Matches from EVOLVE 127 5/10/19

Josh Briggs vs. Adrian Jaoude

ER: This was fun, as it felt like a modern version of a good Sunday Night Heat Test/Steve Blackman match. It's a brisk 5 minutes, and even 2 minutes in it felt like they had done a ton. Jaoude (later Arturo Ruas) is a guy I like who might not have been good at this point, plus I don't think capoeira ever works very well in a wrestling setting. The timing of the strikes almost always makes opponents look kind of silly while waiting to be hit. But I think this might have been the match where his strikes started looking good, and there was an awesome sequence where he blocked two big Briggs strikes and countered with two of the best strikes I've seen from him. What helped is that it all looked way less sequenced than normal - even though it was - with Briggs throwing to hit instead of throwing to be blocked. That's a super important difference between modern wrestling done effectively and modern wrestling looking terrible. Jaoude was fun going after Briggs' hip, arm, hand, grabbing a choke, and Briggs had some nice quick power stuff to counter. I'm not sure I remember the last time someone got a reaction from me just grabbing for a chokeslam, but Briggs violently reaching out for that choke ruled.

Babatunde vs. Adrian Alanis

ER: Babatunde is the current Commander Azeez in WWE, getting actual ring time in Evolve. I liked Babatunde as a green Evolve giant because it's cool seeing huge guys wrestle, no matter their development level. I don't need to see him as a fake underground fighter, don't need to see him as a non-wrestling military dictator, just let me see a wrestling giant. Here he is wearing preposterous checkered tights (one leg black, one leg checkered) and he looks like the world's largest tallest ska saxophonist. Throw him together with prime pork pie hat Mr. Hughes and call them Skankin Muscle. This is only about 3 minutes, a Babatunde showcase. Alanis hits three hard rolling lariats that barely budge Babatunde, then Babatunde gets to show off his big man speed. He doesn't have a lot of stuff that looks great at this point, but it's fine because he's near 7' tall so just making connection with a guy is going to have something behind it. But I like his sloppy standing splashes and the way he catches Alanis with a choke. On commentary we learn that apparently the WWE trainers think Babatunde is the most explosive and powerful guy in developmental, so that explains why we've gotten to see him wrestle on TV twice since this show 28 months ago. 

Anthony Henry vs. Juntai

ER: This was only a couple years ago and I gotta say, Juntai is pretty far under my radar. I did not remember a Juntai wrestling on three Evolve shows in 2019, and it feels like Evolve was one of the indies I watched most. This was his only Evolve singles match and I liked it quite a bit. It was a mostly vicious Henry match with Juntai able to show a lot of cool tricks. The match had probably a couple too many tricks, but much more good than bad. Part of the problem is the layout, as Henry knocks Juntai out of the match a couple minutes in, and it's always kind of annoying when a guy is nearly taken out of a match and commentary is yelling about how the match may not even continue, but Juntai still had to get all of his cool offense in. I think you can shift the events of the match around into a much more palatable order and get to a great match, but we're still left with a cool match as is. 

Henry was working really mean with Juntai, and the match almost needing to be stopped came when Henry double stomped Juntai in the chest while the latter was bent back over the apron. Henry followed it up with a double stomp to the chest off the apron, then hit a brutal running kick all the way from the entrance. It was a believable enough series of moves to take a guy out of a match. But I'm glad we got to see Juntai get some shine. We don't get a ton of martial arts monk gimmicks. Low Ki and Jinsei Shinzaki kind of bullseyed the vibe of that gimmick for the past 30 years ago and nobody else gave it a shot. But Juntai does it really well. He has a ton of super slick movement, hits a cool spinning heel kick with his hands clasped behind his back, pays Henry back with his own flying kick to the jaw, and finds a ton of cool ways to roll and flip into position, and has some real precise kicks. Henry dished out a stiff beating and Juntai leaned into all of it, and was a strong salesman. Things eventually veered into some trading that I didn't love, but this was a cool presentation. 

Kassius Ohno/Harlem Bravado vs. AR Fox/Leon Ruff 

ER: I'm going to watch any Ohno match I've never seen before, but this tag match was inexplicably 30 minutes long and I have absolutely zero idea why. Ohno teaming with Bravado is like that one show every All Japan tour where Stan Hansen would team with the weakest gaijin on that tour on a gymnasium show, a man who everyone in the building knows is getting pinned. And because this thing is a half hour long, we get far too much Harlem Bravado, a man with almost exclusively terrible strikes teaming with a man with among the best strikes in wrestling. I suppose that makes them complementary partners? AR Fox doesn't have good strikes either, and 30 minutes allows for a TON of time for Bravado and Fox to get several sections of terrible strikes. Ohno mocking Ruff and cutting him off any time the kid made headway was what kept this match bearable, and after seeing Bravado and Fox make timing mistakes for a half hour, seeing Ohno always exactly where the match needs him to be is a marvel. Ruff getting cut off from Fox was satisfying but Fox can't deliver the payoff the hot tag needs. There were great big moments, because any single Ohno/Hero match in existence is capable of having some great big moments. I loved him hitting a tope con giro onto AR Fox and the rest of the Skulk, Ruff hitting a rolling plancha off Bravado's shoulder and right into an Ohno crane kick, or just the sheer that comes with a series of fat Ohno sentons. This could have easily been a compelling 15 minute match with Ruff separated from Fox and showing on his own, but dragging this all the way out to 30 was completely unnecessary and did favors for nobody. Sometimes you accidentally watch a 30 minute Harlem Bravado match and at the end are left only with memories of the person you were before you knew such a thing existed. 

Eddie Kingston vs. Curt Stallion

ER: Stallion really didn't work for me in this match, and I hated his lack of transitions when going on offense. The match really felt like Kingston trying to gamely fill time (and occupying time with some cool stuff), Stallion nearly being put away several times, and then merely deciding to go back on offense when it suited him. Stallion's big plus in this match was having skin that gets nice shades of red and purple in response to Kingston chopping his chest, throwing palms at his back, or slapping Stallion in the stomach. Stallion jumped Kingston the second he got into the ring, and I like how Kingston kept rolling out to compose himself whenever he was disadvantaged, knowing Stallion would take the bait and roll out, giving Kingston the advantage. Kingston's brawling looked good, but it was like he kept trying to play off an energy that Stallion kept refusing to give. For a guy who came rushing into the match, Stallion gave this whole match a pretty sleepy vibe. He wasn't putting anything into kickouts and again, kept lazily going back to offense after close kickouts, and I don't buy a lot of his signature offense against Kingston. A good wrestler should be able to switch up his moveset depending on opponent, and the foot stomp/pull opponent into suplex doesn't work as well with a larger guy like King. I liked the way Kingston would annoyingly nudge Stallion into position with his knees, loved his heavy throws and big chops, but I could not get into Stallion's approach to this match. 

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2019 Ongoing MOTY List: Allin vs. Aichner

106. Darby Allin vs. Fabian Aichner EVOLVE 1/18

ER: We loved basically every Darby Evolve match from his time there, and there are still a ton we hadn't seen. Evolve was a promotion I really loved while also a promotion that I didn't actually follow regularly. Fabian Aichner was the Evolve champ at one point? News to me, pal. Aichner has become one of my favorite WWE roster guys and this is him right after losing that Evolve title, and aiming to take all of his frustrations out on Darby's body. Like the greatest Darby Allin matches, a lot of this is his larger opponent (and Aichner was at the height of his beefiness in this match) hurling Allin disgustingly into hard walls and surfaces. Aichner got a lot of mileage out of literally just running Darby into the guardrails and turnbuckles, not even doing any actual offense, just running a man into things. His actual offense does look really great (if you can't make your offense look good against Allin, you should rethink your moveset), with some strike combos that really move Darby, a wicked pop-up powerslam, awesome brainbuster, powerbomb into the ringpost, all of it great. 

Darby picked his spots well, hitting a great low tope and dodging out of the way of an Aichner running knee, sending him patella first into the post. I really liked how they moved to the knee injury portion of the match, as it wasn't immediately after Aichner hit the post. Aichner rolled back in and went back to decimating Allin, with Darby only taking control when Aichner's knee buckled on a powerbomb and Darby landed with a Bombs Away, then went hard after Aichner's knee. I love how the match went from Aichner dominating, to Allin suddenly having this great in, to Aichner panicking and getting the hell out of there with his feet on the ropes. The finish was cool for a cheap finish, with Aichner essentially just throwing Allin off the top rope with an inside cradle. Allin went splat, Aichner used the feet for leverage, then walked off. It played nicely into their match the next night (where Aichner smashed Allin during his ring entrance) and I thought it was a cool way to run the same match on consecutive nights. 

PAS: I hadn't seen very much of Aichner before, but I enjoyed him as a meathead with fun power offense. He was a bit mechanical in between spots, but when he got his hands on Darby he brought Darby down really hard. I liked the delayed knee sell, I really bought that knee bar as a near fall. Darby is so fast, that staying with him is like trying to stay in front of Kyrie Irving. You throw a bum knee into that equation, you are drawing dead. It seemed like Aichner was out of answers, until he violently threw Darby down from the top rope and put his legs on the rope to steal one. Darby versus a strong guy is a really great match up and we need to see a John Silver match on Dark or something.   

2019 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Now I Ask Big Meech What He Know About Low-Ki

Low Ki vs. Ahtu  EVOLVE 1/14/12 - FUN

ER: A fairly infamous match, that doesn't actually feel as sadistic as it's been made out to be. This is Low Ki's Evolve debut, and he literally knocks Ahtu out with a rolling kappo kick to start the match. A lot of people on the internet hate Low Ki because a lot of people in wrestling weirdly side with management at any opportunity, but within the realm of pro wrestling shoot incidents this feels like one of the least malicious incidents. If you didn't know better before watching this, you might just think it's excellent selling from Ahtu to jumpstart a cool angle. The kappo kick looks no more savage than any other Ki kick I've seen. He has a great looking kappo kick, and this one hits Ahtu right in the temple and sends him timbering down to the mat. Call me naïve, but the KO blow didn't look intentional to me. There are way more blatant and efficient ways of knocking out an unsuspecting opponent, and this wasn't exactly Kurisu punting Jado in the head. Ahtu has that thousand yard stare, and Ki drags him to his feet (now that is probably the most inadvisable thing Ki did here), nails a handspring kick in the corner, then hits the Warriors Way on a potentially dead body to finish it (totally protecting Ahtu on it, although Ahtu also sells it like a man with a concussion who doesn't know he's just been double stomped). To add to the complete bizarro greatness of this spectacle, Ki gets on the mic and cuts a REAL wrestling is BACK promo and literally ends his promo quoting TAZ! I mean literally shouting out a man from Red Hook and saying "Beat me if you can! Survive, if I let you!" That's weird! And the crowd shouted along to every word! I wanted him to pick up Ahtu's corpse, give him a Stone Cold Stunner, and shout "And that's the bottom line, because LOW KI SAID SO!"

