Matches From ICW New York Respect The Game 7/27/19

This show popped up on IndependentWrestling.TV and has some real on paper bangers, figured why not cherry pick our way through.

54. Nick Gage vs. Dan Maff

PAS: Really not the match you would expect for these two guys on paper, and I think the difference really helped it stand out. Gage jumps Maff before the bell and hits the chokebreaker. Gage immediately rolls to the floor clutching his knee, and starts getting helped to the back. Gage turns around and limps back to the ring and demands the match start. Maff doesn't even hit him back for the first couple of shots, but is eventually convinced to fight, and ends up working over Gage's knee while he fought through the injury. I loved how they built to Gage getting desperate enough to try the choke breaker again, and Maff's barbed wire board bump was nasty. This was much more compelling than the Gage by numbers match, and he makes a surprisingly compelling underdog.

ER: Gage is like Marko Stunt for me in a way, in that I usually don't enjoy their matches, but they both have an undeniable live charisma that can add to their matches. I'm usually a kind of low vote on them, but I know they have tools that can be used in a match I really like, and this was a great instance of that. Give me and interesting story like this any day over sitting in chairs and trading shots. Phil went over what happened, Gage immediately injures his knee by making the insanely stupid decision to drop 300 pounds on his own knee. You get the gutsy return, you get Maff not wanting the fight this way, and you get Maff goaded into beating the hell out of him. Once Maff starts off his flurry by locking in a figure 4, I was in. "You wanna hit me? I'm gonna wreck your leg." You have Maff alternately working dangerous cannonballs and hitting a flat out tremendous dive, and then he's working World of Sport tumbling stump pullers. Big fat guy working cannonballs, dives, and Regal legwork? Hell yeah sign me up. They work some cool sequences are the guardrail , and their apron work was cool too. I liked that we didn't build to a big dumb apron bump, instead just Maff hitting at Gage's knee causing him to collapse on the apron. The eventual Gage comeback is really good and appropriate, as the piledriver was a big moment and Maff flying through the barbed wire board was our first big bump, and gave us the cool visual of Maff covered in wire and screaming like on the cover of Evil Dead. Gage's run was logical as hell, including a logical reason to illogically use the chokebreaker again. The fact it lead directly to Maff hitting that brutal cannonball stunner through another board was perfect. The layout of this was really fantastic, played to the strengths of both and gave us a cool look at something different from Gage. Maff is 45 and looked as great as I've seen him look. This is my favorite Gage match of the year, and now I want to see even more old man Maff.

Joe Gacy vs. Tony Deppen vs. Jimmy Lloyd vs. Facade

ER: This was kept under 10 minutes and worked brisk, but - and this seems like something one of us has typed dozens of times - would have been much more interesting as two singles matches with literally any combo of the 4 guys here. Jimmy Lloyd isn't really as suited to these multiman matches, but a singles against any of the other three could have been cool. Gacy vs. Lloyd, Gacy vs. Deppen, whatever, it would have been more interesting. But there's still plenty of fun on display here, it just has that multiman thing where guys are always inching a couple feet over to be in the right position, or looking over their shoulder to make sure somebody is springing off the ropes for some tandem horseshit. The kind of "we're performing an act" that is concealed easier in singles matches that don't have so many moving parts. Gacy was a guy trying to actively combat that, and that made his performance stand out the most. There was a moment where he was about to DDT Lloyd, while Facade was setting up something off the top that would hit Gacy, while causing Gacy to DDT Lloyd. Well Facade lost his footing, Gacy saw that and immediately improvised and tried to hoist Lloyd up for a waistband assisted Hashimoto-style DDT, buying Facade some time until the spot came off. I love those moments of professionalism. Deppen hits what appeared to be the longest dive in history, but we missed half of it due to camera angle. Facade hits a big flip dive that doesn't get caught by anyone, and we get one of those dumb spots where all 4 guys are standing in a circle swaying in the breeze taking turns hitting each other; typical multiman stuff. But Lloyd has a couple of cool bumps (I really liked him spiking himself vertically on a DDT), Gacy looks good throughout, Deppen is a guy I like a ton more after seeing him at SCI, and Facade is at least someone willing to try things. I thought this would be better, and it wasn't, but it won't negatively affect my opinion on anyone here.

Homicide vs. Chris Dickinson

PAS: This was a pass the torch match for NYC indie wrestling and was really worked like that. They start out with some mat wrestling and escalate into so real hard hitting stuff. Homicide was really working hard, taking some nasty bumps on a guardrail, some sharp kicks, and a german where he landed right on the top of his head. I liked how as the match went on, Homicide got dirtier and dirtier, clawing the eyes and fishooking, like if he was going to lose his crown as King of New York, he was going down throwing it all out. Good stuff and a nice kicker to the Dickinson challenge series gimmick he had been running on IWTV.

ER: Passing the torch is a good way of describing this match. Homicide is in his early 40s and has been through some wild battles, and understandably doesn't quite have that fire that Dickinson has burning in his eyes any more. But that doesn't mean he's an old sack of meat thrown in the garbage! I don't think these kind of nearing 20 minute close pinfall matches are really his bag at this point, though he's clearly a guy I still enjoy and love seeing. I am always going to like older, slower, more vulnerable versions of the wrestlers who I loved, and here's Homicide getting thrown tailbone first on a guardrail and ripping at Dickinson's face. The fishooking spot was so good, I was waiting for Homicide to pull a fork out of his shorts to stab Dickinson in the cheek. I also liked some of Homicide's reversals, especially catching Dickinson's lariat off the middle buckle and turning it into a Fujiwara. Dickinson is a guy who I've been real over the top for the past few years, and I dug the early mat takedowns so much that I was kinda hoping the whole match would be like that. Homicide is shaped exactly like Ian when Ian was in his "peak" condition during his MethBatt years. Homicide could have a whole second life as CatchPoint Ian. Dickinson hits those hard corner clotheslines, a big German that tosses Homicide all the way over onto his knees, the pazuzu bomb looks killer, and to lift right up into a piledriver is always going to be my bag.

