diego Chicken offense and do a crossbody to Dempsey while the other is on all fours behind him, sending Bobby tumbling to defeat. Well that was fun and at 5 minutes didn't have time to lag. I'm gonna miss you guys.

TPT Finals tonight!

2. Pancration Rules Match! KO, subs only, no closed fists to the head, no hitting the back of the head, no knees on the ground, ropes in play.....Davey Richards vs. Tony Kozina! OK, for someone who has not liked a Davey match in 3+ years, this match sounds kinda cool on paper. I dig Kozina, and the confined rules might keep Davey from getting too shitty. It starts with them circling each other like RINGS fighters, open hand slaps and leg kicks. Davey knocks Tony down with a high kick and maneuvers into a guillotine, but Tony rolls out and both get back to their feet. Tony takes 2 kicks to the elbow and sells it real nice. Both throw knees from the clinch and the struggle within the clinch looks good. Tony gets leverage and dumps Davey on his head. Davey up and goes for a desperation takedown, and runs right into a knee from Tony. Davey turtles up and Tony blasts him with strikes on the ground before getting a rear naked choke. Davey fights up and reverses into mount and then foolishly goes for an ankle lock. What is this Davey, 1992? Tony gets the ropes and Davey kicks him in the same elbow again, then kicks him in the face. Kozina gets hit with a running knee and after some palm strikes on the ground, the ref calls it off. Best Davey match you will see. It was 5 minutes, cool action, and it took away all his stupid handsprings and fighting spirit. Davey doing faux-MMA is so much better than Davey doing pro wrestling.

Embassy is out, with no Necro. He has Princess Mia, Ernesto Osiris, and a guy in a green blazer/turtleneck combo (like Carl Sagan!!). I always like Nana on the stick. Nana introduces the newest Embassy member and it is......

Tomasso Ciampa? Cannot say I'm familiar. He is ambiguously brown and has a mohawk.

3. Tomasso Ciampa vs. Mike Sydal. Sydal you know because he has maybe the worst tattoos in wrestling, and you know the ground that covers? Mia gets shots in on Sydal and throws a nice superkick, especially for someone wearing a dress. Sydal has really lousy kicks and elbows. They are so light and fluffy and painless. Ciampa agrees as he is not hurt and blasts Sydal with a clothesline. Then does a completely preposterous but fun powerbomb into backcracker. You can't do it on an opponent over 130 lb., but it looks cool so who cares.

4. And now we got the finals of the TPT'11, Kyle O'Reilly vs. Mike Bennett. Crowd is amped for Kyle. They SMELL the upset. I am nervous as there are still 25 minutes left in the episode and that seems like a looooong time for them. We start the match as 80% of ROH matches start: headlock takeovers, rope running, some shoulderblocks...then we cut to Corino impressed with the match, talking to nobody in particular. "Yeah. Good, good. Wow, that was nice." Bennett gets knocked to the floor and then gets thrown into the rail. He plows into that rail as if he were applying for a gig in NOAH. O'Reilly again does his awesome dropkick from the apron through his opponent, and it looks even more impressive here as the guardrail comes unlatched and it looks like he kicked Bennett so hard that he flew into the rail and broke the rail apart. Stuff happens as I type that, and Bennett gains control with a DDT on the entrance ramp, which O'Reilly takes at a real awkward angle. Kyle gets back into the ring at the 19 count, doing an admirable stumble sell to make it back in. Bennett, instead of capitalizing on his stumbling opponent, goes for a resthold, which O'Reilly eventually backdrops out of. Bennett is selling major fatigue for some reason. I predict Kyle will take the next 6 minutes, and Bennett will hit his finisher to win. Nevermind, Bennett hits a decent spinebuster. O'Reilly gets some kicks, and a missle dropkick gets two. Ewwwwww then we go into a real ugly "MMA" sequence where O'Reilly takes a month and fumbles around before getting Bennett into a sloppy triangle that would impress NO one. O'Reilly transitions into a guillotine and Bennett powers up and hits his finisher. Well this match peaked during the big dropkick and DDT on the floor. O'Reilly did a real good stumble back to the ring and acted concussed, but back in the ring it was business as usual and it didn't have too much heat from there.

Bennett has words with Corino afterwards, making fun of all his crummy advice he gave to the losers of the tournament. It takes approximately 30 slow minutes to build to Bennett punching Corino, and when it finally happens it's just not worth it at all. Murdoch punching Dibiase this was not.

