Found Footage Friday: 1998 IWA MID-SOUTH TV~! BULL PAIN~! IAN~! TRAILER PARK~! DUNN~! FAIRWAY~! SMOTHERS~!

MD: We don't usually do full episodes of TV but four episodes of 1998 IWA Mid South TV have popped up and they're full of matches. We'll do the first two now and double back for the rest later.

IWA Mid-South Hardcore TV 1/31/98

Steven Dunn (with Kenny Bolin & Rico Beatty) vs. Bobby Martin

MD: Super competent TV squash. I wasn't expecting comfort food on this thing, but here it was. I kept waiting for Dunn to pull Martin up instead of just lackadaisically covering him and I was happy when he finally did. The hope was fairly minimal as it should be. Really this was just a mauling with one power move after the next. Even when we see a squash on ROH TV now it doesn't quite look like this. It's either more rushed or more 50/50. On a show with a ton of matches, this had time to breathe. It's supposed to feel just a little excessive (but not too excessive). That's how Dunn gets heat. When Jones fast-counted at the end, I wasn't sure if it was a heel move or a bit of mercy for Martin.

ER: Strongly worked squash from Steven Dunn. Look at Dunn getting on the gear after WWF, just in time for All Japan and eventually the Derby Sports Arena. He looks great. He looks like geared up Jim Powers but everything he does is better than the best thing geared up Jim Powers could do (running clothesline?). Dunn is dominant and keeps it moving the whole time, giving us a full 5 minute squash without filling time by trash talking the audience. Dunn throws great punches, stomps Martin's hands, pokes the man in the eyes when he's on his knees, despicable tough guy stuff. The escalation of everything was strong, including the way he slowly worked Martin into the match. Martin gets punched in the head trying a sunset flip and I assume that's the most "offense" he would get, until Dunn runs into a boot in the corner. Then runs into it again. Then again. I'm not sure I've ever seen that. Dunn just kept running into that boot, like a guy still playing paper when his opponent only throws rock. Great gag to work Martin into the match, and Martin looks good punching Dunn across the ring. I also love that Dunn finished the match almost right after, dropping to his knees with a powerbomb to stop a rana attempt. 

IWA Mid-South Television Title Three Way: Chip Fairway (c) vs. Cash Flo (with Billy The P) vs. Rollin' Hard 

MD: I will give Thatcher credit. On commentary, he was pushing the idea of variety hard, noting that Dunn had worked a more 70s/80s classic style and here he was pushing that each of these three worked a different style. And it more or less worked as a promotional tool. I bought into it at least. I'd say this overachieved but only because I had my doubts coming in. It's still a three-way. Rollin' had some issues hitting some things and there was weird leg selling that felt almost legit and then went away in the middle. The alliances shifted though Flo and Chip worked against Rollin more often than not. They always betrayed one another and came back to it. Rollin felt like a de facto face at best. I'm not sure the crowd was ever particularly behind anyone here. They did keep things moving. The TV title felt like it was being used to highlight these younger guys with less time in the business and this was champ vs two former champs. Chip won it by hitting a cheapshot off the top after Flo hit the Alabama Jam. Like I said, despite some issues, it probably overachieved but in a very "all things considered" sort of way.

ER: I enjoyed this a lot even if the match structure is brutally bad. Three ways stink, for reasons on vivid display, namely the last half of a too long match (why did this go 15 minutes!?) comprised of constant pinfall break ups and pins for things that would never win a match. Rollin' Hard has the most in ring experience of the three and looks like he has the least. Hard was such dead weight, it's hilarious. He cannot get up for anything. It takes Chip working with Cash just to get Rollin' over for a back body drop, which has no lift whatsoever. This man would not float in the Dead Sea. 

The big takeaway here is what a phenom Chip Fairway was just a few months into his career. This match would have somehow been much worse as a singles match between Flo and Hard, as Fairway does his best to glue this growing mess together. It probably wouldn't have been a mess had it gone 8 minutes instead of 15, but it goes 15 and desperately needs Fairway. He's a great bumper, great at taking offense, great at working hard heel offense, honestly looks like someone with as much polish as anyone on this show who worked in major feds. He bumps hard to the floor, and when he makes his way back in he does an expertly timed low bridge that sends Cash over the top backwards. His bumps have great punch to them, jumping into the impact, not overselling after hitting the mat, just focusing on the impact. 

Fairway has better stomps than anyone working on US TV right now, and his lariat to Cash was finisher worthy. When he breaks up a pin (and there are a lot of broken up pins!) he's the only one making it look like he's using the opportunity to land a shot on one of his opponents. He throws great lefty punches with snap, his chops have loud sound and louder impact. He reminded me a lot of Adam Priest, only larger and wrestling in a t-shirt. The finish itself looked great, even if the several minutes leading us there were not. Cash Flo's Alabama Jam looked fantastic, and Fairway getting the win by breaking up Flo's pin with a top rope elbowdrop across the back of the head looked like a real finish. 

We've written about a lot of IWA Mid-South, but I don't know that we've written about Fairway before now. We should do that more often. 

Paul Diamond vs. Adam Flash

MD: Diamond felt about equivalent to Dunn so it made sense that they were on a collision course of sorts. He still had a lot of gas in the tank though, even if it was used in odd ways at times. Flash took much more of this than the guy in the opener and even won it after Dunn interfered (and a fast count from Jones; so not mercy in the first match). They kept it mostly tight with arm drags and hip tosses and reversals. Flash hit a low dropkick at one point and Diamond a pumphandle slam for a nearfall. He also hit this pretty bizarre back leap off the top into what I think was supposed to be a DDT but just sort of flattened Flash instead. Still, for the most part, Diamond looked like he belonged on TV and if he was on a card in 1998 I'd probably shrug and say sure, I'd go see him.

ER: I didn't like this as much as the Dunn squash, but it had similar strong qualities. I actually think Steven Dunn had more major fed potential than Diamond, but Diamond had the height that Dunn didn't and wrestled more like a heavyweight. Dunn worked a strong Memphis style and had an excellent sense of pacing. Paul Diamond wrestles more like a late 90s heavyweight like Wrath-but smaller, for the good and bad that entails. He had great force on his backbreaker and his awesome corner crescent kick hung on Flash's body. That corner spin kick is my favorite piece of Jerry Flynn's offense, Diamond's looked just as good. Flash was starting to gain confidence, getting the timing of his punches down and too afraid to throw them from distance, but I remember him eventually becoming a guy I liked rather than Not Good Kidman. 

Tracy Smothers vs. GQ Masters III (with Kenny Bolin)

MD: Smothers, unsurprisingly, looked like a million bucks. Bolin came out to start to work with Masters on a trial basis, more to get at Smothers than anything else. Bolin was all over the show, of course. Tracy was babyface and had a few FBI gestures but was mainly just his walking on water Southern Boy self. Masters got in a bit after a racket shot in the corner but Smothers cameback with an awesome flurry of offense, winning it with his cool fall forward cradle slam that I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone else really do. Looked great though. Bolin was foiled on this day. 

ER: Damn you talk about underrated guys we haven't written enough about, GQ Masters is an underrated guy that I love. I don't even know that he worked a hundred matches, he was just incredible at getting in there and taking a stooging ass kicking. I think this whole match could have been worked with Smothers just standing in the dead center of the ring, because GQ kept rushing headlong into everything, then would get his ass kicked and scramble to the ropes every time. When Bolin finally hit Smothers in the knee with the racket, GQ got to punch Smothers across the ring, and had that same excited look on his face like when Duane Gill would land something before getting his neck crunched with a DDT. GQ sold that DDT like Tenryu, neck damaged but the top of his hairline still smarting from the impact. Smothers has a tremendous belly to belly and really rag dolls Masters on his finishing slam. Masters just had a great knack for making offense painful. I wish GQ Masters III was someone who was wrestling now, in a place where I could book him to throw punches and get his ass beat, the way wrestling should be. 

Shark Boy vs. Mad Man Pondo

MD: Pondo bumped all over the ring for Shark Boy for the first few minutes. I don't think it actually served either of them because it didn't feel earned. There was no resistance to it. No weight to any of it. I get why they did it as it was almost all Shark Boy for a minute or two before Pondo nailed him off the top with the stop sign for the win. Still, it was one of those cases where doing what intuitively led to making Shark Boy good actually didn't make him look as good as if he had to earn it.  

ER: I cannot believe Shark Boy took 90% of the match while sporting the most low budget indy ass look in indy wrestling. The whole time I was waiting for Pondo, this dirtbag ass looking superstar, to kick this jabrone's ass and instead it was all Shark Boy offense. Shark Boy hit a clothesline that landed much harder than I expected for a guy who was much smaller than Pondo. He had a nice elbowdrop, nice punch, but did not have enough material - or size - to run so much of the match. I don't think Pondo landed a single piece of offense, just hit Shark Boy with a stop sign and needed a Jeff Jones fast count to win. Why was Shark Boy being presented so strong? He had no look to speak of and looked more like a non-wrestler who was wearing someone's leftover tights, but they worked this like Hogan vs. The Genius, only with freaking Mad Man Pondo in the Lanny Poffo role. 

Axl Rotten vs. Trailer Park Trash

MD: "Trash a long wiry wrestler" as Thatcher let us know. It is fun that Thatcher has to say Trailer Park or Trailer Park Trash over and over. Axl is pretty over here. Trash does a good job taking a punch (or even teasing it) and running. Solid heatseeking before he can get a cheapshot. When he's leaning on him, the crowd's happy to chant Axl. Pretty smart match for this crowd overall. Trash almost looks too together and with it, more like a perfect slimy used car salesman than a guy called Trailer Park Trash. He misses an Alabama Jam (which is probably not something he should be doing if it's Cash Flo's big move) and Axl hits a great reverse exploder that probably has a name I should know but don't. Then Pondo hits the ring and Ian makes the save and this all builds to something bigger.

ER: Talk about a trend, us not writing about underrated guys who we should be writing exclusively about, because Trailer Park Trash - like GQ Masters, like Chip Fairway - also perfectly fits. TPT is a perfect Wrestler-as-Bad Boyfriend, getting his ass whooped around the trailer park after coming home too late too drunk. He's wiry, he's not so much a scumbag, he just looks like a good ol boy who loves watching The Intimidator and hates pretty boy racers like Daryl Waltrip. He is an excellent stooge, but I appreciate the ways Rotten sold for him (even before I knew they were setting up a tag for next week). Rotten hit the turnbuckles and rolled away holding his back so convincingly that he looked like a guy with a slipped disc. 