25. Eddie Kingston vs. Daisuke Sekimoto

ER: What a fun and weird main event, taking an Eddie Kingston main event and the veering into oddball 70s kung fu comedy in a delightful way. We get a huge part of match devoted to chopping chest, and peaks with an awesome ring high camera shot of Kingston on his back, sitting up towards the camera right into chops, both guys filling the camera shot perfectly, Kingston making these anguished pained but almost Don Knotts faces in he best way, Kingston doing these tough no hands sit ups into getting the breath taken away by a heavy chop, eventually tiring and just getting pulled up by Sekimoto into more chops. Soon Sekimoto is throwing 12 to 6 chops while Kingston is on his back kicking his legs. This segment stood out so much from these type of chest thumping matches. It's the kind of thing that feels like it could only happen in an Eddie Kingston match these days, but seems like it owes itself to 80s feelgood house show matches. Kingston makes this kind of thing work and I'm not sure who else can or will be able to if Kingston leaves. I loved when he would get overwhelmed with chops and go in with knees, and worked simple but well done things like a good neckbreaker. His chops right to Sekimoto's neck looked like they would change my posture, and we still hadn't got to Sekimoto clotheslining the hell out of Kingston's arms on subsequent chops. Kingston works in some incredibly fun ways to get his fists blocked, and Sekimoto was swinging his inflated hulk arms as hard as he could was one of my favorites. I also loved the sudden death, Kingston being tenderized like veal and then put away instantly. Sekimoto softens him up with strikes, hits that big splash and plants the surrendered Kingston with a German. Also, I actually thought it was a cool touch that the commentators opted to not call the action. It could have come off cheesy to have them actually say they were going to not call the match, but I liked them stepping away to "let the match speak for itself". Fun as hell.

PAS: Kingston is pretty much the only guy I want to watch doing these kind of test of manliness matches. Sekimoto is here to beat on Kingston's chest and let him die dramatically. Eddie gets beaten down brutally, and we get a chance to watch him rage against the dying of the light. I have watched a ton of Eddie Kingston matches in the last year or so, and his chop sell where he starts to fire back but instead collapses, is one of my favorite bits of wrestling selling ever. He has so many interesting ways of conveying pain, and Sekimoto is a great ball of muscle to punish him. His moments of grace are pretty awesome, the backfist is a great stunning shot and he gets a couple of real believable near falls, before ultimately failing. No one is better at falling short then Eddie Kingston, he may be the best agony of defeat wrestler of all time.


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Monday AIW - Against the World 8/26/16

42. Jollyville Fuck-Its (Nasty Russ/T-Money) vs. Cheech/Eric Ryan

PAS: This was the Fuck-Its' return to the promotion and was kind of a Fuck-Its showcase, which is a hell of a showcase. Colin Delaney couldn't make the show so Ryan replaced him, and Cheech and Ryan are a fun makeshift team. T-Money was especially great in this, his tope looked as good as ever and he was wrecking people with clotheslines and slams. Ryan hits a chop where he runs around the outside before landing it, and when he goes for it a second time, T-Money explodes out of the rail and pounces Ryan into the crowd, it looked like one of those NFL films violent collision videos they stopped doing after CTE became prominent.

ER: Any show that starts with a Jollyville match is gonna go up a grade in my book, and I love a cool WCW style thrown together tag team. WWE always threw together as a lazy way to write in tension. WCW thrown together teams were always born out of a guy suddenly left without a partner and forced to find the best substitute on short notice. It's how we end up with a cool Bobby Eaton/Mike Enos team, or Rick Steiner/Kenny Kaos, or Bobby Eaton/Kenny Kaos! Eric Ryan is an awesome wrestler and Cheech is a great flashy counterpart. Jollyville are just a great team, that honestly also would have fit into WCW. They feel like an awesome SMW team, T-Money hits hard shoulderblocks and clotheslines and punches like the best possible Ice Train. Nasty Russ has the long combed back hair and looks awesome, like a badass estranged brother of Mr. Rosso on Freaks & Geeks. And this whole thing was awesome, just my exact favorite kind of tag match. Jollyville looked great. This is absolutely one of the best Jollyville performances I've seen, and these guys are my team. Russ bumps like crazy but hits hard, and sometimes he hits the mat hard while hitting hard. He takes a clothesline in the corner at one point that knocks him up to the top rope and back down on his shoulders in one quick shot, and it's like a Psicosis bump that never happened before. And the match ends with him hitting one of the most gung ho cannonballs, really throwing himself into it like he was  jumping into a pool and not onto a man. T-Money looked so big league here, Just running into guys like a freight train with hard punches, big ass lariats, and an all time great no hands dive into both Ryan and Cheech, the greatest double clothesline. Money leans into beatings too, and he bravely took his lumps in the corner to eat a mean facewash from Cheech, coast to coast dropkick from Ryan, and that cool 619 around the ringpost from Cheech. Ryan has great snap on everything and is always running fast and crashing hard, and Cheech as I've said a ton just blends so well into a great formula tag match. I loved all the exchanges here, from the big hard hitting flash right down to simple missed exchanges. In fact, my favorite part of the match was T-Money missing clotheslines, just running fast as possible off the ropes and swinging so low and so fast with those meaty arms that any miscommunication would have ended in murder. That kind of stuff is why I love pro wrestling. I love this tag scene.

Shawn Shultz vs Louis Lyndon

PAS: This was a match with some cool individual moments, some nice kicks by Lyndon, a brutal DDT on the floor by Shultz, but it was ultimately kind of a mess. It seemed like they were switching from face to heel every 90 seconds or so, there was some super dancey stuff from Shultz who is supposed to be working as a Southern wrestler, and the aforementioned DDT on the floor was so nasty that it makes no sense for them to work a your turn my turn roll up section a minute later. I have liked both guys in the past, but this was no bueno.

Britt Baker vs Crazy Mary Dobson

PAS: Britt Baker is the big female AIW graduate and definitely got pushed past her ability level. Mary Dobson was throwing bows like someone who was putting over someone she shouldn't. The parts of the match where Mary was kicking her ass was fun stuff. The Baker wrestling sections significantly less so. I have dug Logan in the WWE, is there fun Crazy Mary I should be checking out?