PAS: Eric wrote this defense of Low-Ki before he came out as a COVID denier, so there are actual reasons for the internet to hate Low-Ki now. Still it doesn't make sense to have wrestling be a place to go for morality and common sense, so fuck it, we are still Low-Ki guys. Ki obliterating a roids dude entertains me, and I agree that this looked unlucky rather then reckless, but either way it was bad ass. I wouldn't take health advice from Low-Ki or want to be in the ring with him, but I still love watching him.

Low-Ki vs. Ricky Martinez MLW Fusion #62 6/1 (Aired 6/15/19) - FUN

ER: Low Ki debuted in MLW a year before this, against Ricky Martinez. That match was a complete one-sided Ki squash, not a solitary moment of Martinez offense. But that was before he was The Sicario, and he fares a little better here. The match is a little underwhelming, as normally you can give Ki 4 minutes and expect something a little more cohesive than this. At a certain point they seemed to be killing time waiting for a run-in, but the interference never came so maybe they just got off page for another reason. Their interactions are good and I know they have a better match in them, and at minimum they're good at taking each others' offense. There are even a couple of callbacks to their first match (not brought up in any way on commentary), like Ki rushing Martinez at the bell. A year ago Ki did the same and landed a knee that was the beginning of the end for Martinez. This time Martinez just bails out of the ring the second Ki takes off running. Ki eventually gets into it with Salina de la Renta at ringside, leaving himself open to a great baseball slide dropkick from Ricky. In ring Martinez runs hard into Ki's boots in the corner, and Ki works a cool body scissors. The finish is odd, as Ki hits essentially an axe bomber lariat, and they stop the match with a TKO. Low Ki is a guy who can work a convincing KO finish if the match calls for it, and this lariat (elbow?) looked like the least KO move in the match, so it came off confusing to the crowd. MLW built Ki as a guy who can finish matches in unpredictable and violent ways - which is an awesome way to push someone like Low Ki - but this finish was not that. 

Low-Ki/Tom Lawlor/Marshall Von Erich/Ross Von Erich vs. Jacob Fatu/Josef Samael/Simon Gotch/Ikuro Kwon MLW 9/7/19 - GREAT

PAS: This was a match with some real peaks and valleys. It's main flaw is it's length,  it is hard to sustain the pre Match Beyond parts of the War Games, and this had some real dead zones. Gotch and Marshall had 2 minutes of cool stuff in the opening section, but they had to go five, and by the end of their one on one they were doing chinlocks. Samael was the best time killer in this, he bleeds a bunch, trash talks Kevin Von Erich on the floor, sets up a section with Low-Ki where they tried to gauge each other on the barbed wire, bites Lawlor in the ear, breaks the claw by jabbing Marshall with a spike. I thought Fatu looked good too, although his entrance into the match was the kind of super hot run of offense you want from a face, not really from a heel. Ki was a minor part of this match, but I did like his karate stand off with Ikuro Kwan to start. The other big problem of the layout of the match was the length of the Match Beyond, the last guy in the ring needs to be the start of the end of the match, but they had about five to seven minutes of wandering and brawling before the hot finish. The finish was what put this into great territory for me, you had the cool spot of Kevin Von Erich in Dallas putting the claw on a random masked Contra agent, a big near fall with Fatu hitting a huge Samoan drop, and the Claw doomsday device by the Von Erich's for the win. The match was really losing me, but that ending brought it back big. 

Low-Ki vs. King Mo MLW 2/17/21 - FUN

PAS: This was a no ropes match on Filthy Island which was MLW riffing on UFC. I don't really get what this whole Low-Ki vs. King Mo feud was trying to accomplish. Mo squashes him in the first match, and then Ki wins by tap in a minute and a half, when he locks in a choke by crawling on Mo's back. The curse of MLW since it first started was cool looking on paper things which don't deliver, and this feud didn't. I did like the vibe of the show OK, and the post match Team Filty vs. Ki and the Von Erich's brawl was fun stuff which does keep this out of skippable. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE LOW-KI

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Matches from EVOLVE 142 12/7/19

Full Show

Colby Corino vs. Sean Maluta

ER: It always felt like the best possible Colby Corino ceiling was going to be "peak Jimmy Jacobs" and he's clearly working strongly in that direction. This was a straight match worked like a street fight, both guys working aggressively. There are some things that can still be tightened up, but he works quick and has a lot of strong ideas, and already feels really good at thinking on his feet and running through a deep bag of size appropriate offense. The two had a real nice brawl with Maluta hitting hard with chops and Corino throwing stiff kicks and nice punches, executing everything snug. These two craft interesting, engaging sequences around thing that should be treated that way. We get an awesome struggle over a vertical suplex, and a few sequences that don't wind up where I think they're going to. Corino has a nice whipping kick, cool standing cannonball, and his brawling looked good. He's definitely a guy worth seeking out at this point.


117. Eddie Kingston vs. Anthony Gutierrez

PAS: I love Eddie Kingston beating on guys. Gutierrez is an MMA guy, and pretty fun when he sticks to that, although he will delve into bad topes and questionable standing shooting stars. But Sharkbait is a great bumper, and he dies like Pat Tanaka on clotheslines and German suplexes. There was a fun near fall on a tight triangle which Eddie breaks by biting, and an incredible body shot combo in the corner by Eddie which he flows right into an STO. These guys had a couple of other matches which I need to get my hands on, it's a fun match up.

ER: I thought this was awesome, a terrific Kingston-as-Hashimoto performance, giving Sharkbait tons of paths to victory while absolutely killing him with his shots. Kingston hit some real monstrous stuff here, and some of the best moments came when Gutierrez would catch him unexpectedly. Kingston is such a perfect opponent for someone like Sharkbait, and I would have been entertained if this was just several minutes of Kingston eating leg kicks. Kingston is a guy who clearly has a ton of material at his disposal *just* for selling leg kicks, really feels like a guy who can have a compelling match even if you gave three restrictive challenges within a match. I loved seeing Gutierrez land kicks and the occasional knee, and the way Kingston raked his eyes to get back to control and land big chops. Every big move Kingston landed looked like death, from that big time STO, to a nasty 1-2 combo (that could have easily finished the match) northern lights bomb and DDT. Gutierrez took both of those moves as painfully as possible, really stuffing his neck on the DDT. I actually liked Sharkbait's tope, even if it didn't land hard I think the point was that Kingston was not expecting a tope and so it at least threw him back into the guardrail. So Sharkbait stuns him by throwing his whole body at him and then immediately lands one of his hardest strikes of the match, an elbow that shifts Kingston's jaw. It felt like a smart way to set up a big strike. Reversing a big cocky King powerbomb into a triangle was a smart play, but once he did a light slingblade I wanted Kingston to murder him with a backfist, and he did! I loved how these two paired off, Kingston really feels like the obvious best guy in wrestling to do modern Different Fight matches.


106. Timothy Thatcher vs. Arturo Ruas

PAS: Ruas is an amateur wrestler and ju-jitsu black belt who is a WWE signee. I have no idea how he will do in the WWE system but he is pretty fun working an Ambition/Bloodsport style worked shoot match with Thatcher. There was some pretty slick grappling here, I loved Thatcher stacking Ruas guard and going for a kneebar, only to get countered with kimura. There was some really powerful thumping body shots, and Ruas had a cool upkick and german suplex. It reminded me a lot of the Thatcher vs. Ishikawa series. Ruas isn't close to Ishikawa's level as a wrestler, but he is clearly a high level grappler and it was fun to watch Thatcher craft a wrestling match around that.

ER: This was definitely the most I've seen Ruas on the mat, and I think the match benefitted from that. I have a love/hate relationship with his capoeira, as some of the strikes can look cool and land from weird angles, but those same strikes can often force time to stand still a little bit while his opponent figures out where exactly they're supposed to stand to take this strike. I guess you could say that some of his strikes need to get to the point a little quicker. This is almost entirely on the mat and cooler for it, and yes it really does come off exactly like something on an Ambition or Bloodsport show. Thatcher really goes for that kimura, and we get the kind of grappling that just comes off absolutely exhausting. I appreciate that they weren't going for flash, but instead showing all of the effort that goes into just neutralizing your opponent. I loved when Thatcher was slowly making progress up Ruas's body, had his legs tangled in a grapevine and was pushing past Ruas's torso like he was going for a Regal stretch, and we get that slight shifting of body weight that allows Ruas to sweep immediately into guard and roll into an armbar. They kept the striking brief, limited to some Thatcher uppercuts and a big slap, and I liked Ruas popping up on his shoulders from the mat and hitting Thatcher with an upkick enziguiri. Ruas took advantage with a nice German (though I preferred Thatcher's big hip pivot belly to belly earlier in the match) and thought that Thatcher immediately reversing into a kimura was super logical considering the format. The finish felt a bit too jittery and Ruas left a few too many seams exposed, but the bulk of this was really cool.


2019 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Matches from EVOLVE 140 11/10/19

Colby Corino/Sean Maluta vs. Kekoa/Mike Verna

ER: I was into this one because I really like Corino and Maluta has made a lot of jumps since teaming with Kingston, and this was those two against two guys who recently impressed at an Evolve tryout. So I was expected The Unwanted to just destroy them and instead they basically worked a competitive 50/50 match with two guys who worked like they had recently won a tryout competition. I was surprised to see both Kekoa and Verna have close to a decade of experience because both looked tentative and felt like rookies who were figuring things out. Verna is a muscle guy who they played off as a BIG muscle guy, and he does big muscle guy Brian Cage offense, but he's clearly Candido size. So you have a 5'9" 220 lb. guy out there doing slingshot suplexes walking to all sides of the ring and getting Maluta and Corino placed on him for tandem powerslams, but he barely looks like the biggest guy in the match. It was weird. Kekoa had a couple of nice strike combos, but had a hesitance to a lot of it and it felt like Corino and Maluta were waiting around longer than they should have been. I loved all the parts of The Unwanted on offense, so that's what makes the match worth watching. Maluta has some strikes that I wished he would use even more, because he really knows how to punch through an elbow strike, great form, and I like a lot of his double teams with Corino. 

