Paradigm Pro: UWFI Contenders Series 2 Episode 6 Finale

Lost Boys (Chase Holliday/Hoodfoot) vs. Aaron Williams/Gary Jay

PAS: I don't think the tag format totally worked, although this had some moments. Hoodfoot is always going to entertain in this style, and he clubbed Williams with a huge shot to the back of the head, and finished the match with a gross suplex on Williams and some ground and pound. Jay looked better in this match then he did in his first match, but I don't think this style is for him. He doesn't seem like he has the pacing and selling down and just wants to get in his indy offense. He did hit hard though, which mitigates some sins.

ER: It seems like a liked bigger parts of this a lot more than Phil, even if we have the same complaints. Once they got past joking about the UWFI tag rules in ring, I thought this settled in pretty nicely. Holliday had some nice palm strikes, including a cool almost uppercut shot as he was getting up, really looked like it cracked Jay. Jay had a couple of things that were way too "regular indy match" and that's my least favorite stuff when it turns up on a specialty show. The little mule kick to take out Holliday's knee, followed up with a big downward strike closed fist, just made everyone involved look stupid for it not drawing any kind of penalty. The commentary couldn't call the punch what it was, and the ref even looked like he hesitated and wasn't sure if he should point it out. 

But I probably liked his fighting spirit roaring elbow after a Hoodfoot backdrop driver much less. Tons of matches in this series have ended with suplexes that weren't as gruesome as Hoodfoot's, and if you really want to get your favorite 90s puro spots into your match, well, maybe you should crib from the right fed. Nobody is doing Michinoku Pro hops at the end of exchanges either. But I really liked the whole finishing stretch, with Holliday getting surely KO'd by Williams, only for Holliday to be close enough to tag in Hoodfoot at the 9 count. I thought the Hoodfoot/Williams shootout was among the best strike exchanges in their entire series, felt really intense and was filled with shots. Williams gets trapped in a huge trap arm German, and then Hoodfoot throws them downward strike elbows for the stoppage. I've said it before, but this style benefits from hot finishing stretches, always great to go out on a super high note. 

Freddie Hudson vs. Lexus Montez

PAS: I haven't loved Montez so far on this show, but he and Hudson have clearly worked each other a bunch and had a nice rhythm. Both guys hit nice suplexes, I especially liked Hudson's teardrop, and Montez does a cool roll through into a kimura for the tap. Got me a little more excited to see Montez in the Middleweight tourney, and he was initially a name I wasn't pumped about.

ER: Rhythm is a good word for what we got here, and it was fun. Commentary points out how these two have met several times before in Paradigm, but never under UWFI rules. Those kind of details added to the way Hudson played things, which was as a guy happy to be there and work a different style against a familiar worker. It added a fun edge to things, and both delivered big snap suplexes that looked worthy of a count. Totally agree on Montez's kimura finish as well, didn't expect the spot to go that direction and I kept getting more into it the more Montez appeared to improvise bending Hudson's arm. 

Big Beef Gnarls Garvin vs. Lord Crewe

PAS: Crewe has quietly become one of the best guys in this fed, and this was the high energy slap fight you want from this matchup (and a solid improvement on their first match). Both guys threw real heat here. Beef had a couple of big sack toss suplexes, and the back slap to the ear which Crewe used to drop Beef was a real equilibrium buzzer.  I liked how Beef wouldn't let the ref count on his suplex, he was pressing forward and it eventually cost him.

ER: I thought this kicked ass, totally the kind of match I wanted them to have. Beef really chucked Crewe on a couple of throws, and Crewe is either a great suplex bumper, or is a crazy man who leans shoulder first into painful throws, and I don't care which one of those it is. The stand up looked like it had real consequences, and I somehow always forget how much snap Crewe can get on his close quarter striking. It's hard to get a lot of momentum behind strikes when you're dodging return fire and standing half an arm's distance away, yet Crewe really cracks Beef several times. His backhand to the back of Beef's head was killer, loved how Beef dropped for it, and I really like the storyline of Beef getting more and more frustrated that Crewe is the guy adding crooked numbers to his loss column. Beef doesn't lose any aura, even though Crewe wasn't winning on banana peel finishes. 

Yoya vs. Robert Martyr

PAS: These guys train together, and they really have fun chemistry. The brawling on the floor isn't completely kosher with the rules, but I liked Yoya's shot with the guard rail and how it caused Martyr to sell for the rest of the match. But I didn't think the tap out and restart added much to the match, and we easily could have done without it. I did like how Martyr tried to fight his way into suplexes and the finishing headbutt was super nasty and a meaningful KO. Good stuff, and I would be into this being run back. 

ER: Great chemistry, and an over-complicated fight that didn't need this many story beats, but the work and chemistry almost made all the beats work. Every time I would find myself going "well they didn't need to do..." I would still be interested in where they were going. The roll to the floor came off well, but it did feel odd seeing Yoya trap Martyr's arm in the guardrail and kick it. Yoya hasn't really been a guy who takes shortcuts in his matches, and it's odd to have him be such a giant killer who never quits, and then have him cheat for the first time against the one guy who is closest to his size. Or maybe I'm looking at it all wrong and it's a great small guy thing of being way meaner to other small guys while trying to earn the respect of the largest guys. Fight the guys nobody expects him to be with honor, fights the other small guy like there can only be one small guy. 

The controversial stoppage was a bit odd, not sure I understood any of it. Martyr clearly tapped, then begged his way into a restart. In 2nd grade I almost got sent to the principal's office, which would have been my first visit there. I was warned plenty of times using the classic grade school "clothespins on a colorfully drawn stoplight" method, and once you get moved to the yellow light you know you're one misstep from red. So I hit read, and the class ooooooooooed and I shamelessly pleaded with Mrs. Setterlund to have mercy, total groveling act, dancing like no one was watching. And it worked, and it was at least another 3 years until I actually got sent to the principal's office for the first time. BUT if I was a babyface pro wrestler and clearly lost a match, I would not grovel and beg to get the match restarted. I thought Yoya looked cool as hell for agreeing to a restart, even though I don't understand it. I really liked Martyr struggling and selling while trying throws, and I loved Yoya's rolling armdrag. I do wish Martyr had left the thigh slaps at home though. His strikes looked good without slaps, and you don't need slaps on back elbows, and I thought the slaps on the finishing headbutt were really egregious. Back elbows and worked headbutts look cool, just let them breathe. 

Max the Imapaler vs. Alex Kane

PAS: I really liked what we got here, but I think it was a bit too short. Max does a great job of conveying menace and I totally bought them dominating early, even with as strong as Kane has been put over. That belly to belly throw was especially sick, but I did think two suplexes put Kane down a bit too easily. The German Max threw was nice, but it wasn't "put an undead monster to sleep" nice. One or two more moments really could have made this something special.  

ER: I thought this was cool as hell, and was about the length I was expecting based on how the length all of these hiss showdowns have been on Contenders. Kane has been such a steamroller, it was cool to see Max just go right at him. I thought their German looked awesome, Kane appears to have that inverse Lawler magic where he is as great a punch salesman as he is a puncher. Kane folds real well on this German, comes off like a guy who really knows all angles of a suplex, taking and giving. both had their chance to show off cool belly to belly suplexes, with Max doing a short deadlift and just dropping Kane, like men after carrying a 40 lb. bag of cat litter up the stairs. Kane's belly to belly has this gorgeous followthrough, just moving Max's dead body and driving them into the mat. The landing looked so heavy that I was actually expecting a stoppage. This felt like more than one minute. 

