2017 Ongoing MOTY List: Glory Pro 4-Way Tag

57. Boys From Jollyville vs. Besties In The World (Davey Vega/Mat Fitchett) vs. The Pride (Aaron Dzinic/Matt Kenway) vs. Zero Gravity (Brett Gakiya/CJ Esparza) Glory Pro 5/7/17 - GREAT

PAS: Jollyville 4-Ways are always highlights of AIW cards so I was eager to see how the match style traveled, and the answer is: pretty well. I am not sure who The Pride have pride in; Aaron Dzinic's last name suggests maybe they're working a Serbian militia gimmick. They were clearly the greenest of these four teams, but I thought they bumped big and had some nice timing on cut offs. Zero Gravity had some fun highspots, although I want a team with that name to have crazier dives. Besties in the World have a cutesy ring entrance and infuriating name but looked really good here. Fitchett especially was really athletic and explosive, got crazy height on his pele kicks and really flew into all of the opposing teams' offense. He took the T-Money pounce about as well as I have seen it taken. Jollyville played the hits, but they are great hits, love the Russ cannonball and the airplane spin by Money, punch in the head by Russ. I never get tired of watching T-Money barrel through people, and his big dive looked great, especially in comparison to some of the other dives which felt constrained by a close crowd. The match kept it moving and outside of one kind of dumb multiple man DDT spot kept it plausible. I really enjoyed it, and I'm looking forward to digging into more Glory Pro Jollyville.

ER: The Fuck-Its are a perfect team to throw into a match like this, because it actually breaks up all the dancey body slap fighting and grounds it into something heavier. But a big multiman tag is also the best place to hide dancey wrestlers, because when the pace is fast enough everyone only has time for one or two sequences at a time. We don't ever get too bogged down with extended rehearsed sequences and instead we get guys getting their sequences interrupted with a nice strike or get tossed into a nasty bump. That's way better than watching Besties vs. Zero Gravity as it keeps things feeling more spontaneous and less locked in, less instances of "I miss you and you missed me back and then we spun into another miss before both hitting!" This was kept to a smart length so that nobody got too exposed, but the quality picked up noticeably whenever Russ or T-Money were involved. Both looked great in every single sequence they were involved in, and this is one of the all time monster T-Money performances. Russ stood out as a guy throwing the nastiest worked strikes in a match with leg slappers, getting in the ring during a flippy sequence and immediately throwing right hands to everyone. Money hit one of the greatest Pounces mine eyes have seen, with Kenway taking a huge bump bouncing into and off of the ropes. Money has such explosive power, always yoinks guys so quick off the mat and launches them into the air, just the perfect Rampage monster in a match like this. The dive train was big and wisely capped off my Money's crowd surf dive, there were several hot double teams (I really loved Esparza hitting a chestbreaker and holding it so Gakiya can hit a wicked double kneedrop off the top), and I'm going to love any match that features a big falling meteor from Russ. This easily could have been a long mess, but they kept it tight and crushed it.


2017 MOTY MASTER LIST


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE JOLLYVILLE

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Matches from Glory Pro Thunderstruck 9/22/19

Myron Reed vs. Jody Fleisch

ER: Reed is one of my favorite young flyers, Fleisch is a guy who was a fun highlight on the first M-Pro tape I bought 20 (!) years ago, and it's really not a stretch to view Fleisch as someone who paved the way for the wrestlers who paved the way for wrestlers like Reed. Flyer vs. Flyer isn't really a match I love, but I was curious to see Reed against a doppelgänger and see some guys springing around, and was not disappointed. They kept it to a quick 10, and we certainly got some springing. Fleisch is a jacked old man now (he is the same age as I) but still seems as flexible and bouncy as ever, hitting several different flipping kicks and a super impressive no hands poison rana. He took a couple of comically large bumps, perfectly acceptable here, my favorite being him hopping up and bouncing over the top rope to the apron after taking a chestbreaker. Shades of Macho Man jumping over the top rope after a Yokozuna kickout in the '93 Rumble. Reed has my favorite current cutter in the biz, and after Fleisch spills to the apron, Reed hits a fantastic running cutter over the top rope, taking both to the floor. I love how Reed sticks the landing on his cutters, dropping jaws right over his shoulder and holding it. A couple things didn't go off as clean: Fleisch runs up a wall and kinda grazes Reed with something that I think was supposed to hit harder, and a one man Spanish Fly kinda mucks up the finish, but this was still a fun old Spider-man pointing at young Spider-man match, delivered what I wanted.


Rock N Roll Express vs. Mat Fitchett/Davey Vega

ER: I am into this very recent RNRX respect surge, suddenly feels like a few prominent current names dig them enough to champion them on shows and I'm way down for a couple guys in their 60s getting some new exposure and sell some polaroids. Fitchett and Vega are mostly in their to set up stuff for RNR, with most of Fitchett's offense being running at Robert several times to get hiptossed. What I was not expecting was 63 year old Ricky to look as good in ring as he did. Robert was a little wooden (though still does things like grab a sleeper off the ropes or even throw a simple stomach kick with the kind of professional snap that is lacking in many modern wrestlers), but here's Ricky looking like someone I actively want to seek out in 2019. he takes a leaping knee to the back and takes a nice bump through the ropes to the floor, throws hard kicks and punches, hard shoulderblocks (including a great spot where he collides with Vega, Vega goes down and Ricky crumbles to the mat grabbing his nose), Ricky is a guy out there looking motivated! I love to see that kind of thing. Match ends in a double DQ, but seeing Ricky still bring something to the table in 2019 left me with a smile on my face for days.


Manders vs. Myron Reed

ER: I was into this, liked what they did, liked how everything looked, but didn't like the layout at all. Reed had already worked a match against Fleisch, so not only was Manders the fresh man, but he's bigger and hits harder. Manders wound up taking basically the first 80% of the match, before Reed just came back and won quickly and without much trouble. That was a let down. But getting to the let down was fun! Because that meant we got Manders hitting a couple press slams, used well (one he hits early and really holds it, the next one he holds long enough that Reed slips out), big chops, big elbows, nice powerbomb, diving shoulder tackles, the stuff you want to see Manders hitting. They were careful about doing silly 50/50 strike exchanges, with Reed playing cocky and trying to go toe to toe but getting leveled each time. And I dug how Reed slipped in some sly kicks instead of coming straight at Manders, dug the cutter (and really liked Manders' surprised, hunched sell of the cutter), and we build to Reed hitting a great tope con giro that Manders catches perfectly, spilling them into chairs. Things as a whole just wrapped up a little too neatly, with Reed going onto offense a little easily and showing no effects. Manders being so dominant early made it hard to escape the feeling that he was getting a visual showcase before calmly losing, which is what happened. Still, Reed's winning springboard 450 was nice, and I liked everything they did within the match, just wish they had gotten to some things differently.

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