Corino is wisely looking at Jimmy Jacobs as his ceiling, and I think he's a really good Jimmy Jacobs. He makes the most of his size and throws himself hard into every piece of offense, the way Spike Dudley would throw his whole body into his battering ram headbutt. Corino looks like a guy who shouldn't hit hard, but he's got great elbows and kicks and is awesome at recklessly throwing his body around. There's one sequence that kept threatening to turn into the kind of indy wrestling sequence that I hate, where Corino and Verna kept running across the ring hitting each other. So Corino would hit him and take off across the ring, followed immediately by Verna who hits him and takes off, followed immediately by Corino, etc. Those sequences are almost always trash, but Corino decks him with an elbow, mixes it up with a wicked yakuza kick, and instead of continuing the sequence he flings himself over the ropes into Kekoa, doing a sloppily effective tope con hilo. It always feels like Corino is throwing as much of himself as possible into his offense, and it makes everything he does read so much better.


Babatunde vs. Brandon Taggart

ER: Well this wasn't very good, filled with tons of moments I wouldn't want from a hoss fight (as they called it on commentary). I've seen Taggart around but its always in scramble matches, feels like a good time to really see what he can bring is in a match like this. And I did not like most of what he brought. He's got a look that really screams Backyard, with super distressed jeans and Murderface hair. I know he was in IWA Mid-South a lot and he wrestles like the only training he got there was "How to have the precisely exact bad body as Ian Rotten", just a pale pinkish lumpy bod. He looks like his entrance theme should be Also Sprach Keratosis Pilaris. There are several sections of really shitty "reversal striking" where they go through these tedious block dance sequences. Taggart throws a blocked back elbow which spins him around into a blocked forearm smash which spins him back around into a mule kick, which spins him back the other way into a tornado clothesline. It all looks awful, and they need to take that shit back to their Wednesday night square dancing class and keep it the fuck away from a hoss fight. Taggart also clearly struggles to get himself up to the 2nd set of turnbuckles. Babatunde has workable tools, like how his missed big splashes land where the opponent actually was, forcing Taggart to really roll far out of the way or still get hit. Babatunde also had a series of running shoulderblocks in the corner, first ramming Taggart in the guy, then backing up, running into his body, backing up farther and running in harder, etc. Babatunde feels like a guy who Shinya Hashimoto could have had a great match against. Brandon Taggart felt like a guy who paid to be on an Evolve show.


Anthony Gutierrez vs. Donovan

ER: This was literally one minute long, but it was a good minute. Donovan throws a bunch of strikes, rushes in and gets got by Sharkbait's one man Spanish Fly, and then immediately tapped with an armbar. But Donovan showed me a lot with his strikes, throwing great body shots and a couple nice elbow smashes, definitely seems like a cool guy to have as the flunky in Eddie Kingston's stable.


120. Eddie Kingston vs. Arturo Ruas

PAS: Kingston's run as the modern day Inoki continues as he takes on Ruas, a Capoeira and BJJ fighter who is in the WWE system for some reason. Ruas has some fun body shots and kicks and Kingston is a guy who can work a match around body shots and kicks. I really liked Ruas's scissors kick takedown and it was a fun precursor to Kingston banging him in the eye with a wrench for the DQ. Seemed a bit weird for Kingston to look for the way out, when he was more than competitive,  and it was a bit of a flat finish. But I really enjoy these minor key Eddie matches and I grabbed a WWN Live sub just to watch him work green Performance Center guys.

ER: Kingston really is great as a modern Inoki, and I'm sure there isn't anyone currently as good at being totally overwhelmed by someone's fighting style, getting his bearings, and storming through with his own style. That's what makes Kingston so great, right? His stubborn hardheadedness that allows him to rush into attacks, eat shots that could have been avoided with a stronger game plan, and still come out the other side swinging. Kingston makes the best befuddled faces as Ruas is picking him apart, getting King to bite on one strike before sneaking in hard body shots, and nobody is better than Kingston at selling a stitch in his side. I don't love Ruas's offense, and maybe it's happened but I don't think we've seen someone make capoeira work in a pro wrestling setting, but Kingston is really the perfect foil for all of it. He's great at bumbling and getting his timing thrown off while Ruas is dinking around in a handstand or something. Kingston really laces into Ruas when he finally gets hold of him, my favorite shot when King just grabs him by the dome and clonks him with a headbutt. I liked the DQ finish, but it's a disappointing finish that Kingston can do really well. Even though he was clearly landing as many shots as Ruas, I like him just bashing a guy in the eye with a wrench because "fuck it this ain't worth it". Ruas catching that flying body scissors and requiring Kingston to quickly work for a rope break was the line Ruas caught, Kingston deciding this guy is too problematic so let's find the quickest way to leave this party.


2019 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Matches from EVOLVE 139 11/9/19

Colby Corino vs. AR Fox

ER: This had some problems, but it also had some things that made it very much worth my time. A lot of the problems I had were with Fox, because he's one of the flat out most uninteresting salesman in Evolve. He sells almost every move he takes the same way he sells moves that he delivers, and it makes his matches look like we're all just waiting around for something serious to happen. Delivers a cutter, stands up and does a little hyphy dance; takes a cutter, stands up and sells like a later step in that same hyphy dance. He sells "about to deliver a move" and "just got kicked" like a guy who is just figuring out he ate some bad whitefish. Oh, until the end, where instead of selling indifference, he sold being knocked out cold on a kick that looked like it missed. So he either sells a couple of kicks to the face by doing handstands a moment later, or he sells a kick near his face like Kurisu was his debut match opponent. But that's cool, because after that KO and great false finish he managed to get up and hit a 450 just fine. So Fox worked a match where Corino was competitive the whole time and genuinely looked like he might pull off an upset, and the way he shrugged through every part of the match really lessened the impact of Corino's performance. Corino had a couple off moments, but way more strong as hell moments. He looked like he flinched on that missed kick at the end, and I get it because he probably didn't want to cave in Fox's face (spot was Fox leaping off the top by Corino sidestepping and upkicking like he was Kawada). But he does so many little things well, like not skimping on less severe kicks (his kicks to the stomach are straight thrusts, and his super kicks have great full extension and actually look like he slides into it to increase impact), and he starts the match with my favorite lock up I've seen in months. He really goes in hard on the lock up, keeping low to shore up his gravity, and believably bulls the larger Fox across the ring. He has a couple of great logical reversals out of sequences, like a really nice ace crusher that came out of a fine battle over a vertical suplex, or the way he just starts punching Fox in the back of the head immediately after a Fox kickout, or how he snapmares Fox into a turnbuckle. This didn't need a ton to be a really good match, really all it would have taken was some extra effort from Fox, but this is just more proof of how good Corino is getting.


97. Sean Maluta/Joe Gacy vs. Anthony Gutierrez/Arturo Ruas

ER: Great way to work a match like this, just have the two different fight guys come in and do their tricks, have the heel team cheat like assholes, have both teams work funky double teams with a couple of stiff pinfall saves, and get the hell out of there before it all blows up. Gutierrez is great in matches like these, all fast kicks that land heel to gallbladder, a willingness to take some nasty spills, and a surprise tope con hilo onto both The Unwanted. Non-pro wrestler athletes are a glorious goldmine early on in their wrestling career, and if Gutierrez sticks to this I seriously doubt we'll see him trying loose but effective (and dangerous) stuff like that tope. It doesn't have any of the slickness that someone like Ricochet brings to the move, and it benefits from that, as it just looks like a guy winging his body best he can into two men larger than him. Maluta has great chops and a nice right, and uses both of those effectively here. Gacy cuts out BS handspring offense and instead sticks to lariating Ruas in the back of the head (to set up a Maluta chestbreaker), and his 360 lariat is perfectly used as the final killshot after Maluta punts Gutierrez in the balls FROM BEHIND! Everyone moved quick and didn't linger on anything, Gacy and Maluta constantly either getting overwhelmed by weird fighting styles while also finding fun ways to stay ahead of those fighting styles. Not everything is going to land (I still don't love Gutierrez's corkscrew shooting star that never quite lands, and some of Ruas's strikes can look silly), but this was a kick ass style clash.

PAS: This was fun stuff. Maluta and Gacy are a really good hard hitting team, and they make the beat down look good and really let the face team shine. I liked all of the double teams in this match, they all made sense, and looked good. I am all in on Gacy if he is going to limit his offense to hard clubs and nasty lariats. The announcers said that "Joe Gacy can do anything" but I really want him to just do one thing. Gutierrez is two steps forward, one step back, but the steps forward are fun steps, and I love wrestlers going to the body. Unwanted versus the Performance Center is a fun feud, and pretty much always delivers.


32. Eddie Kingston vs. Babatunde

ER: We wanted to watch Kingston against green Performance Center guys, and we are getting just that. Kingston vs. Giant isn't a match we get a lot, and there's a ton of joy to be had watching Kingston get ragdolled around while trying to rip a man's ear off. There's a Burt Reynolds movie I really love called Heat, and in it he gets hired to teach self defense to Peter MacNicol. Burt immediately takes things up to 10 and suggests in his first lesson that his go to move is ripping a man's ear off. "It's surprisingly easy to do, only held on by a little cartilage. Showing a man his own ear is a good way to get his attention." Kingston as down and out Las Vegas degenerate bouncer going after the ears of tough guys is my kind of Kingston. We're starting to get a real glut of "Big Man Launching Tiny Man" matches, what with AEW running at least two per week, so watching a big man try and throw someone who can land with actual size and sell those throws in unique ways, gives us a welcome twist. We get the old Vader/Cactus Jack spot where Kingston is hanging off Babatunde like a backpack, and Babatunde just takes a back bump to crush Kingston. Kingston's outstretched, frozen arm is a great sell for someone afraid to move because of damage incurred. Kingston keeps going to the ear, even after eating a big vertical suplex he rolls over and just grabs that damn ear. I like how Kingston takes big power offense, like the torture rack neckbreaker, or the pop up chop, but I like even more when Kingston just kicks Babatunde right in the balls. The match was "Relaxed Rules" and really outside of that ball shot and Kingston stealing and attempting to use the ref's belt, there wasn't much done that wouldn't have been allowed under Agitated Rules. But Kingston brought a ton of color to a big man battle, and scanning the Evolve roster I don't see anyone who could have given him a more fun match than the King.

PAS: I thought this was totally awesome, loved every second of it. Babatunde is aways away, but Eddie made all of his offense look great and really went after him with unhinged viciousness. There are so many great flavors of Eddie Kingston, nasty unprofessional asshole is one of them, this felt like him beating on Shane Storm. All of the ear attacks looked great, were really simple and made a ton of sense fighting a huge guy like Babatunde. Eric made a good point about how great Eddie is at taking huge power throws. He doesn't bounce, he thuds. I also loved his big German suplex, you could really see him using all of his leverage and strength to get Babatunde over. I can't imagine this match being worked better, what a performance by the King.