14. Eddie Kingston vs. Shigehiro Irie

PAS: Kingston Road matches are specific subset of his big matches and there have been some awesome ones. I think this might be my favorite. Irie is a sawed off asskicker, who is going to hit hard and take a beating but this was Kingston taking what he can do and crafting a classic around it. Standard hard hit start, until Kingston takes an elbow to the ear and collapses. For much of the rest of the match he does some amazing head trauma selling, constantly shaking off cobwebs, unsteady on his feet, but moving forward and attacking. Irie is a force in this match, he breaks Kingston's hand by ducking his head on the backfist so Kingston hits the top of his skull instead of his jaw. Such a simple counter and so awesome looking. He also shrugs off a big lariat, hard to lariat a guy with no neck.  There was a bunch of tough guy selling in this match, but Kingston especially put enough pain behind his eyes that it wasn't just a cheap stunt. Finish had Kingston dumping Irie on his head and Irie popping up to stumble around, it was a tribute to the Williams vs. Kobashi finish and done about as well.

ER: Goddamn do I love 2004 NOAH Eddie Kingston. He is so damn good at perfecting one of my all time favorite eras of wrestling, with a unique slant, inventive selling, and a ton of personality, he's just going from I guy I've always been into to an all time great. This is everything Kingston does great, distilled into one match. I see this and it makes me angry I never got to see him against every guy who worked NOAH from 2001-2007. His stand and trade tough guy dying on his sword bombfests add so many more interesting dimensions to his style that it feels like it's exposing every single big dumb New Japan wankfest for what they are. This whole thing is just Irie and Kingston hitting each other while Kingston plays out the best vinyl pants Kawada match structure. I loved it, and I loved Kingston's heavy armed chops, backfists to the neck, big damn STO, and his selling while taking a big bodied beating. When he goes to hit Irie and hurts his hand, recoiling and falling down to a knee and then back on his butt, I was gleeful. And by the end of the match where Irie headbutts to counter two spinning backfists, and Kingston is rolling around on the floor holding his hand while the ref tries to get a read on the situation? I was in wrestling heaven. Two incredibly fun personalities, throwing blows, adding their personal color in a wonderful combination, harkening back to a style of puro I greedily consumed (and looking even better coming not several hours after checking in for the umpteenth time on New Japan to the usual disappointment). Another Kingston classic. 

BJ Whitmer vs. Jimmy Wang Yang

PAS: This was Yang's first match in 3 years (he took another 2 off and worked a Tokyo Gurentai match in 2018). It was a lot of shtick to cover up a guy who hadn't worked in forever. They took a plant from the crowd and made her Yang's manager, had lots of stuff with the Duke, etc. Yang had some nice looking flips, but wasn't landing anything with particular force. It was OK, but more of a live crowd match then anything to revisit. 

Alex Daniels vs. Matt Cross vs. Triton vs. Laredo Kid

PAS: Fun spotfest. Triton had a nice double jump dive to the floor, but was a bit slow and a bit leadfooted for some of the stuff he was trying to do. Dainels was surprisingly adept at the armdrag/lucha rope running part of the match, he looked like he had been working in that style for years. Lots of crazy spots, leading to kind of a lame ending with Gregory Iron tossing in a belt for Daniels to graze Cross with for a roll up. Took a bit of the steam out of the match honestly.

Tracy Williams vs. Michael Elgin

PAS: This was a very 2010s wrestling match. With your opening feel out mat sections, exchanging of big bombs, moves on the apron, forearm exchanges and big 2.9 sections at the end. It is expected stuff. This did lack some of the true excesses of the style, there wasn't a bunch of no-sells or a big "fight forever" finisher killer end run, and it had some little moments I really dug. Elgin is a big strong guy, and they did a short arm scissors deadlift spot, which is one of my all time favorites. I also loved how Elgin stepped into William's forearm blunting the impact with his belly. Overall this was a good match in a style I am weary of. Williams had a hell of a singles match run in AIW from around 2016 until he got signed by ROH, and this was a worthy part of that run.

Josh Prohibition vs. Nate Webb

PAS: Prohibition gets on the mic and says that no one paid to see them wrestle a mat classic, so they go relaxed rules. This was a greatest hits Nate Webb show, from the Teenage Dirtbag entrance, to a bunch of dumb bumps, to all of his twisty offense. I am a Nate Webb fan, so I was happy to watch him play his hits (Eddie Kingston even makes that call on commentary). Prohibition got put through a table and thrown around a bit, he was fine Nate Webb dance partner, made him look good.

Teddy Hart vs. Facade

PAS: This was a super Teddy Hart match. Mr. Money comes down with him. They open with some pretty awesome Teddy matwork, including a Fujiwara take down, and an incredible spot where he caught a kick to the chest and turned into a mid air leg lace, it looked like something Tamura might do. Then, of course, Teddy hurts his ankle applying a spinning scorpion. They stop the match, have people come from the back, take his boot off. Teddy limps to the ring gets on the mic and apologizes to the fans and puts over Facade as the future of the business. Facade thanks him, and attacks him giving him a Canadian destroyer. Teddy is able to fight back though and lay Facade out with a Destroyer on a guard rail. It did a nice job turning Facade heel and setting up a blood feud rematch (although Teddy just should have been laid out and not gotten his heat back), but of course since this is Teddy Hart, he never comes back to AIW. Still a cool, if ridiculous bit of business.

ER: Teddy Hart pulls off things that most wrestlers can't, and this is him pulling off a modern era Chris Hamrick performance. Chris Hamrick never had a cat, but you can imagine how successful he would have been with a white cat (obviously) wearing a matching shiny confederate flag vest. I loved those matches where Hamrick would take a grizzly bump and stop everything, bring out a couple guys from the back to check on him, lie motionless talking under his breath in a scared tone about his neck or his knee, get an organic Hamrick chant going, and basically derail everything for 8 minutes just to cheapshot his opponent with a ballshot. Could he have just kicked his opponent in the balls without falling off the top turnbuckle and twisting his knee in the ropes? Well, yeah. And HHH could have just hit Stone Cold with a sledgehammer in the first segment instead of setting up an elaborate series of costumes and double switches before hitting someone with a sledgehammer (except faking a knee injury to kick someone in the balls is infinitely more interesting and HHH didn't understand that). Here Hart punches Facade across the mouth a bunch, drops some cool unexpected transitions, and eventually hurts his ankle and limps back to the ring to put over Facade, AIW, the crowd, the boys in the back, and professional wrestling. And I liked the twist of Facade being the one to lash out with a Canadian Destroyer. I think it would have been a great heel turn...if Teddy Hart didn't immediately get to do a FAR cooler Canadian Destroyer from the apron onto a freaking guardrail that Facade had set up. Oh my god Gordy just slammed the cage door right in Kerry's face! But look at that, here's Kevin, and he slams the cage door right in Flair's face!! Von Erichs win!! And they never fight again.

