2025 Ongoing MOTY List: Maclin vs. Young Dog Collar

 

Steve Maclin vs. Eric Young TNA Impact 5/8/25

ER: After seeing DEAN~! Megastar Mad Dog Connelly work his modern day Cactus Jack magic live for the real sickos-slash-the Glendale, AZ outdoor mall Saturday night date crowds, I went seeking Dog Collar nirvana. Mad Dog has taken the dog collar art form to new levels, finding new ways to surprise despite cornering the market on the stipulation. TNA dared to run a dog collar match on TV (is TNA even on TV? Are they on Mark Cuban's cable internet?) the same month Mad Dog Connelly continues reinventing the genre, and I respect the endeavor. I especially respect that Maclin nor Young have ever worked a dog collar match before, anywhere. I think it's only fair to view this match with that in mind. It's two guys deciding to work the collar for the first time in their lives while simultaneously being about the same age as me. Stupidity, some would say. Great Pro Wrestling, the more cultured would say. 

Maclin, with Wesley Blake, was an NXT house show act that I loved watching. Wesley Blake was actually the name of a wrestler I used to enjoy watching! That's right, according to things I wrote in a blurry pre-pandemic world, I was a fan of Wesley Blake. I was writing glowing things about Jaxson Ryker (his politics, not his wrestling) and the Forgotten Sons and Steve Cutler/Maclin made an act I enjoyed even better. He was not as important to the group as Ryker or Blake - men whose 2018 work I would defend based on words I wrote in 2018 and have never revisited until now - but being a good Buddy Roberts to a weird MAGA coded NXT Freebirds stable that feels like it existed another lifetime ago is an odd cool role to have occupied. 

This very good dog collar match was entirely made by the buckets of blood bled by Steve Maclin. Maclin gets real good color early, that red paint The Harder They Come blood brushed across his face and arms and chest, covering a shocking amount of his body and a more shocking amount of the ringside mat surface in a short amount of time, dripping all over the place and pooling up in the lowland territories. You expect blood to dry up during a match like this, but Maclin keeps managing to look bloodier, redder, wetter, and the blood keeps looking fresher as it mats into his hair and runs down over every part of his body. It's dried and dispersed by the end of the match, but we get an excellent run of his blood painting his body and every surface he comes into contact with. Those surfaces include DEAN~! alums Sinner and Saint, who rub Maclin's blood all over themselves as Young's seconds, no shortage of Maclin's blood to disperse to anyone who wants color. Nobody else bleeds in this match, but everyone wears Maclin's blood. 

Eric Young, looking like Pitbull Anthony Durante's father, was good about wrapping the chain around Maclin's mouth and face and pulling it tight. He does a dragon sleeper with the chain tight around Maclin's throat, and he uses his corner rope flip as effectively as he's ever deployed it: flipping to the apron and dropping to the floor to pull the chain taut, yanking Maclin fast face first into the top rope. They both take hard bumps on the floor, Maclin spreading his blood as far and wide as possible, and the thuds add to the chain violence. Maclin's Thesz Press is great not because of the impact, but because he uses it like a man fully covered in blood flinging his body onto Young and banking on Young not wanting to catch him in his current messy state.

I was not as interested in the parts of the match where they wrestled a normal singles match, as if the chain was tied to their necks in theory and not actuality. Travis Williams is the idiot doing a handspring cutter during dog collar match interference, and I wish Maclin would have messed him up for even thinking of doing that. Maclin does hit a great Tree of Woe spear on Sinner and Saint that I'm not sure justified the set up time or lack of focus on beating someone with a chain, but was a good way to dispose of Young's seconds. Young is great at taking bumps on the chain, making the neck compression impact of the match finishing DDT look even more disgusting on a pile of chain. If this trend continues and it is revealed that Mad Dog Connelly set off a domino effect of more and more guys dipping their toe into the Collar, organically building up more and more challengers to the One True King, then wrestling will only get better. 

Read more!

Giving TNA Credit Where Credit is Due

TNA is the Springfield tire fire of professional wrestling. It feels like it's been around forever and no reasonable person can justify its existence. At this point it just exists. It's there. It's stink can be smelled from many states away. It's useless. It's ugly. It somehow will not die.