2019 MOTY MASTER LIST

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2018 Ongoing MOTY List: Kassius vs. Darby

36. Darby Allin vs. Kassius Ohno EVOLVE 117 12/15

PAS: The year of Darby Allin continues, as he has put forth one of the best singles match runs in US Indy history over the last year. This follows the classic Allin structure of taking a 1993 level Kikuchi beating while mixing in 1993 level Rey Mysterio Jr. lucha highflying. Hero is really great at basing for lucha moves, which is even more impressive as he approaches Kraneo level fatness. It is one thing to watch skinny fat Hero take Quackenbush ranas in 2002, quite another level of impressive to watch him eat Allin armdrags at Buddy Rose size in 2019. I really like how Hero used his girth in this match, he broke out a legdrop that looked like it flattened Allin's head and a senton on the apron which felt like it powdered his ribs. Allin had some fun comebacks, but the end of the match was Hero brutalizing Allin with elbows while Allin refused to lay down. Ohno is the Ricky Jay of the leg slap, one of the few guys to make that trick look great, and he really seems to be concussing Allin with every shot. Good use of the one count here, as Allin wasn't no selling, he was more like a gutter punk who wouldn't give up his lucky guitar pick no matter how many times you stabbed him.

ER: I've been on an Ohno kick lately (for the last 20 years or so), and scrolling through some recent matches I realized I had forgotten that he and Allin had crossed paths one time, about a year ago. Phil wrote this up around the time it happened and I forgot about it, but the two of them haven't matched up since so it still feels fresh to me! And while I do think we got a few too many kickouts down the stretch, this lived up to the on paper potential for me. It's hard to work a compelling 20 minute match where the offense is split 90/10, but most 90s aren't as great as Ohno, and most underdog 10s aren't as great as Allin. The first half of this felt like a Yokozuna/1-2-3 Kid match that might have popped up on Coliseum Video, Ohno just using his weight and size to brick wall Allin and then topple those bricks onto all parts of Allin's body. Ohno tossed out big sentons, a heavy legdrop, his flawless full extension kicks, elbows to the jaw, and far too many elbows to the back of the head. Ohno is super punishing and he only looks more punishing against wrestling's best ragdoll. Ohno boots Darby into the crowd, catches a dive and chucks him into the apron, yanks him around by the wrist, really lays down the kind of beating that Ohno and few others can lay down. Allin made the most of his comebacks: his early armdrags got breathtaking height on his early armdrags, makes the code red look credible with the size difference, and is always so quick to hit his low rope dive and springboard tornillo pin that it really does seem plausible that Ohno could get beaten by speed. I did think we went a couple kickouts too far, as there were a couple of shots that felt too big to kick out of, namely the elbow shot that saw Ohno King Kong Darby's airplane out of the sky. But I do like that the kickouts weren't actually leading to some big comeback, and that jumps out as a positive. Darby was only hurting himself by kicking out so much, as Ohno can be both incredulous at the kickouts and still have no problem throwing another elbow at Darby's cerebellum. And isn't elbows hitting cerebellums all we really wanted?


2018 MOTY MASTER LIST

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WWE Big 3: Lorcan, Gallagher, Gulak 7/13-7/20

EVOLVE 131 7/13

Drew Gulak vs. Matt Riddle

ER: Gulak gets Catch Point druids!!! As a match I think this underperformed and never felt like anything new. This felt like kind of a greatest hits collection from both guys without some of the drama that their best matches have. It felt like a slightly sanitized version of a match they would have had a couple years ago. The good news is that I happen to love the greatest hits from these two. We get a pair of cool belly to belly superplexes (Riddle getting the worst of it), both guys throw hard shots to the body (which were weirdly maybe my favorite thing about this), big Riddle senton, both throw hard uppercuts, Gulak always cutting in for single legs, it's them doing things that I like to watch them do. But this kind of felt like the recent run of 205 Live main events, where good workers are given 20 minutes to do their thing and it doesn't totally live up to the time. There were obviously hot stretches of this, and the Riddle corkscrew senton into Gulak's rear naked choke felt like a cool spot to end things. They didn't end it there, with Riddle simply picking Gulak up and hitting Bro Derek that didn't look finisher worthy. It really just looked like Gulak taking a heavier than normal slam, didn't read as a piledriver at all. This match was going to have a high floor - both guys are great - but it felt like we only bumped our head against their ceiling a couple times.

PAS: I liked this more then Eric (he has been grumpy lately). Greatest hits from these guys are pretty great, and it sort of makes sense to run a match like that when EVOLVE debuts on the network. I really enjoyed how Gulak used space in this match, always looking to keep close, grabbing for limbs, throwing body shots, negating Riddle's size advantage by grinding on him. Riddle is more explosive and I liked how Gulak tried to limit that explosiveness. I agree about the finish, that Gulak rear naked choke would have been perfect, and the Riddle finish was the weakest thing about the match, but lots of this was really great. Riddle seems to have tightened up his strikes and moved away from New Japan overkill since coming to the WWE, and both things are welcome additions. Loved all the Catch Point stuff in this match, and now that this is WWE canon Gulak really should bring Catch Point back on 205 Live: Oney Lorcan, Cameron Grimes and Chad Gable would make a pretty rad Catch Point.

Extreme Rules 7/14

Drew Gulak vs. Tony Nese

ER: Early on we get a "Let's Go Gulak" chant which is an awesome surprise. If Gulak actually starts to get over the same way Bryan got over earlier in the decade, how great will that be?? This is kind of what anybody could have expected going in: Gulak looked great, Nese did not, but Nese tried some things that worked in a stupid risk taking way. Nese has that "hey Evan Karagias is getting better" vibe to him, but he doesn't actually have babyface charisma. He does things that some fans should find cool, but Gulak is the one getting the reactions here. YES, obviously this is being held right in Gulak's stomping grounds, but that isn't a guarantee to get a great reaction and he got them throughout. Nese did a wild moonsault the the floor, hitting Gulak who was tied up in the ropes over the apron; it didn't really work, but I like him going for stupid stuff. He also overshoots a 450 and slams those knees right into Gulak's ribs, throws him messily into the corner with a german suplex, basically the nastiest parts of Nese's attack were kind of accidents. Gulak threw great kicks, and I think his reactions are going to keep getting louder, and they'll eventually babyface him. Early in the match Gulak hit an awesome diving clothesline off the apron (hard to make diving clotheslines look good) and his folding powerbomb looked great and would make a fine finisher, but I love the old school style of his spinning back suplex. Gulak is here baby!

PAS: I thought Nese was pretty terrible, for a guy I have had to watch a bunch due to this project he is one of my least favorite guys to watch in the world (I have excised most wrestlers I can't stand). He was in full dance fight mode in this especially early, and I agree with Eric that most of the good looking stuff he did seemed like a botch. Gulak looked great and I dug Philly getting behind him. Really simple wrestling, especially while matched up with a flipster like Nese, big lariat will always be cooler then a cartwheel. Happy that he won, hopefully he puts Nese in his rear view mirror and matches up with some of the cooler smaller guys in different parts of the fed. I am not a Shane Strickland guy, but it is cool that Gulak is mixing it up outside of the 205 live roster.

205 Live 7/16

48. Jack Gallagher vs. Chad Gable

ER: We got a great 10 minute sprint between these two a month ago with nary a mention of it since. Without a warning they bring us back into that feud and continue in the unexpected recent tradition of letting the 205 Live main event fly past the 15 minute mark. This felt like the 2019 indy version of their fantastic first match. I thought their shorter match was tighter and laid out in a more interesting way, and thought this one turned more into a shocked-by-nearfalls finisher trade-off that their first match didn't really attempt. I think both guys have the material to go this length, but I think dynamite short bursts keep their style stronger. The first match was two unknowns exploding off each other, while this match integrated learned behavior and the longer runtime perhaps made more sense because now both men were wrestling more cautious around each other. They were known quantities at this point, and neither wanted to rush into a mistake. The crowd couldn't care about those plans as we got several attempts at BORING chants through the first third of this, which is an odd thing to come up with right after watching a Mike Kanellis match.

I didn't think this was as focused as their first match, as both guys spent a long time looking for openings, Gallagher working a short arm scissors (which may have been done so Gable could show off his 0.7 Backlund strength), Gable working the arm, working the leg with a dragon screw, and while I like how these guys flow it was also hard to shake that we were just getting some limb work to pad time before we got to the match proper. And sure enough, by the time Gallagher planted a dropkick firmly on the chest and then hit his delayed vertical suplex, people were more on board with the match. I think some of the learned behavior benefitted the match, and other stuff felt a little out of place or inorganic. My favorite moment of that was Gable catching Gallagher over his shoulder in the corner off a dodged dropkick and then swinging him back down into a DDT. One of the announcers even said "I've never seen Gable do that before!" and that's really important, as it wasn't Gallagher just doing a dropkick he never does so that he's in position for Gable's over shoulder DDT. This was Gable scouting Gallagher's corner dropkick and turning it against him. I like Gable rolling Gallagher into the ring after the German on the floor (last time Gallagher got counted out after taking it), but Gable also had to pretend he didn't really get hit with Gallagher's tope to do the spot. That's part of the inorganic feeling I was talking about. Even Gallagher's great headbutt spot is done in a 2019 indy way, with Gable hitting a koppo kick that sends Gallagher bouncing upside down in the ropes and back into the headbutt. I don't think these guys need to drift into "I hit you which causes you to swing around and hit me which causes me to swing back around into an..." wrestling, they've shown they have more interesting ways to get to those moments. The closing stretch had some great moments (Gable reversing a belly to back superplex into a hard landing on Jack, and Jack landing high and hard on the Chaos Theory suplex), but it felt like two really talented guys inputting their skills into a match style I don't love. I'm going to like Gallagher doing it more than others, but more pieces of this than I expected didn't really work for me.

PAS: I liked this more then Eric did. Gable really unloaded a ton of great offense early, awesome armdrags, killer koppo kick, some big throws. Really overwhelmed Gallagher, the short arm scissors reversal was more of that domination, I am an enormous fan of the short arm scissors reversal and these were two cool guys to pull off that move. I did like how Gallagher was able to use his craft to get some advantages, his reversal out of the ankle lock was really slick grappling, and I thought the hammer fists after were great looking. I also thought his big end of the match offensive explosion was nasty, with Gable's moonsault landing on an upkick, and an incredible dropkick in the corner. I did think it got a little indy in the end, but these are a pair of guys with awesome looking stuff for a this is awesome section.