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ROH TV Workrate Report: 12/20/10

Holiday Gauntlet!!!!! This could be really fun. $10,000 is on the line, baby! 16 names are entered, 8 will be drawn!!

1. Jay Briscoe vs. Steve Corino starts us off and this is about as good a way to start it off as I can think of and they start with about a million shoulderblocks that hit hard and look great. Corino hits a running chop into the corner and Briscoe no sells and Corino begs off and we are fully into this. Corino just plants Jay with a great STO, then locks on an abdominal stretch and I'm pretty sure he tried to thumb Jay's asshole and Jay was like "Nuh Uh" and then Jay reverses and tries to do the same to Corino and Todd Sinclair tells them to knock off the assplay. Jay goes on a run of offense including a nice big boot, Corino goes for a lariat and gets it blocked, then gets rolled up. Would've liked more out of this, but this is a gauntlet so you kinda know each match is gonna go 5-6 minutes.

2. Now we got Briscoe vs. Christopher Daniels which is infinitely less interesting. Daniels is like an old luchador where the older he gets, the higher the tights get. He's like Villano III now with a more hygienic forehead, but really really boring. Briscoe hits a nice rana but Daniels takes over with a chest breaker. He keeps holding Jay down and Briscoe transitions back to control with a superkick! Jay goes on a run of nice looking offense with a big lariat and a death valley driver, then hits a real cool STO into the turnbuckles but only gets two. Then Daniels just kinda gets the Angels Wings for the win. Lame. This is headed on a collision course for Davey vs. Daniels which sounds like the worst possible match up.

3. Rhett Titus vs. Daniels is next and they are losing me fast. Daniels is awesome selling Titus' music "Aw fuck!" he says, completely concerned about his chances. He sold it like the Undertaker was coming out, which is great so Daniels deserves some credit for that. Titus is a lot like Edge in that he looks like Edge facially, and has a whole different set of problematic offense. Both these guys are real bland to me, but they both try and masquerade as being interesting by doing overdone "whoooaaaa" facials. Rhett does a backrake to try and win me over, but for all the trying to be over-the-top, he just comes off so vanilla. Boring dropkicks and weak powerslam and rote heeling. And Daniels himself knows a thing or two about mechanically going through the motions. He wins with the Best Moonsault Ever which he still overshoots after all these years. Dominos realized it's pizza was shitty and changed it. What will it take to get Daniels to move his opponent 6" farther from the corner?

4. Oh fuck me we get Davey Richards vs. Daniels. Good lord. Davey comes out and he looks super pensive, not intense in the least. I know a thing about being pensive and this guy is pensive. We start with a super shitty shoulderblock and Davey howls afterwards. Oh jeez. Daniels and Davey are having a "Who can do a shittier side headlock" contest. Davey hits a ridiculous handspring enziguiri that Daniels deserves some credit for not making look incredibly retarded. This is a whole bunch of "fast action" with no real rhyme or reason, with tons of reversals that don't mean too much, just there to have a bunch of back-and-forth. Of course Davey wins this.

Todd Sinclair is STILL working every match of the gauntlet and he is starting to look like Chris Farley when he would do a bunch of cartwheels and his face would get all red and you would be like "Oh man he might die" and then he did.

5. Davey is probably going to go all the way through this now, isn't he. Good grief. Davey vs. Claudio is up and next and Davey starts with a nice tope and a missile dropkick, Claudio kicks out and gets a nice clothesline. He gets a rad press slam on Davey, followed with a gut wrench suplex and a big powerslam. Davey is already selling every fucking move like he's breathing his last breath, making those shitty John McClane faces that make way more sense when you have to walk barefoot over glass and you're trying to spend the holidays with your deteriorating family. It also makes it look beyond stupid whenever he sells death, then pops up to get a superplex, or sells death only to do a handspring enziguiri. Just using....eveeerrrry.....last breath....to struggle....to..your feet.....only to bouncy bounce handspring off the ropes wheeeee!!! Was the result ever in doubt?

6. Chris Hero vs. Davey could be alright, right? I love Hero, so fingers crossed. Hero starts with some awesome yakuza kicks but it doesn't matter because Davey is still alternating between deathbed impaled on a stake selling, and running-and-bouncing. The Davey kickouts get ridiculous the longer this goes on, as Hero nails every possible cool elbow smash and Davey keeps laughably and goofily fighting back, making tons of angry faces and is just impossible to take seriously. I get suckered in as I think the rolling elbow into the corner followed by a sitout powerbomb might win it for Hero, but of course it doesn't as Davey throws some more 2.9s into the match (I hope we get more next match!!!!) and wins with an inside cradle.