71. Raymond Rowe vs. Tommy End

PAS: These two looked like a mosh pit fight at a Black Metal concert. I think this could have been an incredible 10 minute sprint. Both guys have super cool ways to throw knees, kicks, forearms and punches. I really like how End throws combos from different places, shooting low kicks to the knee, and punches to the ribs and kicks high. Rowe had some bangers too, although he did do some unnecessary leg slapping. There were some especially gross knees to the back of the head. This did feel a bit bloated, lots of killer shots which should have ended a match, but instead were just kind of there without any context. This was a big main event with Rowe fighting his friend in his home town, so I get why it was worked at the length it was, and it was overall a good match, I just think with some edits it could have been a great one.

ER: I really liked this, but agree it went too long. It's a bummer when I find myself really hooked into a match, and then feel myself mentally checking out through the last few minutes of kickouts and strikes. There were a couple of those "I am definitely checking out now" moments, like nearfalls where the guy doing the pinning is the one who kicks out first, and the peak just felt like it hit, then we shot past it and it's like we don't actually know how to end things but at least we still hit hard. But I really like these two! End is a strike combo guy, but he's one of the few who doesn't actually do the exact same combos in the exact same order every time out. There's a lot of strike combo guys. Every one that I'm thinking of always goes through the same sequences in the same way. End always winds up surprising me with a couple of the ways he sets up a kick. He hits his hooking spin kicks so quickly and accurately that they really do seem to come out of nowhere, and we never wind up with any of those stupid "I kick you and then you bounce off the ropes and hit me and that spins me around into another kick" kind of bullshit, End just comes up with cool ways to land shots without ever swing dancing. I really dug the stuff on the floor, both guys hitting the railing, Rowe setting up knee strikes on the apron, but wherever they were at I was never quite sure what was going to happen next. They always kept me guessing, and I like the strikes and big slams from both (that standing splash mountain from Rowe is damn cool), they manage to avoid the worst parts of this style.


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AIW Double Dare Tournament Night 1 11/4/16

After really loving AIW Absolution show this year, I got pretty excited that Powerbomb.tv was going to start putting up AIW shows. They didn't have anything from 2017 up yet, but this was a super intriguing set of shows from 2016 a big tag tourney full of fun teams.

Space Justice (Space Monkey/Supercop Dick Justice) v. To Infinity and Beyond (Cheech/Colin Delaney

PAS: Space Justice had their Chikara shit they had to shoehorn in, and it was pretty groan worthy. When this wasn't half assed junior college improv troupe stuff, the wrestling was pretty good. Justice is a really fat dude, he looks like a less athletic Ron Jeremy, but he looked pretty good doing some lucha exchanges with Colin Delaney, he also took a great looking bump on a Delaney dive. The finishing run had some nice fancy stuff, and ended with a double team Kudo driver on Space Monkey which seemed like way too mean of a finish for a comedy guy to have to take.

ER: I showed up to this party mostly to watch my boy Weird Body, but caught the end of this one, and Phil is right, that Kudo driver is WAY too nasty to use against freaking Space Monkey. They practically dropped him vertically, seconds after he was doing comedy Baba chops (and some surprisingly nice headbutts to the midsection). Dick Justice is fat enough that I probably need to seek out more of him.

Jollyville Fuck-Its (T-Money/Dirty Russ) v. Weird World (Worldwide Alex Kellar/ Weird Body Evan Adams)

PAS: One of the reasons I was most excited to dig into this show was to see more Fuck-Its, and they didn't disappoint. Weird Body is one of the oddest looking wrestlers in the world, he has this hesher hair and a famine victim physique, but being such a tiny guy he takes a huge impressive beating. Worldwide is a big dude who kind of looks and wrestles like a young Bugsy McGraw, and he basically uses Weird Body as a weapon. Meat of the match is the Fuck-Its laying a beating on Weird Body which is exactly what I want. T-Money does multiple violent bodyslams that feel like they might break him in half, at one point T-Money hits the pounce and Weird Body flies violently into the ropes. Really fun beating, great first round match from the Boys from Jollyville.

ER: This was really fun, Weird Body is just totally entertaining to me, for reasons I can't explain. Maybe it's because his body looks like the David Cross acid bath character in the Mr. Show Titannica sketch, probably more because I've always been drawn to the weirdos and the chubsters and the freaks in my pro wrestling. Now that Ellsworth is out of WWE, I can't think of anybody more worthy of a strange Gowen/Delaney/Ellsworth contract. I guarantee you Weird Body would get over in WWE. Bring him in, sell a few t-shirts, send him to 205 Live, quietly release him. Then someday Chikara will bring in Delaney/Weird Body/Ellsworth for their trios tourney. And yes, this match is what I wanted it to be. I have absolutely no clue how long Adam's weird body will actually be able to hold up to pro wrestling bumps. He has absolutely nothing except his skeleton to absorb the shock. I imagine there is a finite amount of brutal T-Money bodyslams he'll be able to take before his skeleton just shatters apart, ruining the lives of everyone in attendance. But until then, we get to see him getting pounced violently into the ropes and getting suplexed while atop another man's shoulders. Alex Kellar has preposterously small "over trunks", as if he stole them from Adams. He borrows his boy's trunks, he needs to do a better job of protecting him from savages like T-Money! T-Money really did look awesome, and I don't think it was because he mostly matched up with a guy smaller than any female wrestler. Money has a Chris Dickinson aggressive jerk vibe, smashing headbutts and full force. Weird Body has some fun offense, most of it ineffective due to his size, so you see him hit a crossbody with his opponent draped over the ropes and instinctively go OH! and then immediately realize oh wait he's 85 pounds. But no matter, this was a blast. Finish is great as Russ drops a huge elbow/senton off the top (like Izu's old falling meteor)on Kellar, and Weird Body bursts in with the save!! Which is a huge mistake, as T-Money then wastes him, and Kellar gets pinned anyway.