2019 MOTY MASTER LIST

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EVOLVE 131: 10th Anniversary Special 7/13/19 Live Blog!

This is weird! But I'm home alone on a Saturday night, and there's no way I'm going to miss Eddie Damn Kingston's debut on the WWE Network.

Josh Briggs vs. Anthony Greene

ER: I've gone out of my way a couple times to watch Greene, because he's been getting talked up a lot lately, but I watched him have a lame match with Stevie Richards and I pretty much wrote him off at that point. I dug Briggs/Chris Dickinson from earlier this year, but even in that match Briggs came off like "Test on an above average night". And this match started off plenty fun, but it was really same-y and started to feel like 2 minutes for every 1 minute that passed. Greene has a nice straight right hand that he used several times (and even a nice straight left that he used once), and I think his offense looks good but a lot of it is tied together with combos, which I kind of hate. I liked the stuff worked on the apron, thought it was cool when Briggs got knocked down to a knee and to the floor, dug Briggs catching a tope and chokeslamming Greene on the apron. They work some fun stuff out of the corner, with Briggs getting caught with a kick charging in, but kicking Greene in the chest anyway and then hitting a follow up yakuza, and plenty of things looked cool (Briggs' chokeslam into a powerbomb was killer, his release suplex looked dangerous but was safe), but around the 7 minute mark they started going into the "He can't believe it!" shocked pinfall faces and more learned behavior stuff, and then I just wanted it to stop. This wasn't bad, though with the tools each guy brings they could have laid this out in a more interesting way.


We get an Eddie Kingston promo on the Network, and I'm a happy man. There is nobody in modern wrestling close to Kingston when it comes to promos, no clear second place.

Sean Maluta vs. Curt Stallion vs. Stephen Wolf vs. Harlem Bravado

ER: Harlem Bravado is such a goofy dude, like if Adam Driver lost 30 pounds and got a tech job. And I thought this mostly stunk. We got a dive train spot where Wolf shot a couple feet past everyone on a tope con giro, then Maluta shot only one foot past everyone with his tope con giro, then Stallion at least hit a decent Fosbury Flop. Bravado is bad at setting up offense, doing some silly bad missed clotheslines; Maluta threw a bunch of superkicks, and some of them looked good; Stallion would throw a nice big boot and then do a blatant thigh slap knee. It boiled down to a fairly dumb strike exchange between Wolf and Stallion that had a total of one nice strike (a cool rolling elbow by Wolf). The brief finishing run was hot and had a couple finishers chained together nicely, but I couldn't wait for this one to end.

Arturo Ruas vs. Anthony Henry

ER: I've never actually seen Ruas before, and this is kind of exciting! I don't actually know if his amateur credentials are a work or not, but he's a guy my age doing cool body scissor takedowns on WWE TV so I'm ready to buy in. And this match was a really great change of pace after that last clunker. It comes out of the gates looking like it's going to be a 4 minute match, worked like something off that awesome Tetsujin Shoot Style show from 2015. And I think this would have benefitted from being 4 minutes. It was a good 10 minute match, but it felt like it could have been a classic 4 minute match. Ruas brings some unique takedowns and strikes, coming off like a capoeira guy trying jiu jitsu, going for scissor takedowns and armbars, throwing kicks at ankles and chest, a fun replacement for my boy Jaka (who disappeared in January). I'll typically be into any Evolve guy who would fit into Check Point. Henry is a pro, and I liked how these guys scrambled, though again I do wish we cut the time and kept some of the mystery. Once it crept past 6 minutes or so it got a lot more pro style, which I didn't find as interesting. But that still had some gold, like Henry trying to burst Ruas's gallbladder with a gross stomp off the top, and the finish was great with Ruas surprising Henry with a gorgeous sweeping high kick. I dug this and would love to see more Ruas. Hell, tell Ruas to cut a few pounds so I can see Gallagher/Ruas, or bring back Gulak as a special challenge opponent.

No DQ: Brandi Lauren vs. Shotzi Blackheart

ER: Really it didn't matter what happened in this one, as Shotzi wound up hitting one of the nastier crazier bumps we've seen, and this alone is going to be GIFed to eternity. She had several crazy moments, but this was another match that felt too long at 10 minutes. Since this was No DQ Lauren had Natalia Markova work this like a handicap match, but Shotzi did away with her in barely 2 minutes, which is odd as I'm not sure why Markova bailed. Shotzi appeared to bust open her nose delivering a missile dropkick, and she comes off as a kind of unathletic Darby Allin, willing to take some absolutely dumb reckless bumps, but without Allin's landing ability. Lauren hits a killer baseball slide dropkick to the floor, sending a hard chairshot into Shotzi's face, and you'd think that would end up being the most violent spot in the match. Ha. Shotzi sets up a bunch of chairs, Lauren and Greene wind up in them, but by the time Shotzi's tope gets to them nobody is home. Shotzi crashed so damn ugly through several set up chairs, looking like 6 different chair backs hit her in 6 painful spots before she hit the ground. Absolutely nutso spot, in a match where she had already fallen onto the apron and floor. I liked Lauren beating her senseless with a kendo stick for the finish, but this felt like it would be more effective as a short wild violent brawl.

Colby Corino vs. Babatunde

ER: Hell yes. Gimme that absolute Reis/Juventud energy baby. I've not seen Babatunde (probably not going back to check out the Greatest Royal Rumble), but I'm down for any new 350 pounder. Colby at least actually looks like a wrestler now and not like a little kid (which he did as of like 2 years ago), and really he just looks the same as his dad in the late 90s. Babatunde doesn't have tons to offer yet besides size and presence, but that's fine. We get a couple great spots in this one, the best being Corino hitting a springboard swanton right onto the back of the kneeling Babatunde, but close second was Corino getting caught off the top with a huge chokeslam. This was only a couple minutes, but a welcome breather.

Eddie Kingston/Joe Gacy vs. AR Fox/Leon Ruff

ER: This was a ton of fun, starting with a ton of dives and not really letting up. Fox and Ruff hit dives to start (Fox flying into the front row) and then do it again on different sides of the ring, Gacy accidentally hits Kingston with a dive, letting Ruff hit another. Good god guys. Fox does his wild inverted cannonball to the floor and basically crashes right through everyone to pavement. And I think this got pretty great once we moved into Kingston and Gacy's double teams, as they have a bunch of mean stuff. Gacy hits a hard elbow while Kingston dumps Fox on his head with a back suplex, Kingston hits a superplex into a Gacy powerbomb on Ruff, a big damn time Gacy lariat into Kingston german suplexing Ruff across the ring, Kingston hits a great powerslam off the middle rope, they both throw big chops, they're a team I'd love to see do more of their thing. They really packed some cool stuff into the run time, thought Ruff hitting a tope con giro over the turnbuckles to put Gacy threw a table looked spectacular, thought Fox's pop up Spanish Fly on Kingston was suitably crazy. I obviously didn't want to see Kingston lose, and it felt like Ruff took too much of a beating to instantly come back from, but these guys were fun opposite each other.

PAS: I didn’t like this as much as Eric. I am a Kingston super fan, and this kind of spotfest isn’t really going to use him to his best. This felt like a 12 minute match jammed into 5, and we never got to see Kingston and Gacy really take it to anyone outside of some work on Ruff which he kind of shrugged off. Gacy also had some of the worst “ONLY TWOOOOOOO” faces I have seen in a long while. Fox and Ruff really looked dancey when they were stringing spots together, I have been watching a lot of AIW tag spotfests and that set a bar Fox and Ruff couldn’t live up to. There were some cool dives, and I did like some of the Unwanted’s double teams, but I was hoping for more from the Mad King on the Network.

Matt Riddle vs. Drew Gulak

ER: Gulak gets Catch Point druids!!! As a match I think this underperformed and never felt like anything new. This felt like kind of a greatest hits collection from both guys without some of the drama that their best matches have. It felt like a slightly sanitized version of a match they would have had a couple years ago. The good news is that I happen to love the greatest hits from these two. We get a pair of cool belly to belly superplexes (Riddle getting the worst of it), both guys throw hard shots to the body (which were weirdly maybe my favorite thing about this), big Riddle senton, both throw hard uppercuts, Gulak always cutting in for single legs, it's them doing things that I like to watch them do. But this kind of felt like the recent run of 205 Live main events, where good workers are given 20 minutes to do their thing and it doesn't totally live up to the time. There were obviously hot stretches of this, and the Riddle corkscrew senton into Gulak's rear naked choke felt like a cool spot to end things. They didn't end it there, with Riddle simply picking Gulak up and hitting Bro Derek that didn't look finisher worthy. It really just looked like Gulak taking a heavier than normal slam, didn't read as a piledriver at all. This match was going to have a high floor - both guys are great - but it felt like we only bumped our head against their ceiling a couple times.


So I'm pretty in the dark on large patches of Evolve, but Leonard says that Bryan Idol was involved in "maybe the most important match in Evolve history"? Did I mishear that? Is that correct? Was there a really important Earl Cooter match that I need to see?

Austin Theory vs. JD Drake

ER: Well hey, this had some good moments in the first half and hit nothing but "this isn't wrestling I enjoy" down the back stretch. They would do cool things and not go back to them at all, like Theory cracking his elbow on the ringpost really early on, then never once hesitating to throw elbows the entire match. I hate when they burn a cool spot like that when the match would otherwise be the same. Theory is a guy who works like a dickhead Finn Balor, and that's not something I wanted. He has stuff I like: his elbows in the corner to Drake looked really good, and that running elbow to Drake's kidneys was really great. I need more of that guy. That guy rules. The guy doing a doofy pose before hitting a very normal standing moonsault? I don't want that guy. Drake is super hard for me to pin down. Half the time he's a fat guy doing things I enjoy fat guys doing, the other half he's working like a 50 year old never was doing recognizable spots on a minor league baseball show. And to be clear, written out that probably sounds something that I would actually write a couple themed posts about, but Drake would be the bad version of that. Sometimes he's throwing hands, throwing clubbing blows, landing a great fat guy dropkick, great second rope leg lariat, hitting a Vader bomb, making me go "oh yeah I do like this guy" and then before long he's doing a derpy Stunner (and you know Theory is a guy who is going to take a Stunner like a real bouncy idiot), and overshooting a rickety moonsault the exact same way he always overshoots his moonsault, and I'm like "THAT'S why I don't like that guy!" They're doing the "exhausted and holding each other up" just 12 minutes in, and the back stretch has a dumb on our knees elbow exchange. Drake gets hit and plainly says "You can't hit me harder than life has," came off like a pretty flimsy line. Eddie Kingston could make that line work. JD Drake couldn't. They knew exactly what kind of cherry I wanted on this sundae, too, because Theory did some hilarious overblown pump handle slam finisher that landed Drake 100% on top of Theory. I am not familiar with Theory's signature offense, so I genuinely thought Drake had reversed something. Nope! Austin Theory won the title by strategically throwing a larger man onto his own chest. Hey WWE Network, This Is Indy Wrestling!