The post-match was excellent and made me - and anyone watching I assume - excited to see the tag next week. This is how you set up a hot match in one quick angle. Ian comes out to beat Pondo's ass around ringside while Trailer Park beats Axl in the ring. When Trailer Park Trash is throwing mounted punches at Axl's face, he looks like the best wrestler on these shows, which are filled with great wrestlers. Ian shoves Pondo into the ringpost and swings a chair off his head right one foot away from some teenagers. Ian looks like a damn fighter in the brawl, to the point where his punches and arm strikes look more damaging than his unprotected chairshot.  

IWA Mid-South Hardcore TV 2/7/98

Loser Leaves Town For 30 Days: Steven Dunn (with Kenny Bolin & Rico Beatty) vs. Paul Diamond

MD: On paper, at least, this show gave a bunch of payoffs to the previous one, so that's great. Honestly, this would have been really good with an extra five minutes. I think either in shocking people or leaning into the times or just protecting Diamond in the loss, they just completely left out the heat. Dunn ran to start and caught Diamond as he came back into the ring but between that and the false finishes after a ref bump, that was it. Diamond took over quickly and hit a bunch of stuff (a dangling kick to the gut followed by an inverted atomic drop, that move he tried the previous week off the second rope (it's a twisting bulldog, not a DDT), a spin wheel kick in the corner, and even chairshots on the outside (which blunted the finish because why should we care about Bolin/Beatty interfering if he can just do that?). Then the ref bump, a false finish after Diamond got Beatty and a phantom Pin after Bolin hit Dunn by accident (and the spin wheel kick), before the powder and the DDT on the chair to send Diamond packing for 30 days. There was a great conventional match in here, or even a heated no DQ match, but unfortunately, we're in February 1998.

ER: You know this was going to be hot because Diamond waits the entirety of Van Halen's "Right Now" piano intro before running out during the guitar intro, and the music shuts off like 5 seconds into the guitar intro because it's not a very big building and Diamond runs to the ring pretty fast. Kenny Bolin looked great last week in his black Member's Only jacket but the white Member's Only looks incredible this week. I'm with Matt that part of this seems to be worked No DQ but acknowledging that would make other parts of the match meaningless, so it's those loose ECW rules where Anything Goes but also we want to get heat with interference and traditional comebacks so we just have to compartmentalize things, focus on all the good parts about the work. Like, the way Diamond stops short of a Dunn leapfrog and punches him upon Dunn's landing, or how Dunn didn't want to just take out the referee, he dropped an elbow right on the back of his neck. I will always love a ridiculous powder finish. Salt in the eyes works so well, but powder leaves the ring looking like a building was just imploded. Dunn throws powder and DDTs Diamond on a chair, and the ref crawls over to make the count while the ring looks like the aftermath of the Onita/Funk exploding cage match. 

Flash Flanagan (with Kenny Bolin & Rico Beatty) vs. Adam Flash

MD: This was pretty well put together with a couple of solid transitions, the hope spots you'd expect, and a good finish. Flanagan looked crisp in mostly everything he did. (Adam) Flash did not, which did hurt this. Still pretty good overall though. They had some nice kip up bits in the feeling out. Flash took over with the high octane stuff including a dive. Flanagan caught him in the corner with a power bomb and then really went to work with measured offense. The ropes (which he used a few times to choke) seemed... best way I can explain it is that the covering for the rope was too long for the rope/cable itself so it was bunched up at points that gave the ring a permanent look of distortion. I've rarely seen ring ropes like that before. Anyway, Flanagan went for a flipping legdrop and Flash moved. Then he went for a big moonsault and missed allowing Flanagan to hit his back leap neckbreaker, which was pretty slick actually. This felt, again, very much of its time, with someone polished up against some eager and the two of them trying to find some sort of middle ground that worked.

ER: Not great, but how else is Adam Flash going to learn? This feels like something stupid we would book for a DEAN~! show, entertaining ourselves by getting two of wrestling's Flashes into a match and then it's just a 12 minute match where one guy is over their skis. If we do a Bay Area show I'm not sure it's worthwhile to put Cheerleader Melissa under her Alyssa Flash persona, and if we book Scorpio it won't make sense to use him as Flash Funk. AEW didn't let use use Sting under his Blade Runner persona, so we're left with Flash Flanagan vs. Adam Flash and it's fine. 

Flash is just a bit too tentative in a lot of his offense, like he has good intentions but he's too scared to actually hit someone in the chest with a dropkick, too scared he's going to make a misstep, too scared he's going to throw a potato so he throws his punches with the shortest windup possible. A 10+ minute match with a tentative opponent needs a guy like Flanagan in there running things, making things make sense, bumping big for Flash when it's appropriate. Flash was good at working around Flash's shortcomings. Flash was hitting bad standing dropkicks all match, so I appreciated that Flash makes him miss a bad one and it leads directly to him transitioning to offense. When Flash hits the most tentative jackknife pin I've seen, Flanagan uses it to roll to his feet into a sick powerbomb. Also, for as bad as Flash's standing dropkicks looked, his seated dropkick and a kind of nuts one he did off the apron were much better. This is IWA Mid-South, you can hit guys! 

I like how Flanagan's offense is good at setting him up for potential misses, as he escalates moves he's already established. He hit a nice legdrop off the middle buckle for 2, and later he escalates by attempting a big somersault legdrop off the top (looks like it was nice and squared up, too). I don't know that Flanagan needed to take such a high back body drop for a guy like Adam Flash, but he's a pro. It's appropriate that Flash missed his moonsault. Chalk it up to those janky ring ropes Matt mentioned. You truly have not seen ropes like this before. It's like every inch of the ropes was fighting to get out of its casing, so the ropes were all twisted and took strange right angles. They looked like our old rotary dial phone cord, which was 20' long and impossible to uncoil. 

IWA Mid-South Heavyweight Title: Bull Pain (with Billy The P) (c) vs. Tracy Smothers

MD: Another good one with some goofy booking at the end. Watching Smothers, especially after a certain point in his career, is always engrossing, always engaging. He has a way of just being constant motion, of redefining how we think of action. He does a bunch of relatively tricked out offense (Reverse DDT, Flatliner of sorts, his pump handle front slam, the jumping superkick), but that's not what I mean. He has that Roddy Piper ants-in-his-pants way of just never stopping. He never stands still. He never primes up and waits for the next thing. He never thinks of his next spot. He's just always fluid. There's also something he does that I never quite noticed until now but feels so unique: Most people will do a ten punch or strike exchange with the same hand over and over, but he switches sides. It's so visually different from everyone else. 

Pain made for a good foil for him. We're in an era where if you put your head down, you'll get power bombed instead of kicked and that was the transition with Tracy having to fight his way back (and get cut off a couple of times with belly to back suplexes). Finish was all about Billy the P feuding with Bolin. Pain went for a Superplex and Bolin held Tracy's legs. They went another minute or two before Tracy won the belt. Billy the P then went on the mic and said that Tracy shouldn't win that way and they restarted the match leading to Tracy's leg getting grabbed and Bull hitting the DDT. Big problem with it was that they worked a normal finishing stretch after the interference the first time. It made it seem like Tracy did earn it. If they had gone to the finish more quickly you could have bought it all more maybe? That's part of the point I guess.

ER: What a monster of a Bull Pain performance. I love Tracy, he was one of those guys who I sought out just about every match of his until the man passed. New Tracy was something I would always try to watch. But Bull Pain shows up and he's such a merciless ass kicker that he brings even more of the IWA-MS flavor that I want, even more than Tracy. Bull Pain is the quintessential IWA wrestler, because he throws so much force behind every kick, every punch, every chop and every blistering arm strike...but will also work abdominal stretch top rope leverage horseshit and take a crazy back body drop bump on the floor to start the match. He's nuts, he hits hard, he'll waste you with a falling clothesline if you run into his boot. 

He's great at taking Smother's best offense. Smothers had a big offensive tool bag and wasn't always in with guys who could take it well. I mean that for simple things and complicated things. Tracy's corner 10 count punches look real good bouncing off Bull's bald white head, and his back elbow off the top looks decapitating, like something Ospreay would do (complimentary). Tracy does an actual good version of a reverse STO, hooking his arm around Bull's neck before hopping back with it, locking Bull into only one kind of bump. I thought it was amusing how Bull transitioned back to offense by just powerbombing Smothers, like he decided he wasn't taking any more. Tracy ducks and Bull just powerbombs him, then starts headbutting him in the stomach. I liked the restart, if only because it gave us more involvement from the truly bizarre Billy The P. Wrestling needs more weird little guys. It's one of pro wrestling's great deficiencies. The small weird guys get run off, back to being a paying customer, because Wrasslers don't want to be associated with them. But IWA was in no position to run anyone off so we get this weird little guy dressed up like a Star Search tap competitor, grabbing Tracy's leg so Bull can spike him with a DDT. 

Bad Breed (Axl Rotten/Ian Rotten) vs. Mad Man Pondo/Trailer Park Trash

MD: This was a tornado tag and I have to give them credit. This was absolutely of its time but it still left everyone satisfied and ended definitively. They went around the ring, used chairs. At one point Ian hit a spin wheel kick in the corner (not sure where the agenting was there as it was a big Diamond move earlier, but again, sign of the times... granted, that'd happen today on a PPV too so I guess it's just the chaos of having wrestlers drive the ship to a degree). I don't ever really get the sense that they were in danger, except for when Bolin came in with the racket, but then Billy the P came in to stop that and they kept that churning. There was ref hooha with Jeff Jones running out after a bump but refusing to count 3 (checking on the other ref instead). Then they tore his neckbrace off and the good ref DDT'd him. Finish was a nice reverse double suplex. This absolutely accomplished what it was trying to do. The value of what they were trying to do is subjective, sure, but you can't say they didn't nail it.

ER: This rocked, a great kind of mess with tons of moving parts, Ian gets fantastic color while Pondo has gross diseased blood pooling out under his bangs, the whole thing is a great fight. Paul Diamond takes a double unprotected chairshot in a truly This is 1998 way. I'm expecting Pondo to take something stupid like that but Diamond really was wrestling a When in Rome style and that meant he too was going to seek brain damage. This just got better the longer it went and the bloodier it got. I laughed loud when Ian hit the same corner spinning heel kick that Paul Diamond hit earlier. Jerry Flynn started doing it on TV in 1997 and now every heavyweight in IWA wants to jack it. Diamond's looks strong, but I appreciate Ian doing it in Flynn's style, so he falls but first to the apron. The fact you can no longer see his face skin through the darkest red blood makes it better. 