Massage NV (Dorian Graves/VSK) v. Twerk Time (Marti Belle/Ray Lynn)

PAS: Ick. Massage NV's gimmick is that they give unwanted massages to their opponents to unnerve them, so watching them work a team of women was basically Harvey Weinstein the wrestling match. Even worse, Twerk Time are part of Gregory Iron and Alex Daniels crew, so team inappropriate touch were the baby faces. No one in this match seemed particularly good at straight wrestling (Marti Belle was famously the worst part of the MYC) so the parts of this that were a standard match weren't good either. This was gross and I wish the OCD completist part of my brain allowed me to tap out after the first minute or so.

FBI (Tracy Smothers/Little Guido) v. Team IOU (Nick Iggy/Kerry Awful)

PAS: Lots of pre-match horseshit with Smothers coming out with a Cubs shirt and Cubs flag to taunt the Cleveland audience. Smothers is a master of cheap heat, and it feels like he is beneath baseball team cheap heat, he wasn't bringing his best. Smothers is clearly in the no bumps portion of his career, which is fine his chops and karate thrusts still looked good. Not sure why Guido isn't booked all over the place, he still looked really good and the initial takedown and grappling section with Iggy was the highlight of the match for sure. Match itself was about half as long as the pre game stuff, and was a fine but unmemorable use of all four guys. Looking forward to seeing what IOU/Carnies did for the rest of the tourney.

Tracy Williams/Matt Riddle v. EYFBO (Mike Draztik/Angel Ortiz)

PAS: This was an enjoyable tag. I was really impressed how good EYFBO looked when they were doing some grappling early, you would expect them to get smoked, but they both looked good. There was a longish beatdown section on Riddle with a bunch of fun double teams, including an insanely high cannonball by Draztik. There was some SAT memorial silly double teams, including a goofus looking romero special on one guy, camel clutch another guy which definitely was the result of some stoned late night brainstorming. Finish run was exciting including a brutal tombstone right into a German finish by the Catch point team. Didn't out stay it's welcome and had some real exciting moments. Good stuff.

ER: I really liked this, and liked how it kind of evolved out of a semi-joking around atmosphere (fitting in with the rest of the card) into violence, big risks and some big nearfalls. I thought the early wrestling was really good, haven't seen anything close to this interesting from them during their entire Impact run. And during the opening half we get a nice look at what a solid underdog babyface Riddle is. He's an amazing athlete but his athleticism can cause him to go overboard on offense sometimes. Here we get to see his athleticism putting over the attacks from EYFBO and it makes them look like credible threats. The (brief) comedy moments are kept during the moments where EYFBO is cutting off the ring, so the match never stopped for everybody to work a bit, it was instead worked in as heel taunting: Ortiz posing while throwing weak mocking stomps to Riddle, or breaking out several backrakes while isolating him in their corner (though on a show where Weird Body already did an electric chair backrake, we had already reached peak backrake). It all lead to a super hot tag to Williams (perhaps Fiery Hot Sauce?) that sees him sprint across the ring to boot Draztik in the face, then kicking at him until he's off the apron, and hitting a nasty back elbow on Ortiz. We get hot nearfalls, some awesome BroSauce double teams, a dope Ortiz tope con giro through the ropes that smashes Williams into the guardrail, Riddle's big splat senton, just a super hot finish. The match built nice and really exploded.

Crime Tyme (JTG/Shad Gaspard) v. Brian Carson/Dr. Daniel C. Rockingham

PAS: I am too old to get any nostalgic thrill out of semi-crappy early 2000s racist WWE gimmicks. This was fine, but if you are going to book the Gangstas, book the Gangstas not some ripoff team aimed squarely at the Trump voter inside of Vince. This had some amusing shtick from the student team who cheated a bunch, until Crime Tyme got pissed and smacked Carson with the hoverboard in front of the ref. I did like the part where they blew a leapfrog and JTG started potatoing Dr. Dan, outside of that it was very skippable.

Crazy Pain (Steve Pain/Gringo Loco) v. NES (Facade/Flip Kendrick)

PAS: Always happy to see Segunda Caida favorite Flip Kendrick, having two great rudo bases like Pain and Loco is a perfect fit for all of Kendricks fancy shit. Liked the early lucha rope running section, both Pain and Loco are crazy agile for portly dudes. We had a rudo beatdown, which including Loco hurling Kendrick in the air into a Loco cutter. Cool dive section with a nutso multi spin dive by Flip and a fun finish run, with the rudos really winning convincingly with Pain hitting the painkiller and slamming Facade hard on Kendrick. This probably maxed out as a fun IWRG opening tag, but I really like IWRG opening tags.

ER: This was a perfect vehicle for the super impressive lucha stylings of Loco and Pain. Both have big bellies and seem like they have only grown since buying their ring gear, but damn are they just as quick as any tiny flier out there. The rope running and armdragging to start was maybe my favorite I've seen all year, just gorgeous stuff and the kind of flippery I love. Facade is a guy I always forget that I like, as I see him on sight and immediately go "ugh look at this guy" but he brings big strkes from weird angles, really feels more complete than a lot of juniors. Also, tagging people's signs during his ring entrance is a genuinely cool touch. The flying in this had a nice dangerous feel to it, as after we get past the super fast armdrags and quick exchanges, we get into some daredevil flying, quick ranas (Pain and Loco take fast ranas perfectly) big power moves (that alley oop into the cutter Phil mentioned was insane), the whole thing was tons of fun.

Headhunters v. Lucky 13/Eric Ryan

PAS: Pretty shocked that the Headhunters have all four of their feet at this point, much less actually moving around pretty good. Lucky 13 and Ryan are deathmatch guys brought in to eat the bumps for the Headhunters and both guys get killed and bleed all over the place. Headhunters really weren't taking bumps, but they were getting hit hard with chairs, and one of them even takes a Van Daminator from 13. Hunters are still flying, with each Hunter hitting a tope rope splash and one of them hitting a splash off the ring apron crushing a plastic table. I have no idea where the Headhunters had been for the last 20 or so years, but for nostalgia guys they looked pretty good.