The Lifers (Matthew Justice/Bobby Beverly) vs. Team Filthy (Tom Lawlor/Dominic Garrini)

PAS: This worked better than the first tag match, but I don't think this was the best way to pay off the Team Filthy vs. Justice feud for the season. Justice is best in wilder, brawling UWFI matches and this was by far the longest UWFI rules match PPW has done. It had a much more deliberate pace, which exposes some of the seams way more than something quick and nasty. I did like Lawlor and Garrini as grinder mat wrestlers who would take both Justice and Beverly down and tie them into knots until they had to grab the ropes. The finish run between Justice and Lawlor was pretty exciting, exchanging slaps, with Lawlor having the advantage until Justice checked his kick, hit a spear, and landed some sick knees to the temple for the KO. I honestly think the match would have been better if it was just a singles between those two, and that was basically just the last finish run on its own. 

ER: This was too long for me, too meandering, too out of sync with the rest of the vibe these shows have given us. I didn't even dislike anything that happened, and I love all these dudes, but it felt like an on paper WCW dream tag match that gets more time than any other TV time that week, and doesn't really do much with that time. There's a 12 minute Finlay/Jericho Nitro match that I think is incredibly boring, and I don't think I've called any other Finlay match in history "boring". This wasn't boring, but it didn't go the places I wanted to, and there were still some fun moments along the way. I laughed at and loved Dom's fun rolling ankle pick, just slowly somersaulting in all unassuming and suddenly he's an anaconda around Justice's leg. The final showdown between Lawlor and Justice was great, awesome mini war, and I wish we would have had a 5 minute tag of that kind of stuff rather than what we got. Still, loved these guys. 

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Paradigm Pro: UWFI Contenders Series 2 Episode 1

8. Hoodfoot Mo Atlas vs. Akira

PAS: One of the longer Hoodfoot UWFI matches I have seen and one where he sold a lot. Akira took most of the match, including landing a couple of big knockdowns, one with a stiff liver kick and one with a flurry ending in a running knee. Akira is good at bringing an appropriate amount of stiffness to his shots, and I bought him taking a lot of this match even though he was smaller. Finish was a classic Hoodfoot finish, with Akira rushing in and getting obliterated with that looping right hand. It felt like King Kong swatting a plane out of the sky.

ER: I expected this to be a kind of Hoodfoot steamrolling, but what we got was much more special than that likely would have been. Atlas is great at steamrolling guys, but he's perhaps even better at showing believable vulnerability. The mat scrambling looked really good, and Atlas is strong at little mat details the whole match, like grabbing Akira by the meat of the calf on the ground, or holding down Akira's elbow late in the match while in a triangle. Akira's striking looked like it was legitimately taking Atlas apart, and I exclaimed out loud to nobody when the liver kick knockdown happened. I went from expecting Hoodfoot in a walk, to not expecting Hoodfoot to get up from that kick. Akira rocks Atlas with a back elbow, goes back to that kick in the corner (Atlas is so good at using the ropes to save him from a knockdown, I've seen him rely on them in cool ways a few different times now, great way of integrating the ring into his matches), and drops him again with an awesome running knee. You knew Atlas was going to throw big hands, and all of them looked predictably great, loved him going for heavy kneelifts, and I can't believe Akira got up after that right hand sandwiched between two Saito suplexes. I'm glad he did, and I love how the wrapped it up instead. Great stuff through and through, so much better than the match I thought I wanted.

Robert Martyr vs. Nick King

PAS: I though this was good stuff. King is listed as having a folkstyle and judo background and there was a lot of mat scrambling at the start including King throwing a really seamless fireman's carry, and a nice snap german. Martyr actually uses the ref to block King's view, stomps down on the ankle and hits a big german of his own, before he gets a chicken wing for the tap. Lots of energy in the early mat work, and I would be into seeing King again.

ER: Great bang for your buck, under 3 minutes and all of it great. This was my first time seeing King, and Paradigm is really making me think they have a bottomless supply of interesting new guys at their disposal. King was really gluey on the mat, looked like he hardly let go of Martyr's left ankle and kept rolling and pivoting into new holds from that ankle control. His fireman's carry alone was great enough that I think I was counting myself a Nick King Fan one minute in. Martyr stomping King's ankle while the ref was clearly obstructing King's view is a real dickhead twerp move, and commentary was super sharp to point out how Martyr would likely get a point docked for that but gained a point and damage from following it up with a German. The chickenwing was a surprise quick finish, but a good one, and King was great at looking like a guy who got caught in a chickenwing. 

Isiah Broner vs. Flash Thompson

PAS: Felt like they were writing Flash out of the territory here. Both these guys have boxing backgrounds, so I enjoyed the timing and movement. Broner is able to shoot in and grab a quick double leg and clean out Thompson quick with ground and pound. They do a post match angle with Bobby Beverly turning extra heel by turning on his heel group and joining another heel group. I like this sub-promotion a lot, but all of the angles that aren't just one guy calling out another have been misses. 

ER: This was mostly angle, which is fine, but the execution was muddy and the implications were unclear. I'm not bothered by the 1 minute fight, even if the stand-up slapping thrills me less than any other options open to guys under these rules. But I did like Flash's selling on the shot that made his legs wobble, and thought Broner dragging Flash to the mat with a papoose takedown kicked ass. But you have Broner getting a stoppage in a minute, then Flash beating Broner down after, then Beverly cheapshotting Flash, which leaves Broner slumped there waiting for an angle to play out, his quick finish already in the rearview. I think filming something separately with Beverly and Flash could have played better, as a big Broner win should have been played up as a bigger thing than a Bobby Beverly stable change. 

Austin Connelly vs. Jordan Blade

PAS: I have compared Connelly to a shoot style Buzz Sawyer before, and he has really leaned into it with a chain and barking, which is great. Like always, Connelly is a missile aimed right at his opponent, constantly moving forward throwing reckless forearms. He run rights into a forearm by Blade which busts his mouth, and they are moving with such speed and wildness that it doesn't seem possible to control the force of blows. Blade grabs the ankle and really cranks it until the ref has to stop the fight. I am into both of these fighters, Connelly especially is one of my favorite wrestlers in the world to watch right now.

ER: My god Austin Connelly rules. There have been a ton of standout moments and standout wrestlers on these Paradigm UWFI shows, so it's high praise to say he might be my favorite. I like Phil's Shootstyle Buzz Sawyer description, and while I harp on other guys not really adhering to UWFI style, I hypocritically love how UWFI rules cannot contain Connelly as he rushes headlong into kill or be killed. These two were throwing elbows straight at mouths and not pulling things, and we got a great visual of Connelly yelling through a mouth filled with blood while trying to break an ankle lock. Blade hung in with the mad man and weathered the storm, fighting for that ankle lock even while Connelly was pounding on her knee to get her to break. I would have liked another minute or two of this, but also love experiencing the joy of Connelly in these starbursts. 

PAS: Filthy Tom Lawlor comes out and introduces Matt Makowski as the newest member of Team Filthy, which is awesome. Love Makowski, and I am excited to see what he does in this format. They do another angle that sets up Makowski vs. Hoodfoot which is of course great, but there is some stuff with Bobby Beverly and Lexus Montez which wasn't great and ended up with some shoving, and the angles continue to leave me cold. Makowski vs. Hoodfoot should rule though.

ER: Getting more guys than necessary out there to do some shoving was really not necessary, as the purpose of the Lawlor segment should have only been to build excitement for Makowski/Hoodfoot. That match is something to be excited about, and I left the segment excited for it, but everything else distracted from that excitement. 