The breakdown of the match is fantastic. Axl is trying to get Pondo in a katahajime while Ian and Trailer Park are just punching each other on the floor in the foreground. The punches get better as Axl grabs Pondo by his bangs and headbutts him a half dozen times. It all builds to an unexpectedly gigantic pop, as fans lose their absolute minds when ref Eric Moore hits a DDT on Jeff Jones. I mean people were leaping up and down on bleachers after this DDT. Trailer and Pondo were getting dumped on their heads to normal reaction, but Jeff Jones taking a DDT got a reaction so much louder than anything else on these two episodes of TV. They're still feeling that high when the Rottens dump Trailer Park on his head again with a reverse suplex. It's a testament to the fans in Louisville that they respond biggest to angle payoffs and not just brutal headshots. 

 

Read more!

Found Footage Friday: EDDIE~! JANNETTY~! COLT~! GANG~! REY~! GERMANY~!

MD: Going to finish out last month's Richard Land Germany knowing we've got some 81 footage to go through too (Rudge vs. Bret Hart for one).

9/6/80

Axel Dieter vs. Kim Duk

MD: Just a clip. We come in JIP. We get no finish. It's almost entirely Duk chopping Dieter with karate strikes. Overhand shots. I've seen a lot of Duk between Germany and Puerto Rico and that one cool Korea match that came up last year. And he can be very good. He really can. And we get flashes of that here right at the end when he's scrapping with Dieter who's firing back. The chops are quicker. They hit harder. He's actually trying to cut a resurgent warrior off instead of just marking time. Usually though, I find him lacking and I did in the first bit here. He's relatively big and has a great look and a clear personality and he just does the bare minimum to limited effect a lot of the times. But when it is time to go, he goes hard. Not much here.

Sal Bellomo/Achim Chall vs. Jim Harris/Tom Shaft

MD: Something of a slight tag but another look at Shaft and another chance to see Pre-Kamala Harris. There was some tomfoolery early where neither Harris nor Shaft wanted to be in there (past one shaky bit at the start, Harris fed pretty well for early shine), but as you can imagine, Harris was able to take over fairly quickly. It was interesting to see him do the handshake with one hand behind is back on his knees deal, which led to the transition. He had a misunderstanding with the ref. Due to the nature of the rules, you have to connect a pin to your last move in some way shape or form. His big splash defied that and he had to make sure to get in an extra bodyslam and quick pin to win the fall. Shaft did not impress. He could grind someone down but whenever he tried to do anything more (like a butt butt where he barely got off the ground) it just lacked oomph and energy. 

Not much to say about the faces. Bellomo took massive back body drops here and Chall came in hot on the hot tag. Good strikes. Bellomo won the second fall with a body block but everything got thrown out, with the heels getting DQed for illegal double teaming early into the final fall. More educational than entertaining overall.

9/13/80

Chris Colt vs. Louis Lawrence

MD: I knew how great Chris Colt was. I've seen him in a bunch of different territories, right? But watching him in these German matches is a whole different beast. He's itchy. That's the word. He wrestles like he's seeing colors wherever he looks and it's wild. Everything he does is worth watching, whether it's strutting around the ring as he's being announced or pointing at the ref, paranoid, between rounds. At the end of one round he was trying to get out of a headlock with roll ups and lifts where he got taken over, and he just decided to lay there in the middle of the ring once the bell rang. Lawrence had to come over and pour water on him and then he freaked out. Constant motion, constant manic energy, just fascinating to watch.

Lawrence, unfortunately, was not fascinating to watch, but I guess he provided a sane baseline for everything going on around him. There was one point where he just put him in a cross toehold for a few minutes and Colt WAS entertaining in it but they could have been doing a hundred more entertaining things. Finish was pretty hilarious as Colt guided the ref to the ropes to look out so he could climb them to do an elbow drop off the top. But the ref only looked for a second. It clearly didn't work. Just a "Look over there" that was futile, but the ref let him get away with it anyway. Maybe it was legal there and he thought it wasn't? Who knows? Anyway every match we get with him here is well worth watching.

Eddie Guerrero vs. Marty Jannetty ECW Enter Sandman 5/13/95

ER: We only had this (already short) match in very clipped form, and now we have all six minutes. Eddie had wrestled a 30 minute draw earlier in the night against Malenko and who could say what could ever have happened in that one. Maybe someday we'll get to see any of the Malenko/Guerrero matches but for now I'll watch this unclipped match for the first time and...see why ECW originally clipped it so much. This isn't that great! That's unexpected! This is one of those times where I was really hoping for a hot go go go short match, two guys who can work some speed and never otherwise wrestled, and instead it's kind of slow and sleepy and structurally confused. Eddie seemed tired and Marty worked down to his sleepy foe. Eddie and Dean had jerked each other off for a half hour earlier but Joey Styles wasn't pushing Eddie being tired from an earlier match whatsoever on commentary, so I guess this was just a couple quick guys working at 75%. Eddie pokes Marty in the eyes and scrapes his boot across his face but otherwise does nothing else heelish. Heatless backslides, ramp up that doesn't ramp, never reaches drama. Eddie's snapped off huracanrana finish looked good. Great leg hooking. 

One Man Gang vs. Flash Flanagan WWF 2/3/98

MD: Gang dark match. He had dropped some weight from his peak and was up against Flash Flanagan. My big takeaway is that he had a lot to add to the company if they were to bring him in but that this match didn't necessarily serve him. He worked the crowd well. His clubbers looked great. He had pretty decent presence. He shouted out "Shut your hole" which popped everyone. He gave Flash a ton though, and while it was generally earned, it was probably too much and serving too many masters. I think the fans saw the two of them too differently and it didn't do Flash any favors. If he had to work from underneath even more and had to really scrape for every inch he got it would have done him better and I think it would have served the match (and Gang) too. Kind of weird what might have been here. You could see him all over the card, the lost member of DOA, an Oddity, or the third man in a Bossman/Shamrock Corporation trio?

ER: I love getting a look at these dark/tryout matches because some of them are good, some of them aren't, and some of them are weird. This one was kind of weird, as it was laid out almost like a double showcase. I"m not certain it did a good job of showcasing Gang, but it played like a Flash Flanagan babyface showcase while also playing as a "here are all of my various skills" showcase for Gang. By that, I mean it felt like Gang was showing every thing that he could possibly do, without necessarily putting that into a coherent match. Think of it like someone auditioning for SNL by doing a bunch of impressions rather than doing a tight set utilizing those impressions. This was slower than it should have been, because it felt like Gang showing his entire skillset, in order. You can see how he works a crowd or gets verbal with a ref, you see what offense he can do, then you see how good he is at taking and selling offense. Some of Gang's offense looked great: he drops a pair of sick elbowdrops that are, quite frankly, perfect, he gets his boot up in the corner right to Flanagan's chin and gets an audible OOF from the crowd, and his follow up clothesline following through to his knees looked great.  

But I don't think I expected, going into this, how much more valuable Gang would be at putting over a fired up babyface. He was fantastic at taking and selling Flash's offense. Part of it was that Flash Flanagan had great offense. His missile dropkick is strong (Gang hangs in the whole way and takes it to the chest), and he has a cool springboard dropkick that starts in the ring and gets aimed at Gang in the corner. He has several kinds of nice punches and is great at "punching up" to the much larger Gang. He even has a couple big back elbows that looked like they would indeed move a guy Gang's size. But I don't think Flash's offense works as well without a guy selling it as well as Gang. This wasn't just about bumping, it's about being a humongous man believably getting knocked around by a smaller heavyweight, and Gang was so good at getting punched around into place. But he topped it all with a ridiculous spot where he gets hung up across the corner ropes like Shawn Michaels and splashed repeatedly by Flash until falling to the mat. I loved it, never seen anything like it before. A man the size of One Man Gang using the rope corners like a hammock alone looked absurd, but every time Flash hit him his large body would get rearranged into a different hilarious position. Body sagging, legs propped up like legs that size never are, finally falling gracelessly to the mat. Ridiculous. 

I would have loved One Man Gang in 1998 WWF, even if he was just a guy working Sunday Night Heat. Reuniting the slimmed down Twin Towers would have been booking directly to me, and with Gang recently on the payroll it would have made them more likely to bring the Towers back as a triumphant patriotic babyface team at the end of 2001. 

 

Eddie Guerrero/Kurt Angle/Edge vs. Undertaker/Kane/Rey Mysterio WWE 7/2/05

MD: Enough of a lost Japan house show match to write about certainly. We miss a huge amount of it but we get the beginning and the end and there's plenty to see. For one thing, this might have been the best use of Kane ever. He was tagged in early when Guerrero and Angle were basically trying to throw Edge under the bus. They had dodged Rey and Edge thought he was going in to face him only to get Kane. Lots of goofing around and it's all entertaining as the characters crash up against each other. Best part might have been Eddie trying for a sneak attack only to run when Kane turned his head. When Eddy finally gets in there, the crowd tries to encourage him which is all very funny. 

For what actual action we see, we get a good Eddie and Rey exchange where Eddie bases all over the place for him and then Edge feeding and feeding for Undertaker and that's pretty much what he's best at so it all works for me. It's much preferable to things being the other way around. Then we come back for the finish where Eddie got to goof against all the babyfaces and the ref with a chair. House shows are the best sort of wrestling? Sure seems it.

Read more!

Found Footage Friday: RIP BART SAWYER~! VOLS~! WOLFIE~! FLASH~! ISHIKAWA~! JAGUAR~!

Lucy Kayama/Mimi Hagiwara vs. The Young Pair (Rimi Yokota/Seiko Hanawa) AJW 1979

MD: This one had been out there for a while, but never complete. The first nine minutes were always missing. Yokota is pre-Jaguar here. Those first nine minutes seem essential to the overall match; after a bit of feeling out with dueling foot stomps, Yokota and Hanawa lean in hard on Hagiwara. This includes some nice roll back guillotines and a rolling headscissors by Hanawa and Yokota, a lot of arm stretch surfboards, and tying Hagiwara to the tree of woe. It's a pretty brutal mauling, that lasts into the footage we did have, with a southern tag bit of the ref missing the tag before Kayama is able to finally get in. They steady revenge that followed (highlighted by the Kayama using the seated bodyscissors with roll-back and slam-forward we saw so much in the French footage) for the next many minutes doesn't resonate nearly as well without the lengthy initial beatdown.