Akira Tozawa vs. Adam Cole

ER: I wound up enjoying this a lot more than I thought I would, and I gotta give a lot of that credit to Tozawa. Tozawa has always been a guy I've liked, but this year I really realized I had been underrating him. I don't think he's wrestling any differently this year than he did last year or the year before, I just now appreciate him the correct amount. He really turned an interesting match out of a guy I don't like. I didn't think Cole was as annoying in this one as he is in his interminable NXT main events that I now dread. You read it here: Tozawa is good enough that he takes the dread out of Adam Cole main events. I really like what he throws behind his strikes, they look good and they look his own. He comes off like a guy who takes cool risks, and his matches benefit from that. Cole, for his part, worked an actual good side headlock. That might sound like a putdown, but a good side headlock is a pretty important thing to me. His was better than I thought it would be. Tozawa's offense is always explosive, his dive always looks like it's going to punch both guys through the barricade, he throws a great spinning heel kick, great low dropkick, bumps big and fast, etc. He's a 1999 Taka Michinoku in 2019 and that's great. I think Tozawa winning would have actually been good for NXT, interject a new and credible opponent into the mix, wouldn't seem like a demotion. Really the only thing I didn't like about this was the finish, and that's because Adam Cole has arguably my least favorite finish in wrestling. That bunny hop flipping piledriver looks so damn silly, and then he pulls his kneepad off his scrawny little knee and hits a low end "2002 indy guy working a shining wizard he just saw on a tape into his moveset" vibe to it, more like a sliding leg lariat to the back of the head which is...well it just didn't do it for me.


ER: No breakout classics on this one, and it wasn't one of the better Evolve shows I've seen - and there are a lot of great Evolve shows - but there was plenty of stuff I enjoyed. I liked several individual performances, thought the Kingston tag was a fun style clash, and I dug seeing Ruas for the first time. Plus, that Shotzi bump made me jump forward in my seat, and seat jumping moments are always special.

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2014 Ongoing Match of the Year List

47. Zack Sabre Jr. v. Timothy Thatcher EVOLVE 34 9/13

PAS: Really great stuff, I think this is my favorite Thatcher match of the year. Sabre is a little faster and flashier then Thatcher, more of a babyface British worker, while Thatcher works more like a bruiser British heel, so this felt kind of like a Robbie Brookside v. Fit Finlay match. As one would expect very heavy mat work early, with both guys working on the arm, Thatcher to set up a Fujiwara, Sabre for a cross arm-breaker. There was also a cool little dynamic with Thatcher using his strength and Sabre countering with his speed. When the match got chippy it really got rolling. The holds really got wrenched, Sabre stomped on his elbow really nastily and started throwing kicks, and Thatcher really unloaded with forearms. Finish submission was awesome with Sabre trying for a cross arm-breaker, floating it into a weird hammerlock wrist twist and added some kicks to the back of the head for the tap. Just great stuff, another feather in Thatcher's cap, and got me really high on Sabre Jr.

ER: I did not see this at the time (Phil did, and wrote it up several months after it actually happened), but I thought it would be fun going back to a time before this kind of style was so much more commonplace on a given indy card. This is just 3 years ago, which doesn't feel like a long time, so it's neat to me to see them working this match 2nd match on the card, when this would go on to be the main event style not long after. Parts of this felt like an evolution of the American Dragon/Low Ki match style. I don't think I thought that just because they did the headstand/leglock spot that I first saw those two do in 2001. It felt like a toned down evolution, taking bits from those matches and updating some of them while bringing their own skills. At its core, it was two nasty fuckers trying to leave the match with an arm that wasn't their own, and that's almost always going to be worth seeing. We don't get a lot of striking (Sabre throws some kicks late in the match, including the vicious shots to end it), we get a couple nasty throws (Thatcher's gutwrench is always cool), but mostly this was violent arm manipulation. Thatcher was kind of a bully and Sabre was more slippery, so you'd get Thatcher committing to a wrenched in Fujiwara, or hyperextending Sabre's arm against his own shoulder, and Sabre would be able to slide into some mean wrist control, wrenching in a hammerlock at one point that felt like it would completely pop Thatcher's shoulder out of socket or pop an elbow. Both guys are tough, and I hate the complaint against Sabre that "his opponents let him apply holds". It's demonstrably false and the way he slides into and out of holds can be hypnotic. But there were moments of him changing strategy mid-move that illustrate how silly the "exhibition submission" tag is, like the first time he goes to stomp Thatcher's elbow only to notice Thatcher move while he's already throwing the kick, so he merely extends his leg more and thrust kicks Thatcher in the head. It looked like he genuinely prepped to stomp elbow and changed the angle of his kick midway. This had many more World of Sports type exchanges than later (current) matches in this style, and it's a nice breath as we get a minor playful vibe occasionally shining through all the ligament tearing. The playfulness has definitely been overshadowed by the current grittiness of the mat style, so I appreciated those moments. The finish sub was something that definitely seemed like the finish, as it easily was the nastiest thing in the match, with Sabre hooking the arms in a painful enough sub to get the tap, but then firing machine gun thrust kicks right to the back of Thatcher's head. Awesome little scrap.


2014 MOTY MASTER LIST

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2015 Ongoing Match of the Year List

48. Drew Gulak v. Trevor Lee EVOLVE 49 10/17

PAS: Cool to see Lee mix it up with the EVOLVE grappler crew. Gulak was nasty working over Lee's knee, loved the ways he would catch it in the ropes, and there was a couple of vicious takedowns on that knee. Gulak also had an awesome leglock which was almost Navarroish. Lee did a nice job hanging on the mat, and sprinkled in some of his cool big spots. Slower paced then some of the other big Lee matches this year, but I liked this a lot.

ER: Phil originally wrote this up much closer to the actual event date, so I'm only two years late to the party. We've both seen so many Lee main event title matches in the past year that it was fun going back to a time before he was CWF Mid-Atlantic Heavyweight champ, before he began perfecting his main event title defense style. So it was neat going back and seeing how some of his spots have evolved, how certain things have become more reversible, and how other things are utilized better in his present matches. Both looked good here but I thought Gulak looked awesome. His focused mat attack was really becoming a favorite of mine, so it's a shame that two years after this match we get to see only one of these guys having the opportunity for weekly classics. But nevermind that, this is fun and that's what matters. Lee keeps trying to take things to his faster crazy level and Gulak is always right there to ground him, and while Lee's highspots always look good (especially loved a snap German suplex late in the match) I always love a good grounding. Gulak looks like a total ace with the quickness and ease he pulls off some of these tricks. Seeing him grab a wristlock and then snap back so fast, rolling through and springing to his feet - now with wrist control - was like Regal on fast forward. Later we see him DDT Lee's knee, and do this tripped out dragon screw that's short, fast, and ends with Lee's knee being brought down over Gulak's shoulder in nasty fashion. I don't actually recall seeing that before, and it looked vicious. I did think it went a bit too long, and Lee didn't always pay much attention to the attack his knee had been under, so that dropped it down a bit. But it was neat seeing a future main event style more in its infancy, and a nice reminder that there are dozens of Gulak matches I've never seen before, more than enough to satisfy.


2015 MOTY MASTER LIST

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2017 Ongoing MOTY List: Thatcher v. Sabre

3. Timothy Thatcher v. Zach Sabre Jr. EVOLVE 79 2/25

PAS: Really great match with Sabre trying to finally be the guy to solve Thatcher, and a rabid crowd wanting Thatcher to go down. Really great early grappling leading to a super hot finish, with Thatcher pulling out counters to counters, before finally falling to a crazy abdominal stretch version. The announcer mentioned Thatcher watching Johnny Valentine, and I see his title reign almost like Johnny Valentine as he trained the crowd to respect and loathe his style, Thatcher had more real heel heat then anyone I can remember seeing in EVOLVE, and he did it all with a sneer and an armbar. Really exiting match, that I especially loved watching live not knowing about the title change.

ER: I loved how this was worked, really the most interesting way to work a 50/50 match, with neither guy out of the running at any point but either able to put it away at any moment. I've loved Thatcher for quite some time now, and his win over Hero at the 2015 WWN Supershow was one of my all time favorite babyface moments. The crowd was so electric for him and it was such a special moment that I've just never thought of him as a heel. But Phil is right, this is the most genuine heel heat I've seen a guy get in Evolve. Shoot, earlier on this show fans were still chanting for that oaf Ethan Page while he beat up a guy half his size who had his hands cuffed behind his back. But the fans start to turn on Thatcher and he soaks it up, and it's pretty great. The whole match was counters and both guys just nibbling at the other. Thatcher grabs an ankle while also kicking at Sabre's shoulder, Sabre does the same and kicks Thatcher in the face. Thatcher chokes Sabre with a boot to the throat, Sabre craftily uses the ropes and his positioning to turn it into an ankle lock so Thatcher immediately abandons the choking. All of the reversals and counters never came across like a rehearsal, they all felt like organic counters within each man's skillset. One guy would come in too hot with an armbar attempt, which would allow the other to use the momentum to roll through to a crossface, but in the haste of rolling through the grip wouldn't be tight which would lead to another counter, etc. It was all very satisfying, and we had very few pauses or breaks in the action, just both men fighting in the trap, both willingly put themselves in constant danger by fighting right within the other's wheelhouse. There aren't many "highspots" in this, with Thatcher's two Karelin lifts and maybe a Sabre running kick, and there wasn't necessarily any escalation. This was two guys wearing each other out, and by the time Sabre was attempting to lock on his octopus hold I was fully rooting for a title change. The slow application as Thatcher fought through, but Sabre kept locking on another dangerous piece of the puzzle, was awesome. That rings of Saturn/octopus hold looks like it should have dislocated several parts of Thatcher at once and was an excellent way to change a title. Great match.