Derek Neal vs. Gary Jay

PAS: This didn't work for me, the striking had a real Lisa Simpson windmill feeling, and there were some New Japan forearms and even a knife edge chop. It had some nice energy and Neal threw a good clothesline, but it felt out of the style and too many thing didn't land but got sold anyway.

ER: This didn't bother me as badly as it did Phil, but you know when Phil breaks out the Lisa Simpson reference that he is getting ready to really hate something. I don't know what part of the match those punches are referring to, as it's a tough criticism to levy towards a match with no closed fists allowed. When you're only allowed slaps (technically), you are going to be walking that fine line between hard strikes and "kids having a slap fight with 90% of them missing". And from the looks of this match, they landed in that unfortunate valley of strikes that likely really hurt, without actually looking good. That's a shame, because you could see how hard Neal was laying things in with his clubbing shots to Jay's back, and I liked the big powerbomb Neal used to start the match. He has 60 pounds on Jay, hell yes he should Sapp him up into a powerbomb. That kind of stuff worked for me, and I also liked how Neal kept getting solid knockdowns for the first minute: That powerbomb, a kind of waterwheel suplex, a couple of strikes, good way to keep Jay down early. But by the time they started in with bad looking chops and some real bad looking Jay roaring elbows, I was ready for it to be over. I'm sure it's possible to hit a cool roaring elbow that would fit right into the vibe of a Paradigm match, but these elbows wouldn't have looked good in any setting. 

Dominic Garrini vs. Matt Justice

PAS: This was really cool, and a great main event for a season premier. Garrini had only lost once in this style, to Hoodfoot, and Justice had been a guy working primarily superfights against UFC guys. Garrini controlled early with grappling, although Justice showed some skill there including a great gator roll and some really nasty elbows to the side of the head. We get a camera close up of the shots and they were brutal. They get back to their feet and Garrini shoots right into a KO knee. Felt like it was building to something bigger before being suddenly finished, and I liked how it really felt out of nowhere.

ER: Really impressed with both guys here, but it's hard to not be more impressed with Justice. Justice went for a single leg to start and really took a grappling match right to Dom, an ambitious strategy against a world class grappler with a notable gas tank. Dom is really good at being calm and cool on the mat, using his low gravity to put a lot of weight on Justice, to tire Justice out. Justice decides to break this by throwing two brutal back elbows at Garrini's head and face, another that scraped hard across Dom's face, and then rained down with a few more after shifting positions. On a weekly show filled with stiff strikes, these elbows were among the heaviest blows we've seen. The finish was so so, as Dom gets his hands way out in front of the knee that leads right to the finish. I obviously can't really blame anyone for not diving face first into a KO knee, but still a match finishing knee needs to look like a knee that will lead to a finish. Still, I love these guys, and would love to see this run back. 

ER: You could make the case that this episode was the best episode of the UWFI rules series so far, with nearly all of the matches delivering at minimum something memorable. We added Hoodfoot/Akira to our 2021 Ongoing MOTY List. 

2021 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Ongoing 2019 MOTY List: Jay vs. Shire

13. Gary Jay vs. Thomas Shire St. Louis Anarchy 5/24

PAS: What in the fuck was this? Match opens up with Shire tooling Jay with takedowns, Shire smirks, slaps Jay, and Jay responds with a nasty bar fight headbutt. Shire rolls out of the ring and comes out with his head spraying fruit punch all over the ring. It was about as deep a cut as I can remember seeing and it painted the ring. We get some nasty blood bodypainting by Jay, but Shire fires back with some big great looking throws, including a powerbomb on the ring apron and a UFO which chucks Jay kidney first right on the lip of the chair. We got a big time blood soaked punch out, and a KO. I am not sure what got into these guys but I sure enjoyed it.

ER: Well this was unexpected. We get a match starting off fairly joke-y, with Shire stealing Jay's cape and them having a silly back and forth...and a minute later Shire has his forehead completely split open and Jay is biting and licking the open wound and then misting blood up into the air. Jay really clonked him out of nowhere with that headbutt, just running straight into Shire head to head. It was not something I was expecting at all, but we certainly benefitted from it. Both men are soon covered in Shire's blood, and Shire channels Hijo del Santo in his classic LA Park bloodbath and the bloodier he gets, the more offense he does. Both guys stiff the hell out of each other, Jay throwing his hard elbows and Shire attacking with uppercuts and big full body falling lariats. Jay is great at taking lariats crazy suplexes, and Shire is someone who can throw great heavy arm lariats and snap off quick Germans. Jay hits a big dive and when he goes for his succession of them he gets cut off but an uppercut, powerbombed hard on the apron, then Shire straight launches him with a UFO. Jay grazes the back of a chair and lands flat and hard right on the floor. That was a finisher worthy spot, and by this point it felt like both guys were fighting for their careers. The shot of Jay splayed out on the floor while Shire literally held his head together was epic. Eventually Shire weakens and eats a KO elbow from Jay, and the crowd reaction for Shire's whole ordeal was really beautiful, with fans surrounding the ring and getting louder and louder for him while he marinated in his own juices. Fully agree with Phil that I have no idea what got into these two, but boy am I glad it got there. I also think this would have been a really exciting match without blood. But with blood? We got an absolute classic.


2019 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Matches from Black Label Pro 2/2/19

Daniel Makabe vs. Rory Gulak

ER: Fun on paper match that totally ruled, real tight 11 minutes of cool grappling and almost lucha maestro submissions, with some nice strikes and a boss suplex peppering the action. Makabe is getting gigs all over the place now, so I didn't used to even think about "dream matches" as I felt lucky enough we got to see guys like Thatcher and Navarro work the PNW (and shoot, on this card I'd love to see him against Bateman), but even then I don't think I would have thought about Gulak as a "dream" match-up. But they're super complementary and Gulak gets hyper focused when in with a guy like Makabe. There's a lot of comedy Gulak out there, but he can be a real pitbull and I'm glad that's who we got. The minimal comedy we did get (Gulak being squirrely during a knucklelock) was put over nicely by Makabe, who then punished him for wasting his time. The ground game was really fun from both guys, especially liked Gulak tying up Makabe's arm and leg, and another time touching both his arms behind his back while wrenching his neck. That looked like a finisher sub right there. Makabe has a nice STF and a good brain that's always looking for a limb or neck to crank, always working to set up one sub only to pivot to grab the sub he actually wants. These two make something fairly innocuous - like a series of waistlock reversals - feel really exciting, simple single leg takedowns become highspots, and Makabe doesn't cheap out on things like snapmares, always throwing them tightly. The strikes were laid in tightly throughout, short elbows from mount, a nice brief stand and trade capped with the Big Unit punch, and my favorite quick sequence where Rory brags to the crowd and gets snapped over into a nice German. Makabe's corner dropkick lands hard and I liked his surprise Teddy Hart leg sell after that lead to Gulak locking in an absolutely vicious kneebar that looked like it was going to touch Makabe's sole to his head. This was super brisk and always violent, always cool. One of my favorite show openers of the year.

25. Sadkampf (Dominic Garrini/Kevin Ku) vs. WorkHorsemen (Anthony Henry/James Drake)

PAS: After Garrini's weekend stealing performance in NYC, I am tracking down all of the Sadkampf. This was a total blast, just four guys teeing off on each other. We get an opening mat section with Garrini and Henry and it really makes me want to see them match up in Bloodsport 2020, fast takedowns, cool reversals. Henry mostly is a workrate junior, but can really roll if he wants to. Everyone goes to the floor, and we get a great arena tour brawl, which ends with Garrini smushing Drake with a running knee into the wall. It is two on one for a while, until Drake comes crawling back for the tag. I think they went a bit long after the dramatic hot tag, and the finish run wasn't as good as the body of the match, but man these are four guys who will unload.