We miss the Pair's transition back to offense (maybe just an off camera slam by Yokota) but the back half of the match is them demolishing Hagiwara's leg. Hagiwara is already an emotive seller, always active, always engaged and engaging the crowd and to be fair Yokota and Hanawa give her a lot to work with, just tearing it apart with targeted offense on the inside and outside of the ring. The comeback isn't as clean and focused as I'd like but it's still clever, with Hagiwara snatching a flying octopus hold out of nowhere and Kayama coming in hot. They go to that old southern tag standard of the FIP wanting back in too soon to set up the finish. Good match made better by the restoration of the missing footage.  

Yuki Ishikawa vs. Isami Shinkiba Tournament 12/25/2018

MD: It's old man Ishikawa vs a kind of tubby karate guy in a gi. Pretty self-explanatory really. Ishikawa controlled early by not allowing Isami to strike. Isami would have to occasionally use a rope break (and Ishikawa smacked him on the butt afterwards for his trouble). In the stand up, despite Ishikawa throwing some mean headbutts, Isami had a clear advantage. It was just once he got him down that he wasn't quite sure what to do with him. Ishikawa could absorb most of his seated blows and he almost needed to let him back up so he could get his full body behind his strikes. That opened him up for Ishikawa to snatch a limb though and it tired him out, making that possibility all the more likely. Finally, Ishikawa was able to move around him, getting a mare. Isami tried to escape with a nice roll through into a hammerlock, but he wasn't in his striking world anymore; once he left it, Ishikawa put him away with a nasty no-give arm trap.

ER: I thought this was going to be much more of an exhibition based on how things started, with Shinkiba looking like Sammo Hungover and Ishikawa grinning like a goof while playing Inoki leg kick games from his back. Shinkiba really doesn't look like he can do much of anything for the first few minutes, like Ishikawa is essentially working an exhibition with an easily takedownable tub in a gi. He takes him down and easily locks in a couple submissions while Shinkiba puts up about as much fight as I would against Ishikawa. Yuki even swats him playfully on the butt after Shinkiba quickly lunged for the ropes after a smooth Ishikawa rolling kneebar. Maybe that swat on the butt is what set this guy off, because then he starts throwing inside leg kicks and high kicks from both sides, Ishikawa leaning into all of them, and even starts open hand chopping Ishikawa in the arm to get access to his ribs. Shinkiba does a really great solebutt to the intestines, with a smack that sounded like a thigh slap but I saw no thigh slap in sight. When Yuki starts throwing headbutts, he hits an even louder one so I guess this guy just throws great kicks to the stomach. I loved him teeing off on Ishikawa's body with punches, pinning him to the corner with short closed firsts aimed at the torso. But he can't KO Yuki, and because of that, Yuki is going to find a way to tap him. 

Bart Sawyer/TN Vols (Reno Riggins/Steven Dunn) vs. Wolfie D/Flash Flanagan/Ashley Hudson MCW 12/25/98 (Aired 1/2/99)

MD: I wanted to do a Sawyer match since he passed away recently. I can't believe that we've never covered this one before (I had to take it back to the center to ask) because it's wild. Almost book worthy. Maybe book worthy. It's fifteen minutes of absolute chaos, ten of it being the match. This is the master footage so there's no announcing over it and you hear everything. The camera and even the crowd have no idea who to focus on since the violence is all over the building. You can be focused on Sawyer and Wolfie brawling off in the corner and hear sounds of impact from off the screen. It was back and forth. I won't say it was full of brilliant transitions or even a heroic comeback but it was full of memorable moments and lots of blood, most especially from Dunn.

There's crazy, heated stuff in here. Chairshots galore, including a battle between Wolfie and Sawyer. Riggins lawn darting Flanagan into the fourth row. Tons of Australian flag shots. The set piece where Sawyer climbed up some sort of roofing. The post-match beatdown where the heels got their heat back. And of course the crazy finish where Riggins shoved Wolfie off the balcony through a table and then Sawyer tried to leap down after him for the pin and had his foot jam on the concrete as he landed. These were a bunch of pros who knew how to handle a match like this, to keep it moving, to keep the crowd into it, to build to some very big spots, and then to keep the heat up to try to get people back for the following week.

PAS: The Nashville Fairgrounds has seen a lot of blood spilled in matches just like this over the years. From Jackie Fargo through the Moondogs through early TNA. Just a really cool example of the kind of main event all over the fairground brawls which have been mostly lost to history. No really structure, just a bunch of bloody brawling in every nook and cranny. Flash Flanagan is well known for taking insane stunt bumps, but Wolfie took it on this day, falling recklessly off the balcony and awkwardly nuking himself on the table and the hard concrete. I really prefer this kind of stunt to what we see now. Not only was there no crash pad, there was no athleticism. It really felt like a guy zooted out of his mind falling off a roof, which fit well with the chaotic atmosphere of the entire match. Sawyer wasn't the focus here (not sure this had a focus) but you could see how well he fit in this kind of Tennessee street fight.

Read more!

Found Footage Friday: MORE PANAMA PARK~! WAGNER SR~! ANIBAL~! SATO~! ISHIKAWA~! JANNETTY~! FLANAGAN~!

Akio Sato/Takashi Ishikawa vs. Dr. Wagner/Anibal AJPW 8/20/81 

MD: I'll be honest that when we get HHs from this deep back in the 80s, it always feels notable, even if the match itself has, let's say, measured value. This was a tale of two matches. When Ishikawa was in there, it was quite good. He and Wagner started off with some nice stuff on the mat. Later on he'd have a comeback where he threw good strikes and when it came to the rudos beating him down, their stuff looked really sharp. Sato, on the other hand, was pretty rough in there. The system was what it was, but you watch a match like this and think he had to be pretty green; he wasn't. He was losing to Bob Brown and wrestling Momota around the horn in 73. He had maybe one moment of good fire towards the end and ate some shoulder throws (something like three in the match) well, but everything kind of ground to a halt when he was in there. Wagner and Anibal were fun in general though. I'm not saying they left their feet a ton but Wagner had plenty of personality and Anibal wasn't afraid to pull hair and get heat (and when they did leave their feet, mainly Anibal, it mattered). Finish had Ishikawa and Sato turning things around to create heel miscommunication and more or less worked. This is probably most worthwhile because we have very little 81 Wagner.

Principe Island I (c) vs. Sandokan Panama 1988-9

MD: Totally different sort of title match from the PI 1 vs PI 2 match. Here, Principe Island 2/Remo Banda/Super Parka was seconding Sandokan. Instead of doing everything under the sun, they went from early feeling out to Park absolutely dismantling the leg. I wouldn't say there was anything fancy here, but it certainly all worked. Park just jumping onto the leg over and over, twisting and grinding it, throwing headbutts directly into the thigh; all of that's going to work. Meanwhile, Sandokan slammed his fist on the mat and writhed, selling as big as he could. If he tried to get up, Park just took him back down and kept up the assault until he got the submission. The second fall had Park broaden his attack a bit, which cost him. Sandokan, hurt legs and all, was able to hit three upkicks and knock him out of the ring for an awkward countout.

There might have been just a bit of miscommunication there. Immediately thereafter, Sandokan started to trap the arm and the head and run Park into turnbuckles. The fans were going nuts for this and Park sold it like a gunshot. It would have made sense to do the countout after a few of those probably. The tercera was Park taking and taking and taking. Sandokan's leg was magically okay, of course, but there were a couple of times where Park tried to land a takedown and go after it again so the danger was always there. It was about the only chance he had since he was getting pinballed all over the place, including both a straight up power bomb with a jacknife roll up and Sandokan's schoolboy type takeovers which were sold like powerbombs. The very best thing he did was to whip Park into the corner and then follow up with a jumping clothesline to the back of the head as Park stumbled backwards. For as one-sided as the tercera was, Park kept kicking out and because of that Sandokan started to escalate towards the ropes, including a climb up armdrag. That allowed Park to crotch him over the top and almost steal a pin. His former partner rushed in however, stopped the count and started brawling with him ending the match but hopefully leading to an apuestas match between the two that maybe, just maybe, will show up soon? One can hope, right? Like I said, this was a completely different sort of title match than PI 1 vs PI 2 and young LA Park is really holding up his end of these, while here, Sandokan once again looked like one of the great folk heroes of wrestling. 

Marty Jannetty vs. Flash Flanagan NWA Worldwide 12/25/99

MD: This aired a couple of week later but I think it was at Christmas Chaos 99. One interesting thing from the Bryan Turner uploads is how little is actually on cagematch. Jannetty in late 99 was not too much different from Jannetty in 92 but with modern eyes, that's not a bad thing at all. The first half of this was all Flanagan letting himself get clowned with a "Anything you can do, I can't do better" sequence. Jannetty started it by out-hairpulling Flash but then Flash missed on multiple sequences, ending by wiping out on a monkey see, monkey do monkey flip in the corner. Given his role on the card here, he probably wanted to show off just a little too much in general, landing on his feet out of things, having the springboard leg drop and another springboard dropkick out of the corner (which in and of itself, is a good spot, whipping the opponent into the corner and rushing the other way to bounce back off the second rope), just a little bit of a case of "just because you can, doesn't mean you should." Maybe I would have liked to see just a little bit more comeuppance on the comeback then, especially since he was going to win by cheating (a good thing; he should be winning by cheating). Still, this was a good use of Marty, who looked good in everything he did, and ultimately something that gave Flash some rub. I didn't agree with every one of his creative choices but he never felt out of place in there.

Read more!

Found Footage Friday: DOUBLE DOG COLLAR CAGE MATCH~! ADNAN IN IRAQ~! GUERREROS~! CHICANA~! LA FAMILIA MARKUS~!

Adnan Al Qaisi vs. Ian Campbell Iraq 1970

MD: Long 2/3 falls match that ends 1-0 for Adnan at the time limit (either 45 or 60 depending on clipping). This had been out there in parts but is newly clipped together in a welcome effort. You get a real sense of the imperial pageantry here, officials and a band and parade feel, even though the same footage of a few fans (out of the very many) is interspersed now and again. Let me put it this way. Campbell knew what was good for him here, knew what was safe and what wasn't. They weren't going for heat. They were using this as a showcase for Adnan's technical superiority. As such, it was a pretty effective dog and pony show.