7. BUT Hero had loaded his elbow pad and blasts Davey in the back of the head with an elbow, so Davey does all this hilarious concussion selling that is not quite as good as Matt Mitrione's and pretty much just means bugged out eyes and thousand yard stares with an open mouth. Roderick Strong vs. Davey is our last match and we get a few silly Davey conquers all odds with overblown offense (I know if I had no strength and was seeing double and was near death, I would do a flapjack into a kick and try to lock on a ankle lock). Roddy chops the shit out of him and does a nice fireman's carry gutbuster and gets the running flying kick to finish.

I really don't mind guys coming back from unbeatable odds and using every last ounce of strength angles, but Davey was doing that from the Daniels match on through the whole show and it was just way too silly by the end. I really don't even mind superman characters, as I can get behind John Cena's selling. Davey just comes off too desperate at times, not in a "desperation move" kind of way, but a "I wish people liked me" kind of way. There were many many moments where the crowd could not be bothered to care during this gauntlet, but Davey seems so set in his ways during his matches that he can't respond to genuine emotion from fans. Sometimes fans want someone to fight the odds, sometimes they don't. They only decent responses were when he was playing off a legit good heel like Hero, and even then the reactions seemed to be entirely due to Hero.

I just got less and less interested in this show the longer it went on. Individual spots worked for me, but the overarching story didn't interest me since it was made painfully obvious what was going to happen - which is not necessarily a bad thing - just poorly done with the main man Davey involved.

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ROH TV Workrate Report: 12/6/10

1. We start with Colt Cabana vs. Eddie Edwards and they take it to the mat and it's goofy but fun. Colt has some silly reversals that make me smile and Eddie does a real nice transition into a kneebar. Cabana reverses into a wristlock and really BENDS that hand back and it looks real painful. We're up and Edwards hits a dragon screw that Colt makes look GREAT by planting his knee directly into the mat and rolls to the floor. Eddie hits a big tope and this is pretty damn good. Cabana nails a clothesline to the back of Eddie's head lands some nice jabs and absolutely obliterates Edwards with his butt. Full on butt-butt right to the chest, just awesome. I can't decide whose jumping flying butt-butt I like more: Cabana's or Goldust's. It's like the difference between a lariat and a clothesline. Cabana runs at his opponent and leaps at them butt first, but Goldust throws his opponent in the ropes and lets their own momentum work against them by leaping up and making them run right into his butt. Ahhh I can't choose. We can just agree that butt offense is great.

Cabana goes for a butt-butt in the corner and Edwards hits a big flying knee and we go into a kinda sucky chop exchange but it doesn't matter because this is still good. Colt nails the corner butt and hits a really great moonsault. Match starts to go a little too long before Edwards' comeback and I think it's gonna go time limit but they SWERVE me and go to the finish. Plenty of stuff to like here, Colt looked really good throughout.

Christopher Daniels' eyeliner makes him look cross-eyed and he's still overshooting that moonsault. For a guy who was one of my favorites to see live in 1999, I sure don't want Daniels on my TV in 2010.

Corino and Steen are in the ring and Corino is in a SUIT and looks great. Steen is Henchman 21 pre-badass transformation and I'm still not loving his "I will destroy" promos about Generico.

Haze and Sara Del Ray have a backstage sit down interview and ROH does a good job of putting them in attractive lighting and they're fighting soon in a tag and Del Ray is cocky but realistic and Haze is likeable and affable and sick of Del Ray not giving her respect. Both gals did their thing and I want to see them fight. It's that easy.

2. Generico is out and DARK and BROODING and is a man on the edge. Bobby Shields looks like young Jerry Lynn and throws shitty elbows like present Jerry Lynn and then Generico throws two really lame yakuza kicks that graze Shields' shoulder and then gets the pin with the brainbuster. This wasn't much. Steen and Generico aren't convincing me with their spittle-beard promos and angry eyes.