ER: I might have liked this even more than Phil. The only portion of the match I didn't really like was a middle section that saw Garrini and Ku kind of just standing around waiting to be hit several times. That slowed down the pace of what was - before and after - a smoking match. When a match is built around 100% asskicking and not cool moves, it's going to have a really high floor. And these guys can all hit. I was really impressed with Garrini's strike selling in this match, a feature of his I've never really noticed before. Henry has a lot of kick combos (and a lot of cool kick combos!) and I loved the way he attacked Garrini with leg kicks and a big variety of spin kicks and high kicks. Garrini sold them in a fun off balance way while finding many different ways to fall down. I especially liked him getting knocked off balance, teetering on one leg, before face planting. The crowd brawl was fun and peaked with Drake missing his cannonball into a wall and eating a nasty knee from Garrini. Sadkampf can throw some vicious knees and chops (Garrini's palms together chop to Drake's neck is just unfair) and we got those in spades. It can be hard to keep building up fans to a finish when you have multiple "all four men knocked down" moments, but I thought the pace did a good job of escalating and deescalating fans. I really liked the finishing stretch and felt it build like some of the hotter Kings Road tags, really liked the focus on painful partner saves (Henry doing a double stomp from the top to break up a pin, Garrini hitting a heavy senton), and it was cool seeing what both teams could string together for painful match finishing combos. This was an awesome tag.

Tyler Bateman vs. Gary Jay

ER: Two guys I like, having a match that I didn't really like! Opening up a match with a lonnnnng chop battle isn't going to do much to win me over, no matter how beet red both guys get from them. We already had a zillion nasty chops and red chests during the tag match, stacking a card with a bunch of white guys getting their chests beaten red feels like BLP is catering more to a fetish market. And you have to make money where you make money, so if it helps the merch tables I don't really care. This match had a lot of good ideas but they weren't really integrated well into an overall match. There was a little bit too much of a disconnect to the bigger spots, Bateman obviously landing his head a foot away from the apron on the big DDT, an obviously thigh slapped headbutt on the finish, and honestly that's fine. I'd rather these two not brain themselves into CTE, but the close up magic has to look better. I still like both guys and both guys have cool moments here, a nice lariat from Bateman results in Jay getting absolutely upended, and both guys hit plenty hard, just not as often during the moments that were supposed to be KO shots.


ER: This show had some cool looking fat guys stuck in multimans that I didn't really want to watch, so I'll keep coming back to BLP. It's easy when there always seems to be a match as good as that tag, a real brawl with awesome build, an easy add to our 2019 Ongoing MOTY List. I was also a big fan of Makabe/Gulak, with Makabe really crafting a fun 11 minute match. I like these guys.

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Long Road Report to Hell 4/4/19, Show #1: IWTV Family Reunion

PAS: Segunda Caida rides again, as Eric, Phil and Tomk met up to do all of Wrestlemania weekend in one day. We started out at the White Eagle Hall for Family Reunion

ER: Phil and I had a nice unexpected breakfast of hot dosas, lemon rice, spicy soup, and I had a delicious chicory madras coffee. We hadn't planned on going for dosas, but it was a close walk and the place totally delivered. The ladies and baby broke free for a fun day in the city, while Phil and I had a nice walk over to the White Eagle Hall, where we would be spending the bulk of our day. I love walking around places like this and seeing big brick school buildings and churches, because we can't have brick buildings out on the west coast, with our sick and constant fear of earthquakes. I like seeing the buildings, and graveyards right in the middle of the city, while Phil told me amusing pick-up basketball gym stories (as I realize that 60% of what Phil tells me about are pick-up basketball gym stories...). The White Eagle is a cool spot, nice stained skylights and seeing wrestling with daylight pouring in through doors is a cool vibe. Tom meets us there as we grab a nice spot in the third row, right by the entrance curtain.

TKG: Phil and Eric explain the concept of Family Reunion as this big interpromotional showcase thing and I go “Oh like Breaking the Barrier”. Spend the entire show trying to figure out which match this would have been the functional equivalent on Breaking the Barrier but refuse to use my cell to look up the actual card.

Orange Cassidy vs. Johnathan Gresham

PAS: Not for me. Good for Cassidy for finding a way to get himself over and not killing himself. Colt Cabana had a way longer career then Necro Butcher. Doesn't mean I want to watch one second of it. Gresham not only has to sell all of his yuks, but has to get squashed by his yuks. I dunno, a Kip up with hands in your pockets is athletically impressive I guess.

ER: Not really any of our thing, but it's better to get that kind of match out of the way first. That way we were able to catch-up and go through formalities with Tom without having to remember too much stuff about the match for later. I'm always a fan of people working the system, and Cassidy has tapped into something easy on the body that people clearly want to see. If you have the personality to pull it off, and you aren't dropping yourself on your head? Do it man. Phil, Tom, and I weren't laughing, but we were in the minority. Hands in joggers and sunglasses and pops, can't say he's doing it wrong. We felt bad for Gresham all day. Here he has to open up his day, the start of the biggest indy wrestling showcase of the year, and he has to spend 10 minutes entirely putting over the entire shtick of somebody else, and then lose, twice! Gresham was essentially the theatre hand wearing all black to be hidden from the audience, while busting their ass for an elaborate prop moving moment. All the work, none of the credit. Are their any matches where someone gets to make Cassidy pay for his nonchalance?

TKG: I like Jeff Spicoli, like David Wooderson, enjoy some Owen Wilson. This left me cold. On Breaking the Barrier, Stevie Richards was able to get his comedy gimmick over without making Tom Brandi feel like a prop. Post-match MJF comes out working gimmick of Jersey used car salesman who listens to a lot of MJG. I think that’s the gimmick. Me and Phil argue if he is supposed to be rich and pompous or a guy who aspires to be rich and pompous. He had a poorly tailored suit but a nicely accessorized off the rack scarf.

Shane Sabre/Space Monkey/Brett Michael David vs. Justin Sane/Kobe Durst/Kody Lane

PAS: This match was indy wrestling the names. How is there a match where Shane Sabre isn't the most PWI 500 name in the match? This was a six man tag showcase, with all that implies. Some stuff looked good, I like BMD's clothesline a bunch, some stuff looked OK, and a fair amount looked weak. The kind of match where you would try to find individual moments to enjoy, but the match as a whole wasn't it.

ER: Look at this lineup of names! This match was totally worth it just for the names alone. This felt like the first time I read a PWI 500 and actually thought the process was legitimate. I would love to do an SC 500 but it would weirdly be harder to do now as we have access to far more stuff than we ever did before, and less time than ever to watch it. I had seen a couple of these guys before. Tom had never seen Space Monkey, and by the end of the day he'd have seen Space Monkey more times live than most guys he genuinely liked. In fairness to the monkey, he seemed to get better each match of his we saw over the 14 hour stretch. New outfits each time, too. Had a banana flask this time and hit a big moonsault off the top to the floor at one point. It was at least an honorable mention for best dive of the day. Justin Sane was a guy who seemed better than his name; I joked that it would be funny if an indy guy was name Just Insane, like he thought it sounded cool and didn't understand it was a pun. Brett Michael David felt like the name of a guy working a Rock of Love gimmick, but he was the biggest guy in the match and had a couple nice strikes and nice lariat. I think BMD was the most memorable here.