Campbell had a size and strength advantage, but Adnan had an answer for every hold. Towards the last fifteen minutes, the answers were a little harder to find and Campbell could press harder with a full nelson or chinlock, but even those ended quickly enough by prying off an arm or pulling out a leg. In return, Campbell could use his strength to escape Adnan's stuff, but he'd find his way back in sooner than not. It meant that individual exchanges could be interesting, but that the total picture was a bit toothless. At times they'd break out into strikes. This first happened around the ten minute mark as Campbell was starting to register some of the damage to his arm. He had a great little bit where he trapped the arm behind his opponent's back with a hammerlock and tossed in a nasty forearm, but even there, Adnan fired back with a flurry and a jumping elbow smash soon enough. They repeated this a few minutes later and that's when Adnan got his one fall.

Considering the locale and the one repeated shot from the crowd of someone sweating profusely, it was probably sweltering there and Campbell was a big, hairy guy, but they kept a pretty good, competitive pace throughout. They'd go from a handshake to mean shots and back to a handshake so things were never going to come close to boiling over, but as they got towards the end of the time limit, Adnan increased his intensity, using leg kicks and just tossing Campbell out over the top repeatedly. That made it seem something of a moral victory for Campbell that he was able to survive to the bell (whistle?) even if he was a fall down. It was wrestling as celebratory propaganda, but as such it was fairly fascinating to watch, just maybe not 50 minutes worth of fascination.

Sangre Chicana/Gran Markus Sr./Gran Markus Jr vs. Chavo Guerrero/Hector Guerrero/Mando Guerrero CMLL 9/18/87 

MD:  Roy's back posting, always a good thing. This was from the 54th CMLL Anniversary show and at the very least hasn't been streaming online for quite a while, if ever. The bits in between falls are clipped out so it moves at a fast pace. The announcer also gets Mando and Hector confused for a good part of this and almost psyched me out, but no one moves quite like Mando. Primarily, it's another Sangre Chicana match in his prime, so that's exciting, but he's more of a dodgy chickenshit here, throwing shots now and again but mostly on the run. He gets slammed onto the floor right as this ends, so that's some comeuppance but it's more about everyone else. Markus, Sr., maskless, has a sort of enjoyable weighty swagger to himself. This is the guy we saw in so much of the Houston footage, just older. Jr. on the other hand, is younger than what I'm used to and a bit more spry. This opens up with fun in-and-out matwork between him and Chavo. Chavo's in the most but Hector has a nice snap belly to back and the end of the primera is a combo of that belly to back and an axe handle off the ropes. And of course, Mando is a ridiculous beast like always, full of contorted, tricked out offense: takedowns and monkey flips and bounding around the ring. There's a lot more to the opening feeling out stuff than the beatdown or the comeback, but both are spirited enough. If this led to some sort of Chicana vs Hector or Mando match, I would have liked to see that too.

Bart Sawyer/Steven Dunn vs. Ashley Hudson/Flash Flanagan (Double Dog Collar Cage Match) MCW 1997

MD: Very timely Bryan Turner upload here, though not timely enough to make Phil's list as an honorable mention. Sawyer was attached to Hudson and Dunn was attached to Flanagan. Babyfaces dominated early. There were a bunch of chairs in there, both wedged in the corners and just free floating and Dunn used them liberally. That led to free flowing blood. They'd switch advantage for a bit. Very few big setpieces here and just a lot of violence. That said, both Sawyer and Hudson did fistdrops off the turnbuckles with the chain wrapped around their hands onto the other. My most vivid memory of the match itself was probably Sawyer choking Hudson with the chain as Dunn stomped on his groin. There was a lot of that sort of thing here, but plenty of cage shots, chair shots, and chain shots too. It all built to a ref bump and Dunn accidentally clocking Sawyer. That's when things got really fun. Sawyer stared at Dunn, slowly took off the dog collar, snatched the key from the ref, and went to leave the cage. Dunn tried to stop him and ate a kick and a DDT for his troubles and Sawyer locked the cage back up on the way out, taking the key as the fans shouted 'traitor' at him. Hudson and Flanagan made short work out of Dunn after that, finishing it with a leg drop off the cage from Flanagan. Then, as Prentice (I think) taunted everyone on the house mic about how this was his New Year's present for everyone and not to worry because "It's just Steven Dunn", they absolutely dismantled him after the bell. No one could help since the heels had the key. Finally, Sawyer came back in to finish him off. Good match and a truly great post match angle.

Read more!

I Watched More David Flair Because of Bryan Turner's YouTube

Flash Flanagan vs. David Flair USA Championship Wrestling 2/23/02

ER: A few months ago we covered a David Flair match that took place just a week after this match, and it was the most "complete" I had ever seen Flair as a worker. It made me mildly curious to see more of him from this era, just to see how consistent these improvements were. Even with the steps forward I saw, I still think there was a ceiling for just how "good" Flair could have become, but working a bunch of old hand Tennessee guys almost surely would have made him better. The commentary says that "David Flair has come a long, LONG way in just two short years in this great sport" and it is true, because during his time in WCW I don't think I've ever seen someone look consistently less natural in a ring than he. The most important difference between 2002 David Flair and 1999/2000 Flair is that by 2002 he actually knows how to move around the ring. In WCW he had no idea how to get into position for anything, looked lost constantly, and always had the hunched body charisma of an assistant high school P.E. teacher who gets involved in a spot at his school's fundraising show. He was never going to move around a ring like Bobby Eaton, but by 2002 he was no longer moving around the ring like David Flair, and that feels like huge progress. 

Aside from finally being able to actually move like an athlete, Flair had gotten good at several other things. His opening lock up was surprisingly strong, I liked how he got into a fan's face and then resumed selling as he limply broke the count from the floor; he throws a really nice vertical suplex, and he had a couple of surprisingly good right hands while fighting Flash in the corner. As with Charlotte, his worst stuff happens whenever he apes his father. His chops are still bad, though probably not as bad as Charlotte's. He takes a fine Flair flip to the apron and gets clotheslined off, but then takes a baseball slide dropkick by forgetting to get close enough to the apron to take a baseball slide dropkick. He also throws his clothesline weirdly under the chest, but he throws it hard and that makes up for a lot of the awkwardness. Flash Flanagan is, of course, a consummate professional, and keeps a lot of this on track even though there were weird shifts around who was heel and who was face. Flash hit his awesome springboard legdrop, and him hitting the whiplash blockbuster on the ref when Flair ducked was the coolest part of the match. 

Well, maybe Flair taking the lowest arcing backdrop I've ever seen was more cool. I swear the man looked like he tripped on a curb while out jogging. Still, I would call it an overall win that in 2002 it at least looked like Flair was capable of jogging like a human man. 

Read more!

New Footage Friday: FELINO~! MAGICA~! WOLFIE D~! FLASH~! SLIM J~! MASADA~! MURDER ONE~! WAR GAMES~!

El Felino vs. Mascara Magica CMLL 5/21/96

PAS: A real hidden gem which, barring some third caida wonkiness, is a real classic. The first fall is some of the best lucha mat wrestling I have ever seen. Felino and Magica were working these sick looking leglocks, just tremendous torque on ankles and knees. There was some llave in it, but it really felt more like Tamura RINGS stuff than Negro Navarro. Felino also really bangs at Magica's shoulder in the second fall, leading to a cool bit of business where Magica can't lift Felino into the submission he won the first fall with. I liked the screwy finish to the third fall with Magica sliding under the ropes to beat the count, but not getting his foot all the way in, felt like kind of heartbreaking NBA replay moment where the game winning three point shooter had his toe on the line. I thought the restart Caida got a bit move spammy, and had this possible foul from Felino which didn't pay off. They were telling such a brilliant smaller tighter story and then went unnecessarily maximal, it was like the end of a Marvel series. WandaVision is about grief, Falcon and Winter Soldier is about race, but let's end it with a bunch of pew pew lasers. Still the good was so good that this was a real treat to watch.

MD: A week or two ago, an Atlantis mask match dropped and I realized I'd seen it a few years ago because dataintcash posted it on Youtube, which got me thinking how much I wanted him to post some more stuff as it'd been a while. Lo and behold, this drops. At the least, it's been offline for a while. It's a long title match and outside some goofiness in the tercera (and even allowing for that, really) it's very good. They had plenty of time to let things breathe, which is what you want. The primera was worked straight and it covered the ground of what you look for in these: it was competent, as in they didn't blow things or seem lost; competitive, as holds weren't just given but had struggle; and compelling, with some more tricked out holds and escapes. The next level is having some semblance of a narrative and there were bits and pieces with that, between a focus on the legs and both guys going for STFs. The pace picked up and led to the first of multiple Mascara Magica dives in th e match and the finish. The segunda had Felino fake a leg injury after another STF and then took the opportunity to do a cool victory roll from the apron in to set up the fall. In the tercera, he went full rudo with some great arm focus (including Mascara Magica not being able to hit things), and ultimately a tecnico comeback and huge dive for what looked like the win, but they restarted the match and it felt almost like a fourth fall, building from Felino clotheslines and Mascara Magica roll ups to bigger (and still legitimately impressive in 2021) spots with neither guy able to pin the other until Mascara Magica switched to a submission and got the nod. Just a good, long title match, where even the restart didn't hurt it as it felt thematically different afterwards. Anyway, someone nudge dataintcash to post some more stuff.

Wolfie D vs. Flash Flanagan MCW 4/4/98

MD: This was on a Tojo Yamamoto memorial in 98. Wolfie was on a crutch with his leg in a cast. I'm a big fan of matches where someone's working with a real limitation because they're almost forced to get outside of rote spots and be creative. This was definitely creative. There was a need for Wolfie to be on top for a lot of it so they had to keep finding ways for that to happen when he could barely move around, first with the crutch shot, then by tying Flash in the ropes, then with a chair, etc. It made it more of a thought experiment than the straight up bloody violence you might hope for out of something like this, but maybe that's fitting for a Tojo memorial show. These two worked a bunch of gimmick matches (tables, death match, falls count anywhere, ladder) over the span of a couple of years before starting to team later in 98 and this ended in BS with the chain breaking and nothing really getting settled, but it was fun while it lasted.

Slim J/Murder One/Gabriel/Altar Boy Luke vs. NWA Elite (Todd Sexton/Masada/Rainman/Azreal) NWA Wildside 7/3/04 - EPIC

PAS: Another Cornelia War Games gets dropped and we get to see another classic. This was really wild, with probably one too many gimmicks and ideas, but some real high highs. Slim J has got to be one of the great cage match workers of all time, what a total psycho. He bleeds a ton, takes huge bumps (including a top rope side slam), and gets barbed wire kicked into his face. Really liked the classic Wildside tag teams facing off against each other, with the Blackout of Murder One and Rainman beating the bricks off of each other and the Lost Boys of Gabriel and Azreal doing the same. Masada brings the lunacy by lighting his hand on fire for chops. Lots of set up required for the big ladder bump off the cage, but the payoff looked painful, and Dusty got his moment to elbow everyone. Again Cornelia proves they know how to end a War Games, with Slim J sticking barbed wire in the mouth of Sexton for the tap. Nasty, nasty stuff. 

