Wednesday Night Bootleg: REGAL vs. BOURNE

William Regal v. Evan Bourne 4/21/11 - Bucharest



How has a wretch like me, living a subway ride away from Titan Towers, never seen Regal live? The plebes who attended this show have now all seen Regal live, and they’re literally a buggy ride away from living in freakin’ Transylvania. The setting adds a lot: you expect Bourne halfway through his shooting star press to turn into a bat and fly away, or for Regal to be revealed as a vampire bear, thereby validating all of Striker’s corny Morrissey references in Regal matches. Bootleggers of the world: unite.

This could have been a clash in styles, but Sydal has worked with bases as built like Regal (Sheamus, Mark Henry, Lizzy Valentine) in the past, and Regal can still flip, flop and fly with the best of ‘em, as he does for an array of monkey flips and ranas. WWE house shows are some of the more exciting wrestling to watch these days, as you have a bunch of really capable workers breaking out of the four minute TV shell and actually interacting with a crowd. You could have no idea who either guy is, and immediately get Regal’s character from his stink-eyed leering. Bourne also gets it, whoo-hooing the crowd and pausing for effect before his big offense spots.

In this match and WWE handhelds at large, you get to see the fun shtick that they don’t have time for on Raw. It’s old stuff, but the kind of fun old stuff you haven’t seen in a while: Regal cowering in the ropes to avoid getting hit, Regal stealthily telling the crowd to shut up after he offers Bourne a cordial handshake, Bourne as fist-pumping babyface on fire.

The chain wrestling is off the hook as well, with the best armbar spot I’ve seen in a while as Regal cinches one in, gets caught by a Bourne headscissors, then fights out of it and body slams Bourne, all while holding onto the armbar and taking the fight to the ground. It really helps your aerial babyface dramatically to have an awesome mat worker keeping you out of the air, until the crowd is eager to see some high flying. You also get several vicious Regal knee strikes, and him dropping a Hansen-sized elbow drop out of nowhere.

By the end Regal is screaming like a banshee at the crowd, and teases a dangerous-looking tiger driver. It’s been enough of a fight to that point that it doesn’t seem absurd for Regal to spike Bourne straight down on his head in this irrelevant midcard match. The finish is an expertly fluid top rope moment: being able to watch Bourne do his thang in a fairly steady one-shot (as opposed to RAW's bait-and-switch camera angles) puts into better perspective how crazy it is that he can hit these moves. Probably my favorite WWE match of the year, just ahead of a comparable Mysterio-Cody Rhodes handheld from Lyon and the recent Masters-McIntyre series. Crowd goes wild and returns home to Castle Wolfenstein happy as clams.

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Phil's Ongoing 2008 MOTY List

1. Yuki Ishikawa + Alexander Otsuka + Munenori Sawa v Daisuke Ikeda + Katsumi Usuda + Super Tiger II BattlArts 7/26
2. Jimmy Jacobs v. B.J. Whitmer IWA-MS 3/1
3. Floyd Mayweather v. Big Show WWE 3/30
4. Mike Quakenbush v. Johnny Saint WXW 3/8
5. Teddy Hart v. Eddie Kingston v. Homicide JAPW 1/19
6. Yuki Ishikawa v. Carl Greco BattlArts 6/1
7. Necro Butcher v. Predator IGF 6/23
8. Blue Panther v. Atlantis EMLL 7/11
9. Necro Butcher v. 2 Cold Scorpio IWA-MS 8//17
10. Yuki Ishikawa v. Alexander Otsuka RJPW 6/18
11. Mitsuhara Misawa v. Takeshi Morishima NOAH 3/2
12. Bryan Danielson v. Nigel McGuiness ROH 2/23
13. Erick Stevens v. Roderick Strong FIP 2/8
14. Trik Davis v. Sami Callihan IWA-MS 8/17
15. Nigel McGuiness v. Austin Aries ROH 3/28
16. Evan Bourne v. Chavo Guererro WWE 10/14
17. Finlay v. JBL WWE 3/30
18. Shawn Michaels v. Ric Flair WWE 3/30
19. El Valiente + El Hijo Del Fantasma + La Mascara v. La Sombra + Volador Jr. + Sagrado CMLL 4/30

10. Yuki Ishikawa v. Alexander Otsuka RJPW 6/18

This is basically the Velocity version of their match up, but these two guys for six minutes is about as good a six minutes as you are going to get. No suplexes from Otsuka or punches from Ishikawa, but we do get a nasty coconut but, and some awesome mat wrestling. Otsuka has really turned into the the best mat wrestler in the world, just Volk Hanish in his countering into weird submissions and taking over position. Ishikawa is pretty sick on the mat too, and I especially loved the chicken wing counter of the delayed German. More of snack then a meal, but a tasty snack.

16. Evan Bourne v. Chavo Guererro WWE 10/14

Man was this a lot of fun, I thought Sydal had gotten really good near the end of his ROH run, but he was a dude who was short in ROH s I am pretty surprised that he has been such a success in the WWE. Chavo is the grandson of one the legendary rudos in lucha history so he can base a highflyer, and I loved all of the little touches he added to the match, like the rolling kappo kick and the double knee counter. Bourne’s rana bump was awesome, and I loved how he got the rana at the end of the match, after missing it before. I need to start TiVoing ECW.

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