PAS: Nothing blow away from the first night, but all of the right teams advanced for the most part, and I dug the Fuck-Its beating of Weird World, lucha tag, Catch Point and the Headhunters. Very excited for night 2.

ER: I greatly enjoyed the matches I watched , and we decided that the BroSauce and Pain/Loco AND the Weird World tags deserved a spot on our 2016 Ongoing MOTY List. AIW delivers the goods, again.

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Matches from AIW Bloodsport 9/9/16

1. Shawn Schultz vs. Tim Donst vs. Eric Ryan vs. Facade

ER: I haven't seen three of these guys before, and it's obviously been several years since I've seen Donst. Donst used to have his amateur wrestling body and gimmick, but now he's been clearly inspired by Kevin Owens' WWE success and Ethan Page's continuing Evolve push, so has modeled his look more after them. I came away from this really impressed by Eric Ryan, and also Facade. Facade looked like a guy playing a club promoter in the movie Strange Days. But he ties togther his indy offense nicely and adds nice thump to his transition strikes, feels much more like a late 90s OMEGA guy like Shannon Moore, than your current breed of similar indy workers who have flash but all their tie-together stuff looks garbage. Ryan was killer, moved really fast and took big bumps, hit some nice power offense. Best spot was him going for a suicide dive early, and his opponent just moves, and Ryan literally just does a suicide dive into the guardrail. Whole match was built around Donst in the crowd not wanting to wrestle, so you knew he was going to come in and win. But this was worth it just for the Ryan/Facade parts.

2. Eddie Kingston vs. Dan Severn

ER: Neat little 4 minute match, cool enough that had it happened on a 1998 episode of Shotgun would still be talked up today as a syndicated gem. Dan Severn is almost 60 and has hardly aged in 18 years, so it may as well have happened on Shotgun. They do a bit of tough matwork, Severn getting a double while Kingston works underneath for a kimura. Next time Severn shoots in for a double Kingston is waiting with a low knee, and Kingston acts surprised that it actually worked! Severn goes down from the knee and Kingston punces with muay thai knees, Severn blocks a backfist in a cool way, and that puts him in grappling range and Severn tosses Kingston a couple times with some cool unorthodox throws, then chokes him out. This came off like a cool Dave Taylor/Jerry Flynn WCWSN match, which makes it a win in my book.

3. Colin Delaney/Cheech vs. Russ Myers/T-Money vs. Steve Pain/Gringo Loco

ER: AIW is really good at throwing together these multi man spot tags, but it helps when you have someone like Steve Pain in there running things. This probably would have been better if we dropped Myers/Money from the equation, but there were enough moments that they added to that their inclusion was fine. Steve Pain, though - especially in matches like this - is just a bank full of money. He has all sorts of awesome convoluted offense, big slams and trippy powerbomb combinations, he's good at hand holding through other guy's cool spots, bumps big on a hiptoss to the floor, and will run face first into a back elbow. Loco has slowed down a little since his IWRG peak but he brings professionalism to a spotfest like this, so while maybe he should cut down on the complicated dives that have barely been clearing the apron, he's still an excellent hand in there to tie things together. Cheech and Delaney are fun together, dug their stereo dives and their silly Rube Goldberg style assisted rana. For their part Myers brought some amusing comedy, I did laugh at his terrible kip up spots, and his wild moonsault off of Pain's shoulders threatened to kill everyone. Money brought a slick dive over the top rope and a big pounce. Really love these kind of matches and I really need to start seeking out all Steve Pain matches.

4. Louis Lyndon vs. Matt Riddle

PAS: Louis Lyndon is an original Beyond Wrestling dude who I always enjoy, he used to do a Bruce Leroy gimmick and now seems to be doing some sort of Captain Mike Rotundo shtick. I really liked the start of this with Lyndon throwing cool lucha armdrags and Riddle countering them with armbar attempts, it was a very cool mix of styles and got me amped for the match. Unfortunately it didn't really live up to its early promise, as Riddle did a lot of hack cheap shotting and they were off on a couple of spots. Finish was a ref distraction and a low blow. Wouldn't mind seeing them match up again, but this wasn't much.

ER: I thought this maintained more than Phil did, as the early awesome spots ran longer than the couple troublesome spots down the stretch. But I liked Lyndon more than I liked Riddle in this one, which surprised me. Riddle definitely facilitated some of Lyndon's more complicated things and went over easy on germans, but Riddle also has begun doing tons of complicated build up to weak looking finishes. There was a moment where he was doing some slick standing floatovers and I thought he was going to spin into an old Minoru Tanaka armbar but instead he ends with a stupid looking Pele kick that just rarely reads well. It's like the more confident he gets in a wrestling ring, the more stupid stuff he tries, and the more he gets further away from his actual cool MMA integration. I didn't really need to see him ever try his hand at KENTA style kick combos, but we're starting to get more of that and less of the wild bumps and less of that Fujiwara/Ishikawa "always dangerous" spirit lurking underneath. Phil is right that Lyndon started this out hot, and some of those armdrags made me flip. That one where he grabs Riddle's wrist and does a snap bridge, tossing Riddle over? Nuts. Lyndon had a bunch of cool stuff here, and although they got crossed up a couple times down the stretch I thought the cool outweighed the overly cooperative. I actually liked the finish with Lyndon pulling the ref in front of him to stop Riddle's attack, then punting him low. So overall I liked this more than Phil, but it's starting to look like the bloom is coming off the Riddle rose a bit, but hopefully it's just a case of the guy working more and more, therefore more less than stellar performances emerging with the larger sample.

5. Shayna Baszler vs. Heidi Lovelace

PAS: This was the main event of an MMA tinged show, and by far the best I have seen Baszler look in her short pro-wrestling career. She comes off a little like a female Don Frye, cocky asshole, sort of likable, but a total killer. She has this great taunt early in the match where she chains into submissions while counting them out, I could have tapped you with this, or this, or this. Her cockiness leads to a great near fall where she flips off Lovelace only to get her head kicked in. Heidi brought it, working super stiff, and finding cool ways to use ranas as piledrivers. Bayzler still will occasionally pull a shot too much, but she is developing a better sense of when to lay it in, and has great charisma. Finish was cool with Heidi going for a senton, which lands her right into Baszler's rear naked choke. Post match Jessyman Duke and Rhonda Rousey come out to help her celebrate, which was pretty neat.