MD: Interesting structure here as this has the longest Match Beyond that I can remember. Usually, you get through the War Games itself and it's pretty quick to the finish. The first pairing seemed like it was two minutes instead of five, but you forgot that quick. The pre-match promo had Bailey hype up Sexton, who was playing scared to get over the danger of the match (which is always nice to see in a world where everyone tries to be tougher than it) by saying they needed him in first as the technician to work on someone's limb and damage him for the submission or surrender portion. That would be well and good except for the other side surprised them by starting out Slim J, who as the smallest guy, you wouldn't think would start. These Wildside/Anarchy matches are full of clever little bits like that. Some of them, like Gabriel getting trapped outside the cage at the end, worked really well. Azrael (who was pretty great in this one, bumping and basing all over the place and happy to crash into the cage over and over) going through the table from the inside out worked well too. 

Some things, like Dusty freeing Slim J from the cuffs, or the dissension between the two tag teams that were trying to work together, or the final turn on Sexton needed a bit more space to breathe but it's hard in a War Games when things are happening all the time. It was also a bit of a victim of its time, where every move needed an extra twist or flip or spin to it. Everything was a tricked out video game move. When they used the barbed wire or tossed people into the cage, it all worked a lot better. That said, the fact that the match worked as well as it did despite the trappings of its time was a testament to how much effort and thought they put into these and how much history and character elements they could call upon, even in 2004. And hey, what was up with Luke and Rainman deciding to do headlocks and rope running at the start of the third period though? Even the announcers called that out. In a way it, like everything else, sort of worked though. A War Games is pure distilled chaos and everything in this match fit that bill.

Read more!

Happy 71, Lawler!

Jerry Lawler vs. Shawn Michaels WWF Raw 8/14/95 - GREAT

ER: This wasn't a super common pairing, and I wish we had more of these two against each other. There were a couple Rockers vs. Lawler/Dundee matches from the late 80s, some Lawler/Michaels USWA stuff from '93, and most of that doesn't exist on tape. They have two Raw matches a few months apart, and this is the first of those. I'd really like to see the 1993 matches just because it would be face Lawler/heel Michaels and the Raw matches are obviously heel Lawler/face Michaels. Face Michaels during this era (and most eras) is pretty unbearable, because usually one of the things you really want from your babyface is for them to actually be likable. 1995 Shawn Michaels is the opposite of likable, but luckily the Raw crowds always reacted super strongly to Lawler as a heel, and he knew exactly how to play these 2,000-4,000 size venues. 

Lawler bumps around for Michaels and gets befuddled by quickness, and we get an excellent Lawler gag that I don't think I've ever seen. This was a Raw crowd, so of course they were loudly chanting Burger King (I don't know who or how that chant ever started, but what a godsend for a heel, and I have to believe Vince tried to set up some kind of sponsorship deal) while Lawler stewed. He gets Michaels on the ropes and rears back for a punch, yelling to the crowd "How's THIS for a Whopper!?" before of course missing the punch. He takes a big back drop bump, eats jabs from Michaels (nice ones), and there's a cool piledriver reversal where Michaels falls forward as Lawler drops to his butt (so Michaels lands on his feet as Lawler sits down) and then pops Lawler with a shot to the jaw. Lawler misses more offense than he hits (he gets a nice vertical suplex and a fistdrop), but his missed offense always looks so great. The way he gets thrown off balance by a missed clothesline is body movement that every wrestler should seriously study. He takes big back bumps on every piece of Michaels offense, and down the home stretch he misses a superfly splash in super painful fashion. Sid runs in for the DQ so no finish, but these two worked a hot match with the great chemistry you'd expect.

PAS: This was really good, true 90's battle of the mullets. I really liked Lawler's pratfalling early, as Michaels just dumped him on his butt or face multiple times. The piledriver counter was really crazy, kind of thing which you might see in a reversal heavy indy match theses days and scoff at, but was pretty unique here. Some of the Lawler beat down was during the commercial, which was a shame because what we got was cool, that Lawler fistdrop is always totally clutch. This had a real pace to it, you don't think of Lawler as a workrate sprint wrestler, but he can push pace with the best of them.  The finish was a bit deflating, but I would have loved to see what these two could do with more time and in a different setting. 

 Jerry Lawler vs. Flash Flanagan USA Championship Wrestling 11/26/20 - FUN

ER: It doesn't get more Pro Wrestling than a man in his early 70s shaking hands with dozens of people in the middle of a viral pandemic while on his way to the ring to wrestle Thanksgiving night on a memorial show for his deceased son. Flash Flanagan gets on the mic and - bless him - brings up a 23 year old grudge, blaming Lawler's interference for his loss to Brian Christopher in the quarterfinals of the 1997 WWF Light Heavyweight Title tournament. 2020 Flash looks more like Bull Pain than anyone who was ever considered a Light Heavyweight, and I am totally fine with that as wrestling needs Bull Pains more than it needs Light Heavyweights. The match itself is probably the most disappointing Lawler performance we have on tape. He slaps Flash, takes a lot of punches, and hits his Stunner - an undying relic and the worst thing Lawler ever added to his arsenal - for the win. But viewed as an overall piece we get a real nice Flash showing, as he throws plenty of great jabs to set up right hands, and I'm honestly not sure why we didn't just get 8 minutes of them throwing jabs at each other. Now, Lawler being a man in his early 70s likely is the reason why, but it has to take more energy to throw a Stunner than to throw a punch, so who knows. There is some gold to be found after the match (small amounts of gold, maybe dental gold?) when Flash throws the ref around, beats Lawler around the ring, we get a Lawler strap removal spot after Flash swings and misses with a broomstick, and Flash gets punched to the floor. It's time for me to stop expecting actual matches from Lawler, a legend who really should have stopped booking gigs after his heart attack, but I will still senselessly be expecting 80 year old Lawler to be having good matches against 85 year old Bill Dundee, because I have dumb wrestling fan brain. 

PAS: Jerry turns 71 today, and he finally kind of seems 71. Most of the run time of this match is mic work and stalling. Flash gets a couple of minutes of great looking punches to Lawler, and they were really great looking. Flanagan felt like a classic 70s-90s Memphis worker. Even in his dotage Lawler can still sell punches as good as anyone. He does his strap drop hulk up and then just hits a stunner and pins Flash. I think bumps and moves may be in the rearview mirror for Jerry, but I imagine he can still do timing and punches until he is 90. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE KING

Read more!

XCW Midwest Legends of the Garden Night 2 3/4/09

XCW MIDWEST ON SEGUNDA CAIDA

Buddy Landell v. Crippler Jeff Daniels

TKG: Budro comes out looking as big as AWA era Adonis. He doesn’t bump like AWA era Adonis. He comes out in a v cut sweatshirt no knee pads and no hair dye. Daniels beats on him for a bit, Budro intercepts the brass knucks thrown in by Daniels valet and knocks Daniels out.

PAS: I have seen no kneepads Buddy Landell not take any bumps in matches that entertain me, this wasn't one of them. I think he really needs to work heel to pull that off, a face who exerts no effort just feels like a ripoff. Daniels initial rush of Budro looked good, but we are only talking a 90 second match

Tracy Smothers v Mitch Ryder (Taped Fist Match)

TKG: On night one, Smothers beat Ryder by using the wrist tape so we have the rematch as tape fist match. Fun booking. Both guys really lay it into each other and have a nasty ringside brawl. Lots of both guys trying to post the other guy only to end up posting themselves. Just a string of postings one after the other: Smothers torches his shoulder into post trying to lariat Ryder, Ryder blasts his own fist into post missing Tracy with a punch, etc. Really rewarding streetfight.

PAS: This is probably best Tracy match I have seen in years, there is some early Tracy shtick, but for the most of the match they are just laying into each other. Tracy's taped backfist is nasty looking, and I loved Ryder's Lawler style fired up punch combos. After the nastiest of postings Ryder gets busted open and really bleeds a ton which isn't very common in XCW so it felt special.

Bill Dundee v. Todd Morton

TKG: This just puts a big smile on my face and I “OOH!!” along with both guys stuff. No real toe to toe sections. You get the sense that that will come later in the series. Instead you have face moving forward heel moving back. Though a neat variation on that as you get sense that Morton wants to be on offense. Lots of really fun goofy Dundee outwitting Morton and cutting him off before Morton can get any kind of momentum. Morton is great at selling the burn from not being able to get his stuff off. Morton eventually of course does find a way to cheat to offense and has a nasty little run. I demand the rematch.

PAS: Watch all of the Memphis TV for the 80's Memphis set, Bill Dundee really came off like the king of the studio match. He was really great at work a simple entertaining match full of awesome shtick. Here he controls Morton early using all kinds of nifty little tricks, popping him in the knee on the break, holding the rope for him only to bang it into his nuts, just a ton of clever horseshit which Morton sold like a champ. When Morton finally gets the advantage his offensive run looked awesome. Totally fun studio match which would make you buy a ticket to see the Mid-South Coliseum rematch.

Shawn Cook/Cody Hawk v. Rock and Roll Express v. Tommy Rich/Doug Gilbert

TKG: So I go into this dissapointed that it isn't a straight Rich/Gilbert v RnR match. I am really digging the booking of the show where the XCW regulars go over the veterans on all of the night two matches. and you couldn't really do that without the XCW regular team. Still I don't like three way dances. Plus it's the three way tag dance where you can tag in anyone. So on paper lots of reasons to think this won't work. But they absolutely make this work. This isn’t TNA so instead of embracing the foolishness, they do lots of spots mocking the inherent stupidity of the three way structure. At some point or other each team gets one section where they are forced to work against their own partner. Each team works a comedy spot around it…Plus you get the Rock n Rolls cooperating to attack guys on apron, veteran heel team slightly not trusting each other, and the young heel team full on willing to battle against themselves. Partner forced to work against his own partner in multiperson tag is one of the goofier things in wrestling today and I really enjoyed it here as these guys really knew how to play up the spots goofiness. Ricky Morton and Doug Gilbert work a bunch of sections with each other and both look really solid. Gibson does a rolling across ring tag (rolling tag to other team on opposite side of ring) which is a really visually neat spot. For the most part though Robert Gibson and Tommy Rich are placed in role of powerhouses (the Neidharts of their teams) which isn’t really a role I associate with either guy.