TKG: I had actually seen Space Monkey before and thought this was the best of his matches. He needs to watch some GG Allin and work for the scat fans who Joey Ryan is unwilling to reach. Him BMD and Justin Zane seemed totally competent.

Red Eagle vs. Ethan Page vs. Ophidian vs. Arik Cannon vs. Mikey vs. Mike Verna

PAS: Weird match where the relative newcomers Mikey, Verna and Eagle looked more polished and professional then the decade plus veterans they were in there with. Page is on a zillion shows this weekend and was on cruise control here. Verna is from IWA Italy (not sure if that fed was part of Ian's early 2000s expansion) and has some cool strength spots. Outside of that this was pretty forgettable.

ER: This was fine, they've done a good job this show and kept all the six man stuff around 10 minutes and moving briskly. I actually like Arik Cannon here, thought he was the most impressive bumper out of the bunch, seems in better shape than over 12 years ago when I saw him more frequently. The other two vets I can do without. Ophidian has been doing the same routine that I wasn't interested in over a decade ago. Ethan Page showed off his comedy chops in this one, and between he and MJF sitting in the crowd mugging and hamming up hack jokes, I had already had enough comedy in wrestling for the day. Lucky for us Page and MJF were also guys we couldn't stay away from all damn day. Shane Sabre was fine and had the most classic name of all, made us all actually giggle every time we mentioned it. Mikey looked like Yahoo Serious and had a dumb fun mustache, and like the better comedy wrestlers he took a couple nice bumps. Yelling "Here's my moment!" right before running into a big bump is a funny spot.

TKG: Of all the comedy guys I saw, Mikey may have had the best comic timing. It never felt like he was just trying to force gags in, all made sense in the context of what was happening. Bet he has an interesting ladder match in him. That fucking simultaneous DDT one guy while suplexing or ace crushering other guy spot was whipped out a bunch over course of day…not sure if it was in this match but felt like every match and there is no reason to do it. Total Elimination was a fucking superkick/Russian leg sweep. You have multiple guys in ring have them do combo moves doing solo combos always looks a little blown.

Bell Pierce/Jack Bonza/Mick Moretti vs. Caveman Ugg/Steph De Lander/Unsocial Jordan

PAS: This was an all Australian trios match which had some moments. I thought Bonza had some fun tricky mat stuff and Ugg was really impressive. He obliterates Pierce with a chop, which felt boundary pushing and was really agile for a big dude. Pierce has a spot which she blows glitter at her opponents, which is a really dick move towards anyone else who has to wrestle on this show.

ER: This was also a perfectly fine 6 man, with the brief section of De Lander vs. Pierce being the only really weak portion. Tom was just happy that Bel Pierce gave us a better pun name than Justin Sane. Moretti is a guy I like and he had a couple big bumps here. This was our collective first time seeing Ugg and we all came away impressed. We thought we were getting the "Cavemen aren't sending their best" version of Cavernario, but Ugg moved quick for a bigger guy and hit hard, showed enough to make me watch Ugg the next time I see he's on a show I'm already watching. Pierce did have a funny moment where she threw glitter everywhere. It meant that every single wrestler that hit the mat the rest of the day in this venue was going to have glitter on their torso for the next week.

TKG: my son really likes Raymond Brigg’s Ug Boy Genius of the Stone Age so I want a little more sadness out of my Caveman Ugg…my desire for hints of suicidal Owen Wilson under the laid back veneer of Orange Cassidy or sadness at Caveman’s inability to improve his quality of life…may be too much to ask for wrestling gimmick. The Lazertron-ish, Unsocial Jordan made sense as a caveman’s tag partner.

Isaias Velazquez/Kylie Rae vs. Robert Anthony/Shotzi Blackheart

ER: Most memorable thing about this was Tom repeatedly asking what Egotistico Fantastico's gimmick was supposed to be now. They were more familiar with him than I was. First look at Kylie Rae and she was fine, though her Bayley gimmick would play better on a local show that would actually be attended by dads with their little daughters, instead of a show filled with weirdos who already had beer sweats at 1:15 PM. It was cool seeing Shotzi getting east coast bookings in person. Rachel and I have been seeing her for years. She was originally eye candy on a local Bay Area Saturday night public domain horror movie show called Creepy KOFY Movie Time, a weekly staple in our house until its demise. When she got into wrestling it made sense, she was always a performer who didn't seem to get nervous. She has good energy and I think eventually her ability will match up to her potential. I thought Frank the Clown was an unexpectedly good second. I had heard the name and heard that people couldn't stand him, but I'd never seen anything he was in. I thought he looked scummier and meaner than anticipated and looked like a guy who got his role. Felt like his routine was actually pretty effective.

PAS: Anthony was a big part of the IWA-MS run with Dingo and the two guys named Jayson having a loser has to change his first name feud. Not the best part of not the best run of IWA-MS but a fine guy. Good idea dumping the racist gimmick, although his new gimmick seems to be guy obsessed with Cactus Jack's weird son-in-law, which doesn't seem to have legs. He seemed like a guy who knew how to get heat, and Frank the Clown is actually an effective second.

TKG: Back when “ha ha Mexicans are funny” racist gimmicks were all the rage on the indies with probably El Generico being most successful, Egotistico Fantastico was one of the more egregious with all of his moves named after Taco Bell items. Does anyone still do that gimmick? Just El Ligero? Anyway, Robert Anthony really impressed in this, easily most polished guy on show thus far and probably top 5 by end of show. All of his stuff looked great and he ate everything well. Lots of times during show, you got the sense that you were watching parejas increibles matches where guys not always on same page as to if they were heels or faces but he was real clear. And he looked like he wanted to beat opponent and didn’t want to be beaten. I thought he also did real nice selling for Rae in believable manner. He is guy I’d watch again.

Fred Yehi vs. AC Mack

PAS: One of the matches I was most looking forward to of the day, and it unfortunately fell a bit short of expectations. Love both guys, love ACTION wrestling, but this never hit the gear it could have, and Mack seemed a bit off. Mack was able to get some real heel heat, and I have no idea why MJF is booked on fifty shows over the weekend, and Yehi is only on two. Yehi seems to be working a Soul Glo gimmick, and we added activator juice to the glitter which was already all over the ring. Guys this talented aren't going to have a dud, but this should have stolen the show and really didn't.

ER: I really did build this one up a lot in my head. This was one that I would have had in my 5 most anticipated matches of the weekend, which was probably setting a high bar in retrospect. AC Mack is a fairly recent discovery for us, when we started getting access to ACTION shows last year, but was an immediate favorite. This was probably the least performance I've seen from him, and I felt kinda bad building him up to Tom so much. I still think the stuff I've seen from him speaks for itself, and this felt like more of an off night than a norm. The match also felt very rushed, and maybe that threw things off a bit. We still got some fine moments - these two have a higher floor than most - but I think I was relatively justified in my high expectations and this didn't approach that. 

TKG: Why wasn’t Yehi being used more? He came out as part of Kelly Klein’s entourage on the ROH show. Mack is working heel and actually got heel heat and I was digging this a bunch and then it just felt like it went home early with low blow finish.

Kris Stadtlander/Solo Darling vs. Jessica Troy/Shazza McKenzie

PAS: Lots of Australians on this show, seems like a long flight for this amount of shine. This match was a casualty of the long day, as I remember very little from it. I think I dug some of Darling and Stadtlander's power stuff, but I am hoping Eric and Tomk can fill in some more.