But as the old saying goes, even a burning tire yard is right twice a day. And last week while watching TNA something happened to me that I'm not sure has ever happened to me while watching TNA: I was genuinely interested, engaged and excited about what was onscreen, for all of the reasons intended.

TNA has been around for a long time. I still lived with my parents when TNA began to exist. I own a home now. I was still in college when TNA began. I work for the government and have some gray hairs now. Beck came out with "Sea Change" around when TNA began. Now he just released "Morning Phase", which is his only other album that sounds a lot like Sea Change. Many of my friends have gotten married and had children since TNA's existence. Others have married and already divorced. My first pet, Inky the cat, did not live as long as TNA has lived. TNA has still not ever done anything as cool as Inky a) catching bats, b) catching a rabbit, c) learning how to turn on/off a light switch.

But they got me excited for 7 minutes. Last week the show started off with an Abyss/Eric Young brawl, and it was awesome. Abyss is clearly the worst worker in the world over the last decade. I'm sure there have been some individual performances that have been worse, but he has turned in a full 10+ years of shockingly horrible work. I'll save more Abyss talk for a future post dedicated to Abyss and nothing else. This "match" was all about EY and he looked killer. A lot of his shots really landed hard on Abyss, and TNA's stupid faux-NYPD Blue backstage camera work actually made this look, dare I say...cool? This felt like one of the most violent things in TNA history, culminating with EY getting choked out over the ropes with a chain. EY took nasty spills the whole match (including getting tossed face first into a chair) but good god his face was turning purple while getting choked. The whole thing actually felt unique and interesting, which is something TNA has NEVER felt like to me. It actually made me want to tune in the next week...

And they started the 3/27 Impact with 27 minutes of talking. Never change guys. We'll always have those 7 minutes on 3/20.

Read more!

Dick Togo Behind the Scene Pull Strings Like Geppetto, The Gun Blow Steam Whistle Like a Tea Kettle

Dick Togo/Scott Norton/Don Frye vs. Masahiro Chono/Kohei Sato/Eric Young PWE 10/25/08 - SKIPPABLE 

PAS: On paper this looks like an awesome random WAR six man, but it didn't like up to any of that promise. Chono and Norton start out and neither guy looks like he should be in the ring at this point. Young and Togo run through a wrestling school juniors section, Togo and Sato have some fun stuff, and Eric Young does a great convulsion sell on a Frye punch, but outside of that we had nothing. Frye is usually ridiculously charismatic, but he was bland here. Don't ruin the match in your head by watching the match on the computer. Dick Togo v. Shinya Ishikawa BJW 5/3/09-EPIC I can't remember seeing Togo work this kind of violent potato fest match before, and he is great at it. You get the sense that Togo could slot right into a FUTEN show and fit like a glove. The main problems I have with most Strong BJ wrestling is the lack of selling, emotion and structure. At its worst it is just two guys standing in front of each other throwing forearms. Of course there isn't anyone in wrestling better and inserting selling, emotion and structure into a match then Dick Togo. So we get all the violence without any of the problems. Togo really works over the kid, especially his ribs, smashing them with knees and an especially nasty double stomp. Ishikawa gets a couple of big comebacks, including a really stiff dropkick which Togo just flies on. Not particularly long, but really fun to watch and very cool to see Togo do something different so well. 

Dick Togo vs. Gedo DDT 6/30/11 - GREAT 

PAS: The curtain goes down on a great career with a great match. Togo is walking away at the height of his prowess, arguably the best wrestler in the world, on the best run of his career. Gedo is currently the best wrestler he has faced during this singles run, although this isn't the best match. Execution in this match is great, both guys hit what they do very well. The match starts with some solid as a rock basic mat wrestling. Gedo gets out wrestled and decides to brawl, smashing Togo in the ribs with a chair and ring bell hammer. Togo takes a huge bump ribs first into the ring post. We get a great Memphis punch exchanges, some exciting near falls, and a beautiful Togo tope and floating senton. Despite the brawling which looked great, I never thought this took the extra step into a grasping violent war, like the best of this Togo series. In a way that is fine, maybe a retirement match should be a guy running through his greatest hits with a good dance partner, and this was a great version of that, really enjoyed it, but Togo raised the EPIC bar in 2010-11 and this didn't clear it. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DICK TOGO

Read more!