PAS: Man did Dougie Gilbert look great in this match, nasty looking offense, great shitck, solid bumping. Really looked like a guy they should have brung in as a regular guy. Gilbert v. Flash and Gilbert v. Ryder would have been great. Cook and Hawk are a really solid tag team and the held down the athletic part of the match really well. Robert Gibson had a shirt on, and kind of wrestled like a guy in a shirt (although the somersault tag was great), but Ricky continues to defy father time, as he still seems to have an impressive amount of his athleticism.

Flash Flanagan v. Bull Pain

TKG: Bull Pain comes in with a limp form yesterdays beatdown and Flannigan does some heel mic work about how they should cancel the match. And then it's on. Powerhouse babyface with bad wheel is something we've all seen before. Still Bull is really great at being both a monster and vulnerable at same time. He isn't a guy who switches back and forth "Now I'm a monster" and " Now I'm vulnerable" but instead gets them both accross at same time. They do this spot midway in the match where Flannigan repeatedly distracts ref so that he can hit Bull with cruitch. Flannigan tosses his belt and ref is distracted by going to retrieve and remove, Flannigan tosses chair in ring, etc. Efectively gets over the idea of using an outside weapoin being something that needs to be hidden from ref without any real tough guy ref talking down a wrestler spots. Finish to this is a little disappointing especially since I've liked their finishes against each other before. I mean I'm not a guy who needs a long finish train but I kind of wanted one more kick out or something.

PAS: Man is Bull Pain an impressive baby face worker. For a role that he has hardly worked in his career, he is just tremendous as a tough guy gutting through an injury. Flanagan is nasty in this taking him apart, and his bumping was great, he eats a suplex and a DDT on the floor and make both look brutal. I liked the finish more then Tom did, Bull's frog splash was great looking and after his spectacular sell of the knee, it came off totally reckless, in a way that should have cost him the match. Morton running in with the baseball bat did seem a little unnecessary, but it felt like it ended about when it should have. Really good match between a pair of really good wrestlers.

Read more!

XCW Midwest Payback Time 10/17/09

Todd Morton v. The Real Deal Derrick Neal

TKG: It’s Todd Morton working a pretty straight opener . No heat garnering horseshit. I assume Derrick Neal is a trainee or something as this was laid out really well but Neal’s execution felt really rookie level.

PAS: Todd Morton is a tremendous wrestler, but we only got to see flashes of this here. I loved the spot where he backed Neal into the corner and mule kicked him low, and the payback spot out of the knuckle lock and bridge was cool too. Still Neal didn’t contribute much and we only got a page or two of the Morton playbook

New Age Assassin v. Platinum Chris Phoenix

PAS: Platinum Chris Phoenix (which is a god awful name) is a really thick guy who kind of looks and wrestles like an indy Brock Lesner. Assassin does a nice job bumping around for all of Phoenixes shoulder blocks and bodyslams, and sneaks in shots here and there. Phoenix was clearly pretty early in his training, but he hit a nasty finishing supelex and was an impressive specimen for indy wrestling. I think he would be pretty good as a Mitch Ryder tag partner to work the apron and come into hit big spots on the heels.

TKG: Yeah I dug this. New Age Assassin flies around for Chris Phoenix and then does the SNME face chases heel around ring till face is ambushed coming into ring. I really dug all of New Age Assassin’s cheap shot into offense moves as he never did anything that was unbelievable given the size difference, but when he was in control you totally bought him in control

Simon Sezz v. Jason Bradley

TKG: Last two matches had kind of bulky oiled up babyfaces. This one had Simon Sezz. And we are in workrate T-shirted indy wrestling territory here.I’ve really been digging Simon Sezz of late as he is a guy who works real 2002 Alex Shelley offense but works it into this really old school face/heel context without it coming off as either masturbatory moves or ironic winking. I’ve never seen Jason Bradley but he was fun as heavyset T-shirted heel vs skinny T shirted face, doing amusing stooge bumps and cutting Sezz off with big throws.

PAS: I am not sure whether Simon Sezz would stand out in Evolve, but having one guy do Evolvish offense in a fed like this kind of works. He really knows how to put 2000 ends offense in context. His fancy shit looks less Chris Sabin and more Skip Young.

Bull Pain v. Flash Flanagan

TKG: So I’ve really been enjoying title match Flash Flannigan as a guy who always has neat finishes done well. Here unfortunately the finish felt abrupt and semi blown. Everything up to the finish was amazing. Bull Pain is just a wrecking machine, and Flash is a guy who comes off tough for taking Pain’s stuff and waiting for his spots to crotch Pain against the ring post. I’ve seen lots of distract a ref spots and there is just something natural about Flash’s distract a ref spots where it feels less formula and more like the way you actually distract a cashier in a store before robbing them.

PAS: Bull Pain is one of the more believably violent guys in all of wrestling. I have seen a lot of great looking headbutts in my day, but Pain aims his forehead right at Flash’s temple and just looks debilitating. Flash fires back just as rough, and he is truly one of the best wrestlers I have ever seen at timing his comebacks, there is an awesome moment where he catches Pain with a DDT right as he is entering the ring and it is just perfectly done. It is too bad the finish was so awkward, because this was pretty close to a tremendous match

Mitch Ryder v. Chris Michaels

PAS: This was that tremendous match though. This was a feud ending falls count anywhere match, and was one of the times where XCW-Midwest reached the big time Memphis main event heights that they aim for. They start with a pretty great arena tour with both guys exchanging big shots and they climb up and down the bleachers. This is a fed full of guys with great looking right hands, but Michaels was winning the contests with some corkers. It slows down some in the middle with both guys bleeding and selling fatigue, and then they build again to a big time finish run with a bunch of spots around a steel chair. They weren’t using the chair innovatively, it was just an exclamation point to all of their shots. XCW is a fed with some questionable finishes to big matches, this finish felt like the ending of both a match and a feud. Great shit, and exactly why I watch this fed.

TKG: Yeah this was the match. This was a pretty fun card top to bottom. And this match on the top is not just the reason why you watch this fed, but pretty much the reason why you watch wrestling. They just go at it all over the arena with Ryder attacking Chris to start and then the bleacher tour with constant teases of big falls. The look on Ryder’s face when he realizes he has drawn first blood, looking at the blood on his hands and realizing where it came from, is great. The crowd is totally behind Ryder and you feel yourself chanting “Go Mitch Go” too. All of the nearfalls are really dramatic, with nothing feeling thrown away.

Read more!

XCW Midwest 2nd Anniversary Show 6/9/09

Big Texan Marc Houston v. 2 Tuff Tony

PAS: Marc Houston is a big young guy who works sort of a Stan Hansen gimmick. He isn’t Hansen, but he is pretty good with really nice clubbing forearms and power moves. Tony has been pretty hit or miss in XCW, and he was pretty hit or miss in this match as some of his stuff looked great, but some was really off. His flipping leg drop is still spectacular though.

TKG: I’ve seen Houston once before and have thus far dug what I’ve seen, His strikes look good, he has a real nice powerslam and spinebuster, and he eats stuff really well. This was an odd match in that Houston really dominated with Tony working almost charismatic Dusty calling on crowd support to fight from below.

Bull Pain v. Vito Andretti

PAS: This is set up by Bull Pain coming out on his birthday to challenge Todd Morton to a chain match, Morton then says he has to beat Vito Andretti before he gets his match. It is fine way to build a match, but it just makes me pissed off that I am not watching Bull Pain v. Todd Morton in a chain match. This was a pretty spectacular one man show, as Bull beats on Andretti with some super nasty offense, and then takes a couple of spectacular bumps, and then brutalizes him some more. Man is Bull Pain a superstar.

TKG: I think Andretti maybe a Thatcher guy but yeah this was really a one-man show. Andretti mostly is guy moving backward here constantly retreating. And you don’t blame him. Everything Pain does here looks incredible. His big bumps really are huge bumps. Pain has some amazingly nasty looking offense where you go “Holy Shit” for an amazing looking vertical suplex.

Todd Morton v Bill Dundee

TKG: I’ve seen these guys match up a bunch of times over the last year and its always a blast. Dundee tosses a chain back and forth with the audience and nails Morton in the liver with a chain shot. Morton sells getting punched in the liver with a chain like a guy who was punched in the liver with a chain. And that’s the thing, where it’s not just that both of these guys have great looking punches, and amusing ways to set up those punches. But also both of these guys are really great at selling stuff, Bill Dundee is in his late sixties and doesn’t bump as much as he once did, but he can still sell really well. And instead of adjusting to this by flopping even more, Morton sells standing. The toe to toe stuff almost comes across tougher as both sell struggling to stand instead of flying down for every punch.

PAS: Morton is a tremendous athletic bumper, but I really dug the choice he made in this match. Both guys are just cracking each other with shots and each guy is awesome at looking like they got their bell rung. Going through the Memphis set, Dundee's versatility was really at the forefront. He obviously had a huge arsenal of shitck and spots that he could run through, I loved the audience catch spot when he did it vs. the Assassin in 1982 and it was pretty sweet to see him break it out in 2009. I thought the ending did a nice job setting up the Bull Pain v. Morton chain match, but I would have liked to see this feud get a final chapter. This is an anniversery show so you expect to see some closure, but instead it felt like a Clash of Champions or a RAW setting up a PPV.

Mitch Ryder v. Chris Michaels

TKG: This starts witth a really great arena tour brawl with guys getting knocked down all over the place. For a guy who was supposedly going to retire this year due to back problems, Chris Michaels takes some insane bumps on his back. Mitch Ryder looked super sharp here as well.

PAS: This was pretty great, Chris Micheals is pretty nuts as he was the biggest bumper on the whole show, with that apparently bad back. This may have been the best I have seen Ryder's punches look as he was laying in some sweet combos. There were points of this match that looked like the end of Memphis TX death match. Ryder is really great at the all around the arena brawl too, all the slams into the doors and tables were pretty safe, but looked super nasty. Just a fun match, although this feels like a feud with legs, and they seemed to move on too quickly to other things.