ER: During the match you groaned and made ugh noises a lot during the Troy/McKenzie control periods, you weren't a fan so I applaud you effectively willing it from your memory. I came into this only familiar with Stadtlander and she's been getting some hype lately. I came away from this with only Solo making a decent impression on me. Darling came off like a little powerhouse, coming off more like a good hand joshi babyface that anyone else we saw. The team that Phil was grumbling about were not good. They did a lot of semi-complicated offense, but they had this awful habit of doing only the first 1/4 of the move, and leaving Stadtlander and Solo on their own to bump it. There were three different moments where McKenzie would start a potentially nice headscissors or rana, and then just fall and immediately after starting the move. It was infuriating.

TKG: I really had high hopes for the Roller Derby revival which was attracting ex-college rugby players, field hockey, ice skaters, gymnasts, and theater nerds into this semi athletic tradition and felt like it would eventually return to being a worked sport. And was watching this thinking, everyone here would be really fun taking bumps on a banked track. Women’s wrestling revolution may have killed the rollerderby one. I thought Solo Darling looked super solid and like she knew where to be at all times.

15. Mr. Brickster/O'Shay Edwards/Cabana Man Dan vs. Dominic Garrini/Kevin Ku/Brett Ison

PAS: This was really great stuff, we had a totally over the top ring announcer and a possible group of front row Hales cousins serving as hype-men, so I was ready to be let down, but man all six guys brought it. Brickster was great as a fired up 80s babyface, loved the whole presentation and he brought the heat like Sting taking it to the Dangerous Alliance. Sadkampf were throwing and receiving reckless potatoes (opening up what would truly be a fucking insane day by Garrini), and this was the first time O'Shay Edwards hit as hard as it looks like he should hit. It felt like a raucous southern main event, with the babyfaces walking tall and the heels coming forward. Edwards moonsault felt like a big deal for the finish, and this totally won me over.

TKG: This had a really chaotic feel to it. Like the kind of Briscoes, JAPW chaos that I want out of wrestling but still southern tag as fuck. Brickster is a guy who should get more bookings as he looked like the best of the guys working power offense that I saw that weekend. Just bumped well, wrecked people with clotheslines and made lifts into throws look like lifts. And had the real “I’m guy fired up in a 6 man tag” aura. Garrini is insane and pretty much the star of the whole day. Just runs into taking offense and everything he does looks like he wants to win. We had already seen insane big guy moonsault from BMD but O’Shay’s looked like he actually wanted to flatten opponent.

ER: Tom was really attracted to the chaos of this match. After this match, for the rest of the day, he would frequently lob a "felt like it should have been more chaotic" backhand to matches Phil and I liked, having clearly won over - twice - by Brickster within the first two hours of our day. And it was really really fun, a nice portend to a super fun exhausting day. Brickster had a best-possible-Cheetah Master feel to him, or Dolph Ziggler understanding his flaws, or Matt Taven who wasn't a total embarrassment. Out of all the downright unique wrestling experiences the three of us went through today, we were all talking about Brickster 10 hours later. Hard strikes, great energy, felt like triumphant Stan Lane. O'Shay had his career best performance, a big dude taking some great risks. Later Phil and I saw him hanging out with someone who had to be his uncle, and the uncle was flipping out about his performance. Gotta love a guy putting on a show for family over Mania showcase. Ku smacked Dan hard in the chops and dropped him hard on his knees in a powerbomb, and Dan's flip flop chopping actually made a good slapping whipcrack. We had a total ball during this match with a hard hitting fast paced 10 minutes, and I made Phil laugh as much as he laughed all day, as we were all tickled by the early 2000s hardcore ring intros. Some guy would get kicked in the face or Garrini would throw a double chop to someone's neck, and in the energy I would cookie monster grunt "PUT YOUR FUCKING HANDS TOGETHER FOR CABANA MAN FUCKING DAN YOU PIECES OF SHIT!!!! YOU WANNA SEE SOME FLIP FLOP COMEDY SPOTS YOU MOTHERFUCKERS!?!?" Just a bearded guy who looks like me with tattoos.

Gary Jay vs. Jake Parnell

PAS: This was a long running midwest feud given a showcase spot, and both guys really delivered. They chopped the hair off each others chests, took some big hard bumps to the floor and the apron and made the match feel like a feud ender, there were a couple of big dives right into the seats we were sitting in which felt crazy and uncalled for. I thought the end section was a bit construction-y, you really need a manager to set up all of the chairs and tables to fly into, would have rather seen them just beat on each other, rather then set up big garbage bumps, although to be fair, the big garbage bumps were big ass garbage bumps.

TKG: Gary Jay is Gary the Barn Owl who I had seen get booed out of building by idiot provincial Chikara fans who hate tall guys 9 years ago. “Hey this guy is 5 ft 8, I only want my wrestler’s 5 ft 2”. So awesome to see him main eventing this show. The early brawling and dives were crazy, I had less of a problem with how long it took to set up on the big construction garbage spot. As pretty much everything that took a long time to build almost universally gave opponent time to recover from last garbage spot and either reverse or get an escape in. Getting to watch Nick Gage realize they were going to try for a fish hook spot with ring ropes as Jay unhooked them was pretty neat….and well knowing ahead of time that the next show was going to be a no ring rope show added a whole “they are going to take down this whole set” Who burning their guitars feel. I didn’t dig the chair fu at end of match. Walking around with chair on head has a Terry Funk head caught in a ladder joke spot feel. Felt like a joke that you work in early or in middle of match and not at end.

ER: I'm with Tom in that I thought the big stunt spots were paced out nicely, so that the set up time was conceivably possible due to big stunts. I don't love Last Man Standing as a stip, even though it has created some great matches, as it lends itself to a lot of lying around and counting, so there is a constant interruption to the violence. But I really liked this and thought the chaos was worth the price of admission. In my history of going to live pro wrestling, any time I have to run away from the action by escaping over chairs and narrowly ducking dives, always leaves me with a positive memory of the show. These two hit each other with real force, both had red chests, and they sent us scrambling and ducking with some reckless dives. We were sitting in the corner near at the entrance curtain, and dives getting to our seats mean that the action was going a little out of bounds. I loved running over chairs and getting as close to the roving fight, and the violent chop exchange on the apron was one of the top moments of the night. There was no slap on these chops, these were deep bruising shots. We saw violent shots all day, and these held their own. I do agree that the match lost some steam as it went to the finish, but I also think that plays into the psychological structure of the stip, so I probably liked all of this more than Phil and Tom. I thought the KO spots felt worthy of the KO recovery, and while I do think the finish didn't match the violence of the rest of the match, I still thought this lived up to expectations.

ER: Price was right on this one, with me cashing in my free ticket for being a Independent TV subscriber, and the show was a briskly paced start to our terrible idea of a day. The Brickster trios match was the kind of overdelivery that makes this kind of friendship reunion worthwhile, the best kind of surprise addition to our 2019 MOTY List, and a cool "first show the three principle Segunda Caida doofuses ever attended together."

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Scenic City Invitational 2018 Night 2 8/4/18

Darius Lockhart vs. 2 Cold Scorpio

PAS: Really glad we got to see Scorp wrestle twice in this tourney, and he and Darius make a fun paring. It must be thrilling for young African American wrestlers like Gray and Darius to work with a total legend. Darius came straight with the stiff shots early including really laying into Scorpio in the ropes with nasty uppercuts. Scorp hit some big time elbows and a nice bodyscissors to take Lockhart to the floor. Finish was cool with Lockhart stopping to jaw with the fans and getting caught with a kappo kick, and then Scorp goes up and lands the diss that don't miss with both legs landing right on Lockhart's chest.