3. KOW with Shane Hagadorn are in the ring and Shane is wearing basketball shorts and Claudio is wearing AWESOME dickish white slacks and suede slip-on loafers and a perfectly too-tight ref's shirt while drinking a latte. They do a public workout and bring in a short juiced up orange-tanned guy name Blaine Rage (wow) and Prazak is fucking terrible parroting every fucking thing Hero yells over the mic. Rage has the shittiest "intense guy about to snap" face you've ever seen and he SNAPS due to all the unfair cheating going on and that lasts about 1 second before he takes the KRS-1 and Hagadorn does a great shuffle with a little elbow drop for the pin.

4. And now the main event, Davey Richards vs. Erick Stevens. We start with some waistlock reversals and Davey does a cartwheel out of an exchange then waits in the middle of the ring goofily just so Stevens can run at him and get armdragged. Listless slap exchange follows and Davey at least brings some stiffness with kicks. Stevens misses a charge to the floor, Davey misses a baseball slide dropkick and Stevens slams him into the guardrail back first, looked really rough.

Back in and Stevens keeps working over the stomach and back with some convincing shoulderblocks in the corner and some decent knees. His knees in the clinch looked really good and Richards sold them nicely, really looking like the wind got knocked out of him. Stevens has gotten kinda skinny and it's done weird things to his face as he's all crazy eyes and jawbone. Stevens goes to the top and of course it wouldn't be a Davey match without a strike exchange. Davey does 8 or 10 really awkward headbutts as they battle up top, just kinda headbutting his own hand over and over. Maybe a better camera angle could have saved those.

We head into an extended run of Richards offense, with him hitting a nice running elbow to the corner, a silly handspring knee, and a diving headbutt. We go into a moves trade off for a bit with Stevens hitting a Dr. Bomb, Richards getting a big kick, Stevens hitting a release German suplex, then Davey turning a caught kick into an ankle lock (which Kurt Angle has flat out killed at this point. Once every single one of your opponents reverses your finisher numerous times per match, it's time to move on), Stevens fights for the ropes with his crazy eyes and what seems like a lot of teeth, and they kinda futz around for a bit until Richards locks on a totally bad ass Cloverleaf/Ankle Lock combo (starts out as a Texas Cloverleaf and then sits down with it, still grapevining the legs while grabbing and twisting the ankle. Really cool and painful looking) for the instant tap out.

Match wasn't bad but wasn't good either and seemed really really planned out. I have no ill will against guys planning out their matches to a tee (in fact I really loved a whole bunch of DDP matches) but I really think Davey could benefit from having a little more organic feel to his matches. Too many times during this match he had a blank expression (like Tom Hanks' Polar Express eyes) as if he was concentrating too much on the reversal sequences. Instead of missing a kick and then wisely countering with an enziguiri, it came off like he already knew he was missing that initial kick and following up with the enziguiri.

It has to be very tough to work a sequence when you know how you planned it out, and still make it feel like you don't know what's coming next. When a guy knows he's missing a splash off the top, it's hard to do the splash as if you're hitting it. You know it's a planned spot to miss the splash, so you naturally brace yourself and do the move slightly different.

A big key to why so many of Necro Butcher's matches work is because even though he has spots he regularly hits, all his matches have the feel that they can careen out of control at any minute. Nothing looks rehearsed, and Necro rarely awkwardly shuffles into position for something because he was out of place for a rehearsed sequence. He always seems like he's flying by the seat of his pants, and Davey could really benefit from a little of that spontaneity. He really comes off like a robot that's been programmed to approximate wrestling.

I'm not saying I want Davey to wrestle the same style as Necro, I just really wish he wasn't so rigid and set in his sequences.

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Phil's Ongoing 2007 MOTY LIST

1. John Cena v. Umaga WWE 1/28
2. Nigel McGuinness v. Takeshi Morishima ROH 4/14
3. Samoa Joe v. Takeshi Morishima ROH 2/16
4. Shawn Micheals v. John Cena WWE 4/23
5. Solar 1/Mano Negra v. Negro Navarro/Black Terry Lucha Libre VIP 3/10
6. MNM v. Hardy Boyz WWE 1/28
7. Briscoes v. Ricky Marvin/Kontaro Suzuki NOAH 1/21
8. Briscoes v. Kevin Steen/El Generico ROH 4/14
9. Colt Cabana v. Jimmy Jacobs ROH 2/24
10. Takeshi Sasaki v. Yuki Miyamoto BJW 3/14
11. John Cena v. Shawn Michaels WWE 4/1
12. Shinjiro Ohtani/Takao Omori/Kazunari Murakami v. Kohei Sato/Hirotaka Yokoi/Yoshiro Takayama Zero 1 1/19
13. Davey Richards/Roderick Strong v. Jack Evans/Delirious ROH 4/14
14. Yuji Nagata v. Hiroshi Tanahashi NJ 4/13
15. Samoa Joe v. Eddie Kingston FSM 3/17
16. Undertaker v. Batista WWE 4/1
17. BJ Whitmer v. Jimmy Jacobs ROH 1/27
18 Takeshi Morishima/Mohammed Yone v. Jun Akiyama/Takeshi Rikio NOAH 4/1
19. Necro Butcher v. Toby Klien CZW 1/13
20. Chris Benoit v. Chavo Guerrero WWE 1/16