Bull Pain/Jake Crist v. Sexy Shawn Cook/Cody Hawk

TKG: This is a fans get to be lumberjacks with straps match which is always an insane stipulation. I think the fans won the honor through a raffle which is helping to pay for a sick child's medical expenses. It's hard to follow mic work on hand helds. Crist's brother can't mae it so we get Bull Pain as last minute surprise partner. Cook and Hawk are really growing on me and are really great here at constantly teasing that they are going to fall out of ring. Crist as FIP does a couple of spots built around avoiding going to ground which kind of makes no sense..they eventually do the super amusing heels throw Christ to the floor only to be upset when the fan lumberjacks gently pick him back up and rol him back into ring. And really this match is made by the sheer enthusiasm and mugging of the fan lumberjacks. I am voting skinny bearded XCW fan lumberjack as my 2009 WON best non-wrestler performer. I can't think of a better second in wrestling. They actually book a heels win a fan lumberjack with straps match and the finish is just incredibly nasty and clever.

PAS: Man it still amazes me how great Bull Pain is as a charismatic babyface, here is a guy who was a terrifying heel for decades, and he turns face and he is Stone Cold Steve Austin. This was a really great match Jake Crist isn't much, but he is a perfectly fine guy getting doubled teamed by Cook and Hawk, they worked the lumberjack strap tease great and the finish was nasty. I want to second the love for the skinny fan lumberjack, he is the world best methed out Jackie Fargo.

Jamie Dundee v. Flash Flanagan

TKG: This is a fun little match that positions Flanagan as the bruiser vs. JC Ice’s quickness. Flanagan is having a pretty great run with the title. Schneider has complained about the problem with closure and finishes in XCW feuds. The thing with Flanagan is that his matches always finish in really cool ways. Not necessarily new innovative finishes. But he executes BS Mid Atlantic heel steals win finishes better than anyone else. And it’s not just the execution but also the set up. There are times where you watch a Tully match and the roll up with the tights feels like something tacked on in the end. With Flanagan the finish never feels tacked on and is always set up well. His set up and execution on these classic finishes makes them come off really fresh.

PAS: JC Ice was also really great in this match. He does a tremendous job turning his heel shtick into face shtick. His fake karate works was always such a douchebag move, I loved seeing it firing up a crowd. I did feel like this was a match missing a middle. They had excellent opening horseshit, and a cool finish, I would have liked to see more middle stuff to really make this a stand out match.

Read more!

XCW Midwest -November Pain 11/21/09

Mobile Homers v. Knuckles and Knives

PAS: This started as a singles match between Rudy Switchblade and Ted “The Trailer” McNailer and turns into an impromptu tag match which is an XCW booking staple. Match varied from good to bad, these guys are both OVW tag teams and parts of the match felt polished like you would expect a touring match to be, other parts felt way too sloppy for guys who train together. Ted McNailer felt like the keeper in the group as he was really fast in his offense, and stuff landed well.

TKG: I don’t know if the singles into tag is a XCW staple or just a Mobile Homers staple. The quick taggin face part felt really polished. The member of Knucles and Knives who wasn’t Rudy Switchblade seemed like he was a guy who always knew how to be in the right place and work the crowd . I also liked his run in and beat down on Mcnailer.

New Age Assassin v. “Black Diamond’ Kliff Hanger

TKG: I don’t think New Age Assassin is the same New Age Assassin we’ve seen on earlier XCW and XCW ground Xero shows ,nor do I think he is New Age Assassin Tim Renesto. He was kind of stocky and awkward. Kliff Hanger and the Assassin start this match with lots of amusing horseshit. I think they may have overdone the horseshit to the point that it became dull. The point of a cliffhanger is you don’t give away all your stuff at once, you save some of that so you have something new next time. Hanger goes up well for back bodydrops and has some nice jabs but there was a lot of the post comedy stuff which looked ugly.

PAS: For the first part of the match this was a perfectly fine King Cobra v. Dirty Rhodes comedy undercard match. They switched into their “wrestling” section, and it felt unnecessary. I think that is a big problem with current indy wrestling, guys feel like if they have stuff to do, they need to do it in every match.

Todd Morton v. Mitch Ryder

PAS: These guys had one of my favorite matches of 2008, and they bring it back in 2009 and have another super match. Morton spends the first part of the match with some world class stooging, watching Morton avoid locking up is like watching Miles Davis play the trumpet. With all the Memphis wrestling I have watched over the last couple of years, I didn’t think there was new shtick I haven’t seen, but Morton is doing some revolutionary shit. When Ryder finally catches him and unloads with his great looking punch combos it is truly satisfying. Morton transitions into asskicker, and he unloads with super nasty punches and mafia kicks, with Ryder coming right back at him. The finish was fine, with Ryder rolling up Morton after he is distracted by Gerald Lowe. Still epic finishes are what XCW is often missing, it is like watching 1980’s All Japan, matches are great, but then you get the double count out. There are plenty of great finishes in Memphis they could borrow, but they seem to only use the cheap ones.

TKG: You get the sense that Morton has an endless number of lazzi at his disposal, and almost get the impression that he never uses the same one twice. His dodge and move and bullshit at the beginning of this match didn’t feel like time killer so much as stuff that actually built up anticipation. The punch exchanges on the floor right in front of little kids were awesome: “here’s some fucking close up magic, Ricky Jay”” and it’s neat watching them move from the platform to the close up and back. Finish wasn’t epic but it was satisfying.

Flash Flanagan v 2 Tuff Tony

TKG: Too Tough Tony is in as I think a replacement for Bull Pain. There is some odd pacing to this match. Too Tough Tony is a guy who normally works a match built around walking and hitting, while Flash is a guy who does quicker exchanges. And at times it feels like the two guys are having timing issues and at other times the difference in timing feels like a cool feature. Flash starts going all out and Too Tough looks somewhat awkward as guy working at the initial pace. Flash then begins a long run after a leg take down of Tony into turnbuckle. Tony doesn’t do much from below as Flash is constantly moving. The end with the two guys going for moves off the ropes where Flash moves quickly to avoid Tony, while Tony moves more last minute I thought was real neat. And I kind of liked Tony’s soccer bicycle kick which felt plodding guy hitting hard out of nowhere (as well as move that slowed Flash down to Tony’s pace). There were other moments where it just felt awkward.

PAS: I didn’t like this as much as Tom, Flanagan has had a great run in 2009, and this was the least of it. It not only felt like the timing was off on the match, but also their spacing seemed weird, multiple times they felt like they were too close to each other to pull off the moves they were trying. Flanagan had some moments, but this wasn’t any good.

Read more!

XCW Midwest 5/5/09

Rob Fury v. Chris Michaels

TKG: I don’t know who Rob Fury is, but I think there is a guy wrestling as “Rob Fury” in every state in the country. Really had he feel of a guy who would be wrestling in ECWA tagged with Inferno Kid. He has good height on his dropkick and is able to do energetic foot stomping to get crowd behind him. But this is the kind of really impressive heel performance where you leave with no impression of the face at all.

PAS: Fury has short hair and blue trunks and really looks like a random John Paul tag partner in late 80’s Memphis. Michaels ruled in this taking a bunch of really great signature bumps, including a backflip over the top and the Waltman corner bump. Finishing super kick was awesome looking too. Fun but ultimately forgettable match.

Sexy Sean Casey v. Mitch Ryder

TKG: Sean Casey is a really generic heel in the same way that Fury was a really generic babyface. They may both be trainees. I don’t know if Ryder was working as guy working opponent below him (in wrestling hierarchy) or if that’s just what it feels like when you match up a good babyface v. generic heel. This felt like inverted version of the heel underestimates opponent type match.

PAS: I have no idea why you bring in Sexy Sean Casey when your show is being semi mained by Sexy Shawn Cook. They either have to feud, or Casey has to change his gimmick. This seemed to set up a Ryder v Michaels match, and in that sense the matches did their job. You watch Ryder work a generic heel and Michaels work a generic face, and you really want to see them against each other

Bull Pain v. Lash Gibson/Convict

TKG: I can’t make out any of the mic work which is a pain considering this is a fed filled with guys who are good on the mic. The impression I get is that Todd Morton is claiming injury so Bull Pain gets these two guys instead. Lash Gibson is a XCW trainee who I’ve seen twice before and liked. This whole show may be XCW regulars v trainees. I need to start watching the all trainee shows. I expected this to be a total disgusting ass beating. Instead it was Bull Pain beating on the trainees, followed by moments of Bull Pain being distracted by Morton or Flash Flannigan and the trainees getting in little bits of stuff. This disappointed as you kind of want it to be either more competitive or more non-competitive. This was in some in-between place and just there.

PAS: I was expecting this to be a brutal Bull Pain beating and there were moments of that, but I wanted more moments.

Shawn Cook/Cody Hawk v Irish Airborne

TKG: This went really long, maybe too long. First ten minutes of this were flashy face stuff and heel stooging, followed by Shawn Cook pulling down the top rope while one of Irish Airborne was running the ropes leading to a big bump and a FIP section. I liked the first FIP section, and then second member of Irish Airborne tagged in and got his stuff stopped for second FIP section. Heels are really good at stopping the faces from getting stuff in and have lots of nasty ways to knock a guy in his head, but second Irish Airborne guy was sloppier as FIP then first one, They go for a really cool variation of the standard Fantastics lose a match finish (Rogers has opponent in roll up and gets hit with clothesline/DDT etc). Here instead Shawn Cook goes for the clothesline only to have it ducked and fly out the ring. A couple neat spots and variations on a basic formula, neat things that I hadn’t seen before…but this got lost a couple times in it’s length.

PAS: I liked some of the flashy Irish Airborne stuff, the springboard headlock takeover was cool and I liked some of the Cook and Hawk stooging, the face catapulting the heels head into his partners nuts. However it didn’t feel like either guy had enough cool stuff for the length of the match. This was a 20+ minute match that would have been a really great 14 minute match.

L.T. Falk v. Flash Flanagan

PAS: This is a whole show kind of based around higher ranked guys wrestling lower ranked guys and this was the best of those matches. Falk is the son of Cowboy Tony Faulk and is better then anyone in Legacy. This had Flanagan rip apart Faulks leg with some really nastily applied basic offense, and Falk firing back with nice enthusiastic babyface offense. I especially liked his punch, chop combo. Falk did a bunch of really cool sells of the leg, including flipping out of a headlock and his leg collapsing under him. Pretty much a touring Ric Flair match done really well, which is always cool to see in the 21st century.

TKG: Yah a lot of this show felt like an 80s WWF Superstars episode. I got the sense that I would enjoy the battle of the underdogs between all the trainees but here for the most part I didn’t by the underdogs as being competitive. Here this really did feel like underdog hugely stepping up and you bought his enthusiasm at having this opportunity. He wasn’t going to let it go to waste. Flannigan’s leg work all looked really good and was paced well. Flannigan’s had a pretty nice year in the ring and always manages to have neat original finishes to his matches.

Read more!