ER: I really liked this and was really impressed with Lovelace. Baszler was impressive as well, especially for someone who's probably just 25 matches into her career; but Heidi had this all mapped out, paced things really great, fed some great spots to Shayna, and really knew how to build this. The counting off submissions spots was such a great dickhead spot, "Here's an armbar, here's a wristlock, kneebar, heel hook, now I'll let you up." Phil pointed out how she can still pull too many shots, and there were a couple that came off bad, but that's where I thought Heidi really excelled, as when Shayna would pull one Heidi would respond with one of her stiffer shots, almost waking up Shayna to a "oh yeah, I can hit harder!" and her response blows would always be bigger. Loved Heidi's headscissor that smashed Shayna's face into the guardrail, and that kneeling rana that did the same, into the mat. Also dug Baszler shit talking a skater kid in the front row, who looked like a tiny male Heidi, with a starter mustache. There were a couple times where they went out to fight right in front of him, and they would lay it in for a little close up magic. Heidi knocked the finish out of the park with her "getting choked out" facials. Her face was looking pale and her lips even looked blue, made me think Shayna was actually murdering her. Really cool match, and I really hope they match up again somewhere down the line.

ER: Really fun show (especially when you skip matches with Ethan Page, Michael Elgin and BJ Whitmer!), and Baszler/Lovelace was good enough that it landed on our 2016 Ongoing MOTY List. But I dug all the matches I watched.

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EVOLVE 9 Road Report

One of the advantages of making your own work schedule is that you can do crazy shit like take a bus to NYC for a Tuesday wrestling show. Didn't want to miss Finlay back in the ring especially against a guy like Sami who will take a Finlay sized beating and fire back. Met my buddy Anthony at Penn Station and headed down to the show. BB Kings is a weird venue for wrestling, maybe the only wrestling arena in the world with bathroom attendants. Those guys were lucky to walk with $10 this night

Stockade/Apollyon v. Ryan Rush/MC Kenny Royal

Man was the heel team pretty awesome. They have the goofy wrestling name of "The Order of the Black" and are pro-wrestling as fuck. Two big fat guys with sloppy face paint who smash people with forearms and crowbarish clotheslines. Apollyon had a nice rolling senton and top rope splash, but I may have liked Stockade kicks to the face and forearm to the back even better. Ryan Rush took some big bumps, and the little guys stuck and moved before they got smushed. I would much rather watch indy guys try to approximate Rockers v. Twin Towers then Kobashi v. Misawa. My second favorite match of the night.

Greek God Papadon v. Alex Reynolds v. Kieran

I realized I have way too much background information about Greek God Papadon, I was able to list half a dozen facts about him to Anthony, I need to go to grad school. This was an indy three way, they have a low ceiling on how good they can be, and this didn't scrape that ceiling.

Eric Ryan v. Bobby Beverly

These guys are EVOLVEish guys having an EVOLVish match. 5'6 jacked guys doing indy reversal sections. One guy had a nice tope. Suplexes appear not to hurt them. This goes about five minutes before Kevin Steen comes in and hits a bunch of headrops. For some reason they didn't jump right up and scream when Steen hit them with suplexes. Steen shakes their unconscious hands and tells them "great match" which did make me laugh. He shoots for a bit, threatening to mouth rape Rob Naylor if he interrupts. Bobby Fish comes out and tells him that EVOLVE has rules, and he had better learn to color in the lines. Problem with running this angle, is that EVOLVE runs so sporadically, and is so goofily booked that am not sure they have any actual fans. People go to the show to watch wrestlers they like, but I can't imagine there are actual EVOLVE fans, the way ROH has fans or CZW has fans. When Steen talked about how stupid EVOLVE is, and how he is going to destroy it, folks seemed totally on board with that.

Super Smash Brothers v. Facade/Jason Gory

I usually judge these kind of tag spotfest with an almost Tim Noel mathematical formula. You have to have twice as many cool spots to stupid spots for me to tolerate it. This was right on the cusp of that, but I think it just cleared that bar. I liked Facade and Gory's hug each other quebrada, and Player Dos is pretty athletic and amazingly Canadian looking.

Sugar Dunkerton v. Silas Young

One thing I noticed while watching all of the indy wrestling TV a couple of weeks ago, is that there is a guy working 2011 Pez Whatley in pretty much every promotion out there. I am not sure if Sugar Dunkington is better then the Alabama Ebony Diamond or the Nevada Ebony Diamond, and I know he isn't as good as Dinamic Black, but I enjoy that gimmick. Silas Young is a seedy looking guy with Metal hair and there is a bunch of amusing shit talking in the match. Young worked him over and yelled "This is wrestling not the stupid shit you do." I am not sure if Young is working a "Chikara is retarded" gimmick, but if he is, he will finish way too high on the Segunda Caida 500. Post match Young calls out Johnny Gargano. Gargano comes out and apologizes for pressuring Silas to have a drink, thus causing him to fall off the wagon and go on a bender. Gargano then says he has never drunk alcohol so he doesn't know how it effects you. I am not sure in what world "Straight Edge asshole taunts a recovering addict into relapse" is a babyface gimmick. My attempts to start the Serenity Prayer as a wrestling chant fail. "ACCEPT THE THINGS I CAN NOT CHANGE, CHANGE THE THINGS I CAN"

Pinkie Sanchez v. Lince Dorado

Dorado has a couple of nice armdrags early, but the match really fell apart. Both guys were really dainty with their stuff. EVOLVE is a fed were folks stiff each other, it makes stuff like Sanchez and Dorado were throwing look even worse. Lince tries a shooting star press with the low ceiling and I get worried. Sanchez has been wrestling for a while, but I bet he can't improv as well as Mitch Ryder.