2. Nigel McGuinness v. Takeshi Morishima ROH 4/14

I had been down on Morishima a bit as I really hated both his KENTA and his Homicide matches. Working juniors you almost got the sense he almost works as a tall fat junior, and he is a shitty giant Super Astro. Here though he was in there with another heavyweight so you actually bought him eating offense, and he wasn't doing mirror sections with guys half his size. He was also great using his weight, as he had nifty variations of fat guy sit downs. Him crushing Nigel on the apron was amazing and it really looked like Nigel was going to allow himself to be paralyzed to add drama to his title match. I love how McGuinness has simplified his stuff, and his lariat variation were spectacular. They had really established the rebound clothesline as a killer, and I loved how it kept getting cut off, until he finally hit it. I knew that they wouldn't give Nigel the belt yet, but I believed that was the finish. This had a little bit of NOAHing up, but I kind of mind it less when it is a monster like Morishima, he really should be booked as larger then life, so when he shrugs off something, it makes it mean more when he finally sells.


3. Samoa Joe v. Takeshi Morishima ROH 2/16

This was much more of WAR style heavyweight slugfest then the epic title match style of the McGuiness match. A pair of big dudes pounding on each other. In some ways this was a really good way to introduce Morishima. He doesn't work well with juniors at all, but has always been good at this kind of nose to nose asskicking match. I remember loving a Takeshi v. Takeshi match from four years ago. Joe hasn't had a ton of matches like this, but he was great here, and I got the sense that he would have had a great match against Tenryu if TNA didn't fuck it up. Joe is also really good at working the role of top guy, as Morishima has to come in and make his bones against the toughest they have. Still I did think Joe was a little too dominant, which is why this is a bit lower on the list. Morishima never really got the big near falls, you never got the sense that Joe was close to loosing. He worked this more like he worked Kingston or Necro, where Morishima comes off tough for being able to hang with Joe, but clearly a notch below him. That really isn't the way you want him to look right before his run as dominant champion.

4. Shawn Micheals v. John Cena WWE 4/23

I was shocked at the greatness of the Wrestlemania match, which I figured would be a clusterfuck, and I also figured the ubiquitous "Michaels gets his pin back on TV" match would be even worse. Instead the Wrestlemania match was great, and the TV rematch was even better. Shawn was the real surprise here. The opening chain wrestling section was embarrassing, and I don't know how a guy who has been wrestling for 20+ years can't execute a fireman's carry, and there was a section where they were going toe to toe with strikes which is a terrible idea made worse with Shawn's awful knife edge chops. However outside of those two things he was basically inoffensive. After all of the back work and bumps near the end of the match, I kept waiting for the heat killing Resurrection (you think the Romans could have drawn money after Calvary?) and his long offensive run. It never really happened, instead of dominating, you got the sense the match ending superkick was a last gasp effort, he is guy who has the equalizer in his feet and is never out of a match. It almost felt like Diego Corrales's big comeback in the first Castillo fight, a guy who looks dead landing that one big flurry. I also really loved his crawl for the ropes in the STFU, one of the first times his desperation selling didn't come off as cartoonish.

Okay enough of that shit, because this match was still 1000% John Cena. Starting with his awesome reversal of a go behind, his crazy Dustin bump to the floor, selling the hell out of the arm, talking shit to the ref, ropes course crawling after the first chin music and right up to his KO selling for a 1/8 Chris Adams superkick, he owned it here. The catching the plancha spot is pretty standard, but Cena made it look like he was Charles Atlas. He also really came off like the top guy, like he was the man that needed to be dethroned, while Michaels was the underdog trying to dig deep for one more unlikely win. It was subtlety heelish, but if they keep it subtle it will continue work. I they need to finish with Micheals and put him in a feud with Mark Henry or Orton, someone he can really be a total face against again, but I like how he can play both roles so well.