ER: There must be things that I don't know because it's weird to me that Scorpio isn't signed somewhere, either as a worker or as a trainer. He feels like a guy who should have been far more involved in the wrestling business over the last decade. This was really fun, Lockhart showed big stones by bringing the strikes to Scorp, knowing he was going to get leveled in return. Lockhart had some nice uppercuts and a spectacular diving clothesline that really made me sit up. I've seen Lockhart a bunch and don't remember him throwing something like that. Lockhart also impressed the hell out of me with his hammerlock cradle DDT; Scorpio has a lot of size on him and it looked really cool seeing him lift him up and over. Scorp still hits his spinning sidekick with tremendous force, and I've always loved his bodyscissors takedown to the floor. It's a real nice physics move that makes a ton of logical sense, and it's odd we don't see it used more (outside of Mysterio it's not really something I recall people doing). He can also still make skinning the cat look effortless, and Lockhart took a nice sprawling bump to the floor and then ate a nice baseball slide. Scorpio had a bunch of things I liked here, a nice kneedrop, and a mean chinlock where he was digging into Lockhart's face with his elbow. Scorpio's Drop the Bomb is certainly a finisher of all finishers, always getting super height on the moonsault and it looked like he did the most spectacular Bombs Away in history. Scrape Lockhart off the mat, boys.

Nick Gage vs. Corey Hollis

PAS: Gage maybe the most over guy in this whole show. He bumps Hollis all over the arena, including throwing him down the bleacher stairs. Hollis get virtually no offense, until the ref takes a hammer from Gage allowing Hollis to kick him low and roll him up. Fun showcase for Gage's offense and Hollis bumping, but not a particularly competitive match. Something that works better for a live crowd, then on tape.

ER: It didn't really bother me that Hollis had basically no offense in this one. He didn't have much offense in the Cross match either, relying mostly on stomps and some strikes. It kind of gave me a sleazy Stevie Richards vibe, a guy with minimal offense but a lot of energy and personality who will bump like mad. Stevie was able to craft a bunch of really fun 5-7 minute matches around stuff like back rakes and rubbing his boot eyelets across a guy's face. So I can get into a Hollis match where he gets his ass kicked around a high school and then wins with a hard kick to the balls and a snug small package. Hollis takes a bunch of great spills around the gym, flying through tows of chairs, brawling up the tall bleachers and falling down every seat, getting smacked by someone's cane, a fun beating. I thought Hollis made all of this work great, and really liked the finish, and especially him sprinting back through the curtain immediately following the 3 count.

Jake Parnell vs. Gary Jay

PAS: This is a big feud in the St. Louis area and they really went after each other. They really laced into each other with shots and it stood out in a tourney that was already pretty stiff. It had more of a ragged fight feel, then just trading shots and staring at each other in between. I especially enjoyed their open hand Ronnie Garvin chops, a really underused chop overall. I like Parnell's double stomps and how he used them both as offense and as a way to get laid out. That finish was class, with Parnell hitting the huge stomp to the floor, Jay barely beating the count, Parnell going for the finishing blow and getting dropped in midair by the KO elbow. Love how they have set that move up in this tourney, and this was even a cooler use of it, then in the Cain match.

ER: This felt like a much better version of what Stallion/Lynch was going for the night before. Rehearsed segments don't bother me if there's a little rawness to them, and not someone zoning out so he can concentrate on hitting the 3 in the 1 and a 2 and 3. These guys just kept socking each other and refreshingly didn't pause for any fighting spirit silliness or double fist pump yelling when rising from the mat. The big turning point for me was when Jay was laid out in the chairs, and Parnell started clapping and running around the ring. "Here it comes," I thought, "Here's were they get overly cute. I hope Jay just meets him halfway and levels him." Well, what they did was even better, even crazier, and hooked me in for the stretch. Parnell comes running in, all the way around the ring, and Jay gives him a huge backdrop right into the rows of chairs. Take my money, guys. Jay absolutely levels Parnell with a couple elbows in this one, total jawbreaking shots, and I thought all the striking, all the chops, played really well and came off vicious. There was no "catch my leg and spin me so I can hit an enziguiri that bounces you in the ropes so you can hit a rolling elbow and then we breathe heavy while clapping happens", none of that, just two dudes putting a pin on the map. Parnell nicely plants seeds for that double stomp of his early in the match, missing one off the apron, foreshadowing his late match stomps. Shout outs to the camera crew as I really loved the visual of him climbing to the top to hit one more to the floor, as we cut to a great wide shot of the venue and see the crowd start to rise as Parnell climbs up. Jay's KO punch was expertly set up in the night 1 Cain Justice match, but it still surprised me to see him hit it here. I thought he was finished. I like that in two matches they've now established it as a confident KO shot, and as a desperate half court buzzer beater.

AJ Gray vs. Fred Yehi

ER: Another fun match, that although it had a couple indy spots that I didn't like, I absolutely liked how they treated those specific spots within the match. The spots came during the home stretch of the match, and started with Yehi giving Gray a spider German suplex from the top rope, and saw Gray stagger back to his feet. At first I bristled, as you instinctively see a guy just popping up from a German and running back into action. But Gray was flipped over and landed more on his knees than anything, so really took no more of a bump than if he had missed a standing moonsault or something a bit higher, so seeing him stagger to his feet and run back and dropkick Yehi (still hung upside down in the ropes) made sense. I didn't love his RVD/Scoot Andrews-ish dropkick right after, with Yehi doing his best to occupy himself while hung upside down, and the kick didn't land great...but it totally worked for me because Yehi didn't treat the kick as if it landed great either, instead freeing himself and then teeing off on Gray. Both guys had nice moments in this (although Yehi is easily THEE GUY in this tourney so far), with Yehi hitting those bruising chops and sharp dropkicks, Gray taking a huge spill to the floor and throwing several really good punches in a couple different varieties (I like how he throws a Jeff Hardy whip style punch, but keeps a tighter fist during it). The finish was just brutal, with Yehi stomping Gray and locking on the Koji Clutch, losing it, and then taking it right out on Gray, stomping even more viciously, locking the Clutch back in, and beating him across the face with the meanest blows. Good call on ref stoppage, and considering I've seen plenty of bad stoppage finishes in the last 5-10 years of indy wrestling, it says a lot about the wrestlers involved that we got two good ones two nights in a row.

PAS: Yehi is pretty undeniable so far in 2018, it really feels like he was energized by parting ways with EVOLVE and WWN (and boy could they use him back, that roster is slim). I am not sold on Gray yet, he clearly has a lot of athleticism ( I loved him in that AIW 10 man from last year) but he doesn't seem able to full put it together in a singles match yet. I loved Yehi's viciousness, every time this match threatened to get dancey, Yehi would stomp or throw a big right hand and it would turn right back into a fist fight. The finishes in this tourney have been great and Yehi locking in that Koji clutch, landing huge stomps and crossfaces until the pass out was great stuff. What a killer.