Larry Dallas comes out wearing the same shiny shirt as Lenny Leonard. If your gimmick is a rich guy throwing money around, it looks really bad to be wearing the same Express teal dress shirt as the schlubby T-Rex armed announcer. Also Dallas is way too tall to work as a manager in a fed like EVOLVE. Although to be fair Jimmy Hart would probably be too tall to work as a manager in EVOLVE. Dallas is two inches taller then his bodyguard and five inches taller then his new tag team. He introduces his new team, The Scene, Scott Reed and Caleb Konley. If you are going to have a tag team named "The Scene" they have to look like they belong to the same scene. Doesn't matter what the scene is. Konley and Reed look like they would never hang out if they weren't shoehorned into a makeshit tag team. Reed had a topknot, shitty dojo queen tats and roid belly, Konley looked like a Mormon Missionary.

The Scene v. Up in Smoke

Cheech and Cloudy are always solid, but the Scene were really bland and didn't bring a ton to the match. Cloudy did take some big bumps and a really nice dive. Not much of a match though.

Post match Leonard asks Cheech about the loss and he turns on Cloudy and hits his finisher on him. Now Cheech and Cloudy have been teaming together for like 8 years, they are one of the longest running tag teams in the last two decades. If you are going to break them up shouldn't it mean something? Cheech hitting a goofy GTS variation after a throw away mid card tag to utter crowd indifference is Russo terrible. Is anyone in the world excited about Cheech v. Cloudy? Especially after that wet fart of an angle?

Jon Davis v. Bobby Fish

Steen had been at ringside doing commentary for the last couple of matches. 30 seconds into this match he runs in and forearms Fish causing a DQ. We get a bunch of back and forth on the mike setting up a 3-way. Davis obliterates the ref with a great lariat and says he wants to fight both guys.

Jon Davis v. Bobby Fish v. Kevin Steen

Steen was supposedly at EVOLVE to cut a promo not wrestle, and he kind of wrestled like a guy who didn't show up planning to wrestle. I have liked Fish before, but didn't think he looked good here, his kicks were more flash then substance and he didn't convey the anger he was supposed to have for Steen. I did like Davis, although he wasn't the focus of the match (although he did get the win). Felt like any combination of these guys in a singles match would have been way better.

John Silver v. Tony Nese

I just hated this match. Pretty much a microcosm of all that is wrong with 2011 professional wrestling. One of the things that the death of territories mean is that there aren't way fewer guys making their living on professional wrestling. I am sure most people on this card are wrestling as a hobby. No one wants to play the bit part in community theatre, everyone wants to be Henry Hill. This was the match after intermission, we still had two main events to go, there was no reason for these two guys to go out and try to do some amalgamation of Beniot v. Sasuke and Misawa v. Kobashi. This was about the most bog standard indy showcase match you can imagine, two guys who trained with each other checking off every box on the "This is Awesome" checklist. Missed moves, armdrags, double dropkick, kip up, wait for applause CHECK. Forearm exchange while making intense faces at each other CHECK!! Taking a headrop selling like you are unconscious for a second, only to get up and start hitting moves like nothing happened CHECK, CHECK CHECK CHECK!!! It's like Gabe watched some dreck like Davey Richards v. Eddie Edwards and thought, I could do that with two guys even shorter, that the crowd doesn't know, and stick it in the midcard.This was the Boehner Plan as a wrestling match, it is News of the World hacking dead soldiers cellphones, Amy Winehouse's last shot of dope, the wrestling match Andrers Brevik dreams of when he goes to sleep.

Sami Callihan v. Fit Finlay

This is why I took a bus to NYC and it delivered everything I wanted it to. Finlay was rocking orange and white gear, I am not sure whether that means he has converted to Protestantism, but I would really be into Apostate Finlay vs. soon to be released Mistico. Man does Finlay look like the baddest fucker in the world live, Barrel chest, thick forearms. He looks like a guy who owns a Belfast bar and once split a mouthy British soldiers head open with a pool cue. Sami comes right at him at the bell and he runs directly into the hardest forearm I have ever seen live. I thought that Finlay knocked him out cold, I would have been a little bummed to take a four hour bus ride for a seven second match, but it might have been worth it. The match goes from there with Sami getting in Finlay's face and paying for it. There is a great moment early when he slaps Finlay and Fit responds with a no hands bar fight headbutt. Sami fired back the best he could, he just blistered Finlay with chops to the throat, and hit a couple of big running kicks and his running forearm. Really cool story here with Callihan trying to earn Finlay's respect and Finlay making him earn it by kicking the shit out of him. There was this point where Callihan has Finlay in the corner, Finlay calls for the break and as the ref gets between them Fit kick Sami in the kneecap. Callihan responds by screaming something like "forget the cheapshots, lets go strike for strike and see who is toughest." Finlay responds by cheap shotting him in the knee again which was such a great "fuck your fake puro fighting spirit" moment. Finlay is here to kick ass and cash a check, he doesn't have shit to prove to anyone.

Finish run was perfect, Sami gets him to the floor and goes for his tope, Finlay dismissively walks away leaving Sami to fly throat first into the guard rail. He is fucked, but still sharp enough to trip Finlay when he was trying to get into the ring. Sami goes to the top, but gets swept off taking a big fall into the ring. Finlay hits a Celtic Cross, which Sami kicks out of. He is beaten but still flips Fit off, Finlay hits him with another Celtic Cross for two again. Sami can barely lift his body off the mat, but still flips the double bird to Finlay. At this point Sami looks like Patricia Arquette at the motel room in True Romance. Finlay finally lifts him up and absolutely plants Callihan with his awesome jumping tombstone for the three count. Fuck I had forgotten how beautiful Finlay's tombstone was. Just a great match, which I can't wait to watch again. Callihan has spent much of this year having good matches with chumps, I am glad he got to get in with someone above his level. Finlay is fucking back, which is the most exciting thing in wrestling in 2011, I want to watch every time he steps into a ring.

Post match Finlay gets on the mic and puts over Callihan as one of the toughest guys he has been in the ring with, with a raspy Lawrence Tierney voice which he attributes to Callihan's chops. Anthony and I decide to bail on Chuck Taylor v. Johnny Gargano and go eat some Bon Chon Chicken. It was a one match show for me, and that match totally delivered so no complaints for me. If EVOLVE books a rematch, they sell a ticket to me.

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