6. Briscoes v. Kevin Steen/El Generico ROH 4/14

I was shocked at how much I enjoyed this. I haven't had much to say about the IWS guys before, and I have actively hated Steen, but he seems to have ditched most of his crap and just become a fat asskicker. With his bad skin and flabby body he does look like every single guy in the audiance though, I am guessing ROH books him for the same reason you book Pedro Morales in NYC, he is the regional babyface for fat wrestling dorks. With that I think this match was hurt a little by him working heel, you don't book Putski as a heel in Pittsburgh. The opening was great as Jay and Steen cheap shotting each other ruled, and Stevens was a total monster. The NO REMORE CORE beating up Stevens was fine, and the Rock and Rolls hurt partner comes out, is a great match layout. They did have the two on one go way too long, and really wasn't the beating it needed to be for Mark to risk his health. Jay has to be beaten to death, instead the match was 60/40, doesn't work if your brother defies doctors orders to turn 60/40 into 50/50. Still that was the only flaw as the end section was nuts, and Mark took the kind of sick bumps you need to get this over. Steen was great as a total fucker too, I think I am 180ing on that dude.

7. Colt Cabana v. Jimmy Jacobs ROH 2/24

This is one of the two blowoffs for the best angle in wrestling in the last decade, one could make an argument for Rey v. Eddie feud, but this was an amazing story executed amazing, while that was kind of stupid story executed amazingly. Cabana does an amazing opening promo which was like a serious Ric Flair promo mixed with a Hyman Roth speech. Jacobs and Lacey are then interviewed by ex Jacobs girlfriend Becky Bayless which added a little creepiness to it. As an aside, what happened to Becky Bayless? She was able to survive being an ECW rat and still have some youthfulness and prettiness in her, but apparently a semester abroad took it all out her, what happened to her in Paris? Did Chiwetel Ejifor cut out a kidney or something?

Match just starts amazing with both guys going after each other. Cabana busts open Jacobs with a dusty elbow and he reveals scissors in the elbow pad. They then really have the worlds greatest Tiger Jeet Singh match as they stab the shit out of each other with bunches of cool shit in cool ways. Jacobs breaks Cabana's Chicago flag over his back and stabs him in the face with the jagged wood and then wipes the blood off his face with the flag, which is a great "disrespect your local scene" spot. Also earlier in the match Cabana misses Jacobs and stabs the scissors into the turnbuckle getting them stuck, then about ten minutes later he gets whipped into the corner and is able to pull the scissors out and uses them again, to counter a Jacobs attack it was a really nice piece of match layout.

While we were watching this, I said "This is going to be my number one, unless they have Brent Albright run in or something." Moments later in comes shitty HGH belly, tribal tattoo Albright to stink up the match. Whitmer runs in too, and we have shit city briefly, as Whitmer throws Lisa Simpson windmill punches on Albright. The match never really regained its momentum after that, as they moved from a Sheik match to a Sabu match, while the big table senton off a ladder was crazy, it took too long to set up, and didn't have the intensity of the parts that involved stabbing.

10. Davey Richards/Roderick Strong v. Jack Evans/Delirious ROH 4/14

Both Delirious and Evans are really great at simple face in peril tag wrestling, both in the ring taking beating, on the apron firing up their partner and coming into the match as a house of fire. I also love Evans street fight highflying, it wouldn't make any sense for him to be throwing blows so he comes right out to try to kill the guy with dives. I have to give NO REMORE CORE credit, as they were the only heels all night who didn't get face pops. Roderick especially is really great as PROVEN INNOCENT lacrosse date rapist. Davey still looks like he is performing pro-wrestling, rather then pro-wrestling. Still his "look at me I am a heel" stuff is less aggravating then his "look at me I am PURO JUNIOR SUPERSTAR" stuff. Built to some big near falls and I really bought that the underdogs were going to take the win.

12. Samoa Joe v. Eddie Kingston FSM 3/17

This match was built around Eddie Kingston proving his toughness, and man alive does Joe make him prove it. Kingston is able to get off some surprise suplexes and hang for a bit throwing hands with Joe, but eventually he is just mauled, Kawada kicked brutally in the eye, socked square in the face, dumped directly on his head. Joe is really great at being a bad ass, and Kingston does soulful guy dying on his shield about as well as anyone in wrestling. I don't think this is as good as either of these guys first singles matches against Necro Butcher, but if you liked those, you will like this a ton too.

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