2017 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Matches from EVOLVE 59 4/2/16

1. Drew Galloway/Johnny Gargano vs. Drew Gulak/Tracy Williams

ER: This started out more mundane than I was hoping for, but the second half was killer. Williams at this point seems like a guy with some high peak performances, whose floor usually falls somewhere in the bland territory. I did enjoy some of his rolling with Gargano, even if a lot of it looked a little too smooth and floaty. Galloway takes a nice post bump to the floor, but the first half of this really did drag. BUT the first half does set up some neat stuff that gets cashed in during the second half. Reversals, payoffs, longer term stuff. So you can't say the first half was a waste, at all. Gargano's hot tag run was fun, and when he hit the superman spear I was already thinking it seemed like something that shouldn't work. So when Williams caught it late in the match and planted him with a brainbuster, I was a satisfied customer. I also really liked Gulak and Gargano's strike exchange, Gulak especially. It started out with normal open strikes and then Gulak ramped up faster and suddenly he was blocked and going to the body and it looked awesome. Made it seem so much more special than a typical exchange. Gulak and Williams had some fun double teams, especially loved when Gargano was trying to lock the chickenwing onto Gulak, and Gulak made a blind tag and whipped Gargano off him and right into a nasty Williams lariat. Timing was impeccable on it. We get a nice run of well timed "I hit this guy, someone hits me, someone hits him" offense that can come off like something they rehearsed in slo mo in the back, but here came off much more like familiarity with opponents. Probably went too long, but also possible the first half made it seem longer than it really was. Still a quality tag.

2. Chris Hero vs. Fred Yehi

PAS: Really great bully performance by Hero he is totally contemptuous of Yehi making fun of his height, smacking him around really being an asshole. Yehi fights back with his nasty offense including stomping on his instep and ankle. Hero gets more and more frustrated and more and more violent. Hero is just unloading on Yehi landing some disgusting shots to the back of Fred's head. Meanwhile Yehi is doing an awesome job of dying on his shield. Overmatched but game youngster versus vicious veteran is a classic wrestling trope and both guys do it great. Wouldn't think that superman shirt IWA-MS Chris Hero would turn into Tenryu, but he is a great Tenryu.

ER: Phil knows how much I love the overmatched youngster against cranky veteran, so I was pretty amped for this one, and I gotta say it delivered. Dismissive Hero is a wonderful thing and while dismissive Hero never really gets total comeuppance, it's always a treat to see guys try. Yehi has a bunch of great little things to annoy opponents with, stomps to annoying places, strikes you don't expect, and annoyed Hero is fun for the viewer and rarely fun for the opponent. The mat stuff was cool and weirdly unexpected, as Yehi matches tend to be sub 10 and I didn't expect them to run with a bunch of cool reversals to start. But they work several cool things around arms, and my favorite early moment was when Yehi was up on the middle buckle and Hero was antagonizing him, and Yehi jumped off at him to grab a headlock in mid air. It looked like when one housecat is sitting on the back of the couch, and the other housecat is being an asshole and not letting him jump down, so he just wiggles his butt and jumps right down onto that asshole cat. And Hero was being a real asshole bully housecat here. Hero would do some signature offense, but in more aggravating ways, namely when he roughly grabbed his cravate. There was no finesse to it, he just kind of grabbed Yehi's head in his hands and wrestled them into cravate position and kind of yanked him down to the mat. It felt like he really wanted to show Yehi how domineering he was. Loved when Yehi did a Flair roll up the buckles and Hero was way ahead of him and met him with a pump kick, sending Yehi off the apron. They got crossed up during a couple strike exchanges, but it kind of made it look like both guys trying to fake the other out, trying to get the other to take the bait. All the shots to the back of Yehi's head looked pretty gross, and you assumed Yehi didn't have a chance, but both men are so damn good at their roles that they just take you along.

3. Matt Riddle vs. Zack Sabre Jr.

PAS: Very cool clash of mat styles, I really loved the way Riddle would counter out of a wacky Sabre british hold with an armbar or ankle lock, and Sabre would flip out of a choke into a goofy wrist lock. It reminded me a bit of the early UWF matches when some one like Marty Jones would come in and work Maeda or Kido. Both guys are little rougher around the edges then true masters of their style, but I appreciate ambition in mat wrestling, and there was ambition in spades. Some of the stand up was a bit wonky, ZSJ needs to take that crappy looking penalty kick and bury it deep in the ground, and Riddle will still pull some stuff a bit when he should just lay out, still you watch this match for the grappling and that was a blast. Always loved the Twister in MMA, and it is a nifty move to bring into pro-wrestling.

ER: I also liked this, and Phil's "Marty Jones coming to UWF" was an apt comparison. This had plenty of cool escapes and subs which was exactly what I was hoping for. Sabre twists Riddle up a bunch, and does a bunch of neat little things like grabbing the opposite leg on a drop toe hold or all the ways he would try bending Riddle's arm. Riddle grabbing the Muto lock was probably my favorite moment, as Sabre was making faces as if he were actually being choked. It looked painful as hell, and Sabre grabbing Riddle's hand and bending it back to get him to break was worked as more of a desperation escape than normal. Usually the hand bending is more sadistic or show-offy, so I liked it as a last gasp. Riddle's throws were really impressive and Sabre always folds in fun ways when tossed. 10 minutes was the perfect length as we didn't devolve into silly strike exchanges and instead mostly went from mat stuff to throws to finish.

ER: I skimmed or skipped over the rest of the show, cherry picking the stuff that really interested me. And my instincts were pretty good as Yehi/Hero and Riddle/Sabre both landed on our 2016 ONGOING MOTY MASTER LIST, and that's always a good thing.

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Matches from EVOLVE 66 8/19/16

Phil went to this show with his 8.5 months pregnant wife and has been (rightly) on my case for me to watch Thatcher/Riddle ever since. There were a couple other matches on the card that interested me, so I figured I'd skip around and you know, not bother writing up Ethan Page/DUSTIN.

Tracy Williams/Fred Yehi vs. Jigsaw/Peter Kaasa

ER: I really dug this one. Phil had told me Jigsaw looked really bad live, but I thought he looked quite good in this. There was one moment that was too 2000 indy (Yehi having to be draped over the middle rope while Jigsaw went up to hit a dropkick), but he matched up especially well with Williams and liked the way he took offense. He was kind of the guy overmatched by Catch Point, and I thought he got that over nicely. I liked their grappling, Jigsaw had a fun little wristlock counter, some fun leg stuff. Jigsaw was also fun with Yehi, dug him tossing some stiff kicks before one got caught, leading to Yehi straight up punching him in the foot bones! But this match was really the Tracy Williams show, one of his best outings, and he was in it a lot. A lot of this was Williams/Jigsaw, which was cool. Yehi hung back more than usual, coming in occasionally to stomp some limbs and drop Jigsaw with a couple of big germans. Kaasa didn't make it in a lot either but hit his big space flying tiger drop and some fast power moves. He has an impressive high bridge on his northern lights, and I loved his flying shoulderblock in the corner. But this worked as a super fun Jigsaw/Williams show. Really wouldn't mind a singles match between them, or more Jigsaw in Evolve.

No Holds Barred: Timothy Thatcher vs. Matt Riddle

PAS: I was at this match live, loved it, and I may have loved it even more on video. Both live and tape had advantages. Live I could really feel the thud of all of the strikes. These shots didn't have the snap of a Low-Ki kick, they thumped, the sound when they landed wasn't sharp it had a real bass to it. On tape you can really see the close up of the mat work, I could tell that Thatcher was mauling Riddle's foot, but on video you can really see him try to separate the toes and turn the ankle. Thatcher has been hit and miss lately, but having this kind of harrowing violence in his grappling is where he is at his best. There is no test of skills, this is a mean guy trying to use grappling to maim the guy across from him. The no holds barred stipulation came in to play mostly with a lack of rope breaks, there was a bunch of innovative cool looking spots around no rope breaks, including both guys locking in kneebars and rolling off the apron to the floor, and Thatcher using the ropes to choke Riddle out and break a triangle. Finish was also an awesome use of the ropes, as Thatcher hung Riddle by the arm into a hangmans crossarmbreaker. Great stuff, right up there with my favorite Thatcher matches ever, and the best Riddle match of his young career.

ER: My god what a match. Phil has been on me for 3+ months to watch this, it has been the subject of at least two arguments, maybe three, and I get it. This match was ridiculously awesome, Phil was a lucky enough son of a gun to see it live, and he was just trying to share some wonderful wrestling with a friend. I was the bad friend. When I heard "No Holds Barred" I was thinking it was going to devolve into cheapshots and chair shots or something, and I'm so happy that wasn't the case. The stip took away rope breaks and you don't realize how important rope breaks are to these type of matches until the don't exist. So you're left to cringe at the twisting and screaming for extended periods of time, until one of them gets desperate caged animal eyes and starts lashing out at the other to save a limb. This is just a hyperviolent war with no weapons necessary to enhance the violence. This is a match that would translate across all eras of pro wrestling. As we learned through the 80s projects, violence and brawling are what most consistently transcend any particular style. And this whole thing is just awesome. Riddle jumps Thatcher during his entrance and the whole thing is go go go but with no big moves or rope running or anything like that. I was honestly hooked right from Thatcher's early match heel hook. It was one of the nastiest things I've ever seen. I fully bought into Riddle's screams, and Thatcher kept ratcheting that ankle further and further out of position and you could hear the crowd swelling each time. And from there they just tear into joints the entire time. The whole match looked like a constant struggle. Arms bent at awful angles, suplexes fought over, necks cranked, ankles twisted; everything in this looks career shortening. You hear about all those PWFG guys had wrecked joints into their 30s and you wonder if the same is going to happen to some of these Catch Point guys. But I will not think about that now because these men are fighting for my enjoyment!!! Phil covered how great all the rope based spots were, so I'll mention how much I loved how much sweat played a factor in things. "Slipperiness" as a match goes on is a favorite Joe Rogan talking point and I love how that proved true here. The longer things went the tougher it was to keep on a hold. You see Thatcher lock in what could have been a match ending ankle lock but Riddle slipped out. Riddle locks on a Bro lock in the middle and Thatcher is able to slide right through into a vicious calf crusher. The violence never stopped in this, and the whole thing really felt like a high water mark for this style. Love.

Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Cody Rhodes

ER: I was really curious about this one, as I've somehow become one of the bigger Sabre supporters (despite my opinion on him remaining relatively consistent), and I was also a pretty early fan of Cody. Cody would go through peaks and valleys in WWE, but every year or two he would go on a TV run that would reconfirm his quality. He had a nice 09/10 syndicated run and as recently as 2014 I thought he and his brother were the best tag team (and it wasn't just Dustin doing the heavy lifting, Cody was more than holding his own in those tags). So I was excited to see his first non-WWE affiliated match of his career. And I really liked this match, although admittedly it was mostly Sabre that I liked, and the ending was far too sudden. But I thought this match was a nice feather for Sabre, who has gone from internet favorite to "overrated". I thought he was pretty vicious here working over Cody's wrist. He kept on that wrist and plenty of stuff he did made me cringe. I injured my wrist 15 years ago working at FedEx and I'll go months without feeling any pain, then out of nowhere be hit with a stabbing pain on my top right wrist. Seeing Sabre bending and wrapping and twisting Cody's wrist made the pain palpable to me. Sabre locked on some really cool stuff, especially loved his short arm scissor. He locked it on real tight and clasped Cody's hand to wrench it in even more, and it even lead to some nice pinfall counters by Cody. Also loved the moments of him stomping the wrist, stomping the elbow, really everything Sabre did looked really good. Now any problems with the match mostly lied on Cody. He had a bunch of weird dated Edge offense that landed completely flat with me and the live crowd, several of those lame power plant moves that look like the giver is bumping just as hard as the taker. He even rolled the dice! His springboard kicks both looked weak, and it's not like I was expecting him to come in and wrestle all "indy", but his style also seemed somehow more dated than it ever looked in WWE, so that's weird. And the finish, as I mentioned, just came too suddenly and didn't really work for me. Maybe the match structure is to blame, and maybe that's on Sabre, but Sabre took 80% of this match, and it ended with Cody basically dropping him with a slam, and then locking on a (nice looking) knee crank to get the tap. The sub looked great, and the ring positioning was good, but we had just seen Sabre work Cody's wrist for 15 minutes while none of Sabre's limbs got worked over, so it came off really hollow for Cody's wrist to suddenly be strong enough to tap a guy who hadn't been weakened. The finish just didn't feel earned, which is a shame as I really dug the match overall. It stinks when the weakest part of the match is the last visual.


Overall a fun show (from what I watched), and Thatcher/Riddle is one of the easiest locks for our 2016 Ongoing MOTY List as there ever was. Every wrestling fan owes it to themselves and the wrestlers to go out of their way to watch that match. It is near wrestling perfection.  Find it, watch it, love it.

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EVOLVE 74 Live Blog

I figured the return of Segunda Caida legend Dick Togo is enough for me to give FloSlam a shot and live blog EVOLVE 74. Hoping for the best!!

Jaka v. Drew Gulak

Really good opener, way more competitive then I was expecting. Gulak is on his way out and he really tried to make Jaka. Really violent shots by both guys, Jaka is at his best as an indy Haku, and parts of this felt like a nifty Haku v. Benoit Thunder match. I also thought Jaka looked pretty solid on the mat, never looked out of place rolling, and when they stood up he was really laying in the head butts and chops. Really liked this finish too, Gulak is really good at snatching his Dragon sleeper out of nowhere, and while Jaka escaped it once, he wasn't going to escape it twice.

Larry Dallas who was a mediocre manager for this fed a while back, returns as a truth telling interviewer and they do a back and forth with Tracy Williams and Gulak. Excited about this as a match, but they aren't going to talk anyone into the building.

DUSTIN v. Chris Dickinson

Weird match, they keep booking Dickenson, who is a great loathsome heel, as a plucky babyface. Here he beats the shit out of DUSTIN, nasty chops, kicks, suplexes, with DUSTIN throwing in a bit of his weak looking shit, I have no idea why you would throw such pillows if Dickenson is throwing heat. This was basically poor man's Low-Ki v. poor man's Elax the Exploited child, with Elax working heel and going over.

Darby Allin v. Brian Cage

This was pretty much perfectly worked, Cage has a tendency in Lucha Underground to work 50/50 with littler dudes, but here he was just brutalizing Allin. Allin jumps him in the aisle with two cool dives and then he just gets smashed. Huge powerboms, suplexes and a awesome finish where Cage hurls Allin from the ring to the stage, totally holy fuck bump. I was excited about this match on paper, and it totally delivered.

Cody Rhodes v. Ethan Page

Jesus this Ethan Page push is killing me. Again he gets all of the shortcuts, ref bumps, interference, a long visual pin over the high dollar ex-WWE import. Every show feels like Page is a Make-a-Wish kid working a match at a fundraiser for him. There was an amusing spot where Page gets a portly Page fan to hold Rhodes for a chop and then gives him the finger instead of a high five, enraging the husky gentleman. Most of the rest was lots of terrible looking Page elbows and Rhodes kind of mailing it in. Not good. Poor Dick Togo has his work cut out for him.

Jeff Cobb v. Matt Riddle

Really fun match, I don't think either of their singles matches against each other have been the classics they have in them, but I really enjoyed this. They feel like a big deal whenever they get into the ring it feels like two big stars are locking up.  The match made a lot of sense Riddle was hitting Cobb with strikes and Cobb getting close and throwing him. I really loved Cobb having too thick of a neck to put on the Twister, and the catch into the tour of the islands was awesome. With Cobb going over, I figure this will get run back, and I am excited to watch it.

Fred Yehi/Tracey Williams v. Ricochet/Peter Kaasa

This was your big workrate tag, and it didn't do a ton for me. The Ricochet and Yehi have some really awesome fast exchanges, almost Red v. Ki speed, but outside of that this wasn't good. Kassa looks totally lost much of the time, he has some cool spots but he is basically indy Tom Magee, Williams is on a run of not doing much for me, he looked lost a couple of times, and some of his stuff looked weak. Would love to see Yehi v. Ricochet in a singles though, I wonder if Mr. Hughes ran that in his fed at one point.

Dick Togo v. Chris Hero

My stream died in the middle of this for a bit, so I am going to have to rewatch it, on first glance, I liked parts of this, but thought Hero was spamming piledrivers a bit, and it felt a little like they working an indy dream match, rather then a match with a real story. Might feel different on a rewatch without the stream death, but initially it was a bit disappointing. I did love Togo faking out Hero's mind games early and some of the big right hands by Hero.

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EVOLVE 73 Road Report

Wife and baby are out of town so I decide to meet my buddy Childs down at Joppa for an EVOLVE show.

Tracy Williams v. Tommy End

Tommy End is a guy that on paper I should like, he has cool looking tattoos, I watched a bunch of K1 in the 90s, always dug the dutch kickboxer v. Maeda matches in RINGS, but he has never done it for me. He is kind of like Killer Brooks, if you saw Killer Brooks in PWI you would think he was this cool looking Texas badass, and then you actually saw him in the ring.

This was a dark match only for the live audience. In my life I have seen four really classic matches which never ended up on tape. I saw Ultimo Dragon v. Eddie Guerrerro go 20+ in a WCW house show in Fairfax VA, Cham Pain and I called a great 2/3 falls lucha match in Monterey Mexico with Satanico/Blue Panther v. Solar/Super Astro, I saw El Hijo Del Santo and LA PARK bleed all over Atlanta GA, and saw Negro Navarro, Solar and Mike Quakenbush rock out a strip mall in Deleware. This was not my fifth hidden classic, Williams looked shockingly bad, there was this spot where he was dropping elbows on End's arm and he was missing the arm by 18 inches, it was one of the most business exposing things I have seen a trained wrestler do. End wins after about 7 minutes with a half crab. They weirdly gets a standing ovation, and then End gives this Ian Rotten style speech about how Tracy Williams is the future of the business like they just tore down the house.

Darby Allin v. Jaka

This are both guys I like and this was a fun semi squash. The Allin push is strange, Jaka isn't really in this fed and he just dominated All9n, with only a couple of hope spots. Jaka works stiff and Allen takes a big beating so I dug it, but I don't get why it was so one sided. Darby also does some really vocal Joshi screaming which is kind of distracting

Icarus v. Jason Kincaid

This was pretty good too, Icarus is working like a 1999 indy era fake Benoit, like Josh Daniels or Quiet Storm, lots of chops and snap suplexes. Kincaid has some amusing spots, there was a moment where it threatened to go off the rails, but it got reined in, and the finish was nutso with Kincaid hiting a diving blockbuster to the floor and them a double stomp after climbing a tall poll.

Ethan Page v. Chris Dickenson

I like Dickenson a fair amount, but have no idea why he is working face here, he is a disgusting creep and should always be working as one. I think Page might own 15% of EVOLVE or something, he is the worst guy on this show and getting this huge money markish push. He turned heel after a year long master plan like the worlds shittiest Ole Anderson, he gets two indy giant henchmen, gets these showcase matches, lots of mic time, and deserves none of it. This is a fed with Chris Hero main eventing, you can't work a match around elbow strikes when you throw pillows like this. Dickenson tried, but Page will Page.

Drew Gulak v. Zach Sabre Jr.

This was tremendous, no strikes, pretty much all grappling and really nasty grappling. Gulak is so great and finding interesting plausable counters and blocks for offense. He is a masterful mat counter puncher. Tons of nifty moments where ZSJ would attempt something, Gulak would twist a wrist or knee and Sabre would counter the counter. There was a whole section based around a ZSJ guillotine attempt which had a bunch of different cool escapes and attacks. There may have been one more restart then necessary, but the finish was awesome with Gulak getting the dragon sleeper out of a Sabre pin attempt and putting him down.

Chris Hero v. Matt Riddle

Worked pretty differently then their previous two matches, as this was more of a sprint brawl. Hero jumps Riddle before the bell and cracks him and they push the pace for the whole match. Not much matwork, all bombs. I did really like Hero constantly staying ahead of Riddle, it is weird booking that he went over, but it does make logical sense that a veteran would adjust to a rookie phenom and be able to be one step ahead. Finish was super decisive, with Hero wiping out Riddle's springboard knee attempt with a brutal elbow and hitting three straight piledriver variations to put him down. Finish felt a bit sudden but nobody should be kicking out of three piledrivers

Chris Hero/DUSTIN v. Drew Gulak/Tony Neese v. The Gatekeepers v. Tracy Williams/Fred Yehi

Various injuries lead to this dogs breakfast of a four way tag for the title. Gatekeepers look really dumb in their business casual slacks and colored dress suits, Big Bubba only worked because he was in a suit, not in temp job business casual. This never really got going, there was a moment or two, but it was mostly dull, and your big Tony Neese send off finish fell flat. I am happy that they got the belts off of DUSTIN so he doesn't stink up next months Dick Togo match, but this wasn't much especially for a main event

Post match Regal comes out to give a speech and offer Tony Neese a WWE contract. We bail on the emotional Tony Neese goodbye speech to get on the road.

Really liked the new Floslam EVOLVE, no intermission, fast moving card, whole thing had us in and out in a little more then two hours. Nothing blow away, but two pretty great matches and couple of fun undercard showcases. Fine way to spend a Sunday

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