Joey Lynch vs. PCO

ER: So they definitely captured the excitement of the room with this one, even if there were parts of it that kept me from wholly digging it. The craziness and the oppressively constant pace of this was definitely its strength as they started at high energy and kept trying to peak things, mostly successfully. My main gripes were that both guys seemed very married to sequences, so if something didn't hit or didn't look great, it was treated exactly the same as something that looked absolutely devastating. There was plenty of devastating stuff in this match, and it sadly felt much less devastating once every move was sold essentially the same. The energy was there in spades, and that goes a long way, and contributed in big ways to the moments that worked. PCO has no problem taking stupid stuff now that he's 50, just taking some of the absolute worst bumps of his career. He comes off a bit like a geek show attraction though, and there's an odd sympathy to seeing him get kicked in the face or take a rough spill on a gym floor. One night after I was throwing out praise for them doing a big tournament without any crazy apron spots, of course we get an apron spot crazy and dumb enough that I wouldn't be shocked if they ripped it from the Hell Storm/Crazy Crusher ladder match, with PCO eating a suplex from the top to the apron. Lynch hits that "run around the ring attack" spot that I loved getting reversed in the Jay/Parnell match, but of course Lynch is going to be the guy who does it. Both guys take bumps through chairs, Lynch took a really hard chokeslam bump through several of them (though it looked a little goofy as he leaped up for the chokeslam way before PCO had begun the move, so it looked like Lynch just leaping backwards into chairs while PCO stood nearby), but they transition from that right into hitting big moves in the ring, and somehow made a lot of big stuff come off same-y. We get a couple of big nearfalls from both men off of moonsaults that didn't connect. PCO overshoots, Lynch overshoots twice, fans are into it and Cecil Scott is selling his freaking ass off, but I thought it looked bad. However, I really really liked the finish. Lynch finds his distance after a couple moonsaults, and then just hits 5 more moonsaults on PCO, all connecting flush. That was a great visual, and there were amusing moments throughout the moonsault run where PCO kept doing Undertaker/Frankenstein's Monster sit-ups (although I wasn't a fan of Lynch's loose thigh slap superkicks to knock him back down), but the consecutive moonsaults as a finish worked for me.

PAS: I thought this was unquestionably great, easily one of the PCO performance on the comeback trail (I would only put the WALTER match above it.) PCO is at his best when he is IWA-Japan Terry Funk, an old lunatic taking crazy bumps, delivering beatings and making weird faces. That apron bump was insane stuff, as was all of Lynch's bumps into chairs. I thought Lynch's tope to open the match set the tone nicely, and actually looked good (there have been some dicey topes in this tourney, I am looking at you Gary Jay) These kind of stunt brawls always work better as crazy sprints, and they kept this one moving, it felt like one of the great Necro Butcher brawls in the mid 2000s, although a step below the truly transcendent ones. I actually liked that PCO's moonsault didn't hit clean, he landed his head right into Lynch's stomach, I don't want Chris Daniels execution from a fifty year old French Canadian cyborg. I thought the multiple moonsaults was a very cool finish, although I do wish the superkicks hit cleaner. I get why this was such a hit live, and although I liked Yehi vs. Warner better, I think this was the match of night 2.

Marko Stunt vs. Shaggy vs. Matt Lynch vs. Ike Cross vs. AC Mack vs. Cyrus the Destroyer

ER: This was about as much fun as you could reasonably expect from a scramble; everybody got to showcase what they could do, and I came away really impressed with Cross, Mack, and Cyrus. Cyrus was the big beast at the center, throwing hard strikes and being involved in a bunch of cool spots. He amusingly no sells a AC Mack dive, takes an unexpected rana from cousin Shaggy (nice rana too) and later catches a second rana and plants him with an apron powerbomb, misses a big boy crossbody, gets plastered by a cool in ring dive from Cross, goes over hard on an assisted German, a real good big-man-in-a-scramble performance. Mack was someone I'd never seen before but now I want to see a lot. A good heel in a match like this always makes these things better, and he knew right when to stooge and right when to be mean, so it was fitting he got the opportunistic win. I really liked how he carried himself, seems like he would play well in singles. Cross impresses again, just like his eye opening performance on night one, here he breaks out more new tricks. I love the way he disposed of Cyrus, this crazy shoulderblock dive that took both men from in ring to wildly tumbling to the floor. The guy is such a freak athlete he even wound up landing on his feet after a tope con hilo. I also thought he was good stalling on the floor while waiting for Marko Stunt's big Cyrus-assisted moonsault. It's pretty easy to see why Stunt broke out this weekend, he's super small, fun-sized, but makes the most of his moments. He hit a cool sunset flip after leaping over a Cross spear, was real good about quickly getting into position for his shots (he had a super fast smooth kip up that looked especially good), hit a nice springboard dropkick to help German suplex Cyrus, and a couple times he rolled guys into cool looking knee lifts. Multimans like this seem impossible to mess up, but they end up working less often than not working. You end up with guys lying around too long, people not knowing how to busy themselves until their turn to hit stuff, guys getting in each other's way, etc. There was none of that here, just good action.

PAS: I could have done without the Marko and Shaggy comedy section and the beyond played out tower of doom spot (although Cyrus turned the power bomb part of that move into an impressive show of strength), but outside of that this was a blast. I thought everyone looked pretty good, with Cyrus especially doing a great job as king kong swatting down planes. Cross impressed me again, his diving tackles into a prone Cyrus would be 15 yards in the NFL and ended up being one of the coolest spots of the entire tourney. If I was running WWN I would sign him and push him to the top of the fed, let him work his way up to the skill level of the other guys like Riddle did. Marko is fun, I am not sure if he is better at what he does then Cool J or Weird Body, but he definitely has a lot of charisma and great timing.

Cain Justice/Mance Warner vs. The Carnies

ER: Pretty disappointing. There were portions of this that felt like the Carnies just working on material at home in front of their friends, and maybe that's what this is. There was an over-reliance on double team cooperative tandem stuff, and a lot of it felt like one of those old ECW Eliminators showcases, where they just kind of moved their opponents into position as if they were lifeless crash test dummies. We went through a few Carnies set pieces, had a couple dumb looking RVD missed chairshot spots, where both Carnies had to slowly miss chairshots and then hold them in front of their face, while Mance stupidly headbutts the chair and Cain kicks a chair with his bare feet. None of it looked good. Then just a few minutes into a short match we get a silly teeth-gritted "We're in a WAR" tandem strike exchange, with both teams running back and forth in stereo. Some of the strikes looked good, but the set ups all looked so phony that it just didn't work. So naturally we end with a needlessly dangerous spot for a rushed match like this, with Warner getting recklessly piledriven off the apron through a table. Totally felt like it happened in a different match, way out of place and unnecessary. Afterward we get one of those bad indy show of respects, with open hand outstretched for a respect handshake while the other hand is holding the body because of the war that just happened. Warner accepted, Cain thankfully said nuts to this and walked away.

PAS: There was some stuff in this I liked, I thought Cain was pretty good, and the stuff with his knee felt like it belonged in a different, better match. Especially nasty was when he got the chair kicked right down into his patella. Mance throwing the chair right at Nick Iggy and Cain spinning right into the crossarmbreaker was a super cool spot too. I agree that the Carnies wanted to show off all of their Nova and Frankie Kazarian tag offense, and a lot of that was really dumb, but I think this had enough cool Cain stuff and Kerry Awful clotheslines for me to mildly recommend it.

Corey Hollis vs. Fred Yehi vs. Joey Lynch vs. Gary Jay

ER: Kind of an end of tournament letdown for me. It felt like something put together and worked like a Joey Lynch match, who obviously went on to win in the match. Lynch was probably my least favorite guy in the tournament, so there were going to be parts of it that didn't work for me. I thought Yehi was the MVP of the tournament, and he was eliminated first here. He wasn't focused on much before elimination anyway, but I really liked his backpack Oklahoma Stampedes, those look vicious as hell and nobody else does them. Hollis stayed out of a lot of this too, which was kind of his shtick, running in to capitalize on the moves of others, running while getting chased, working more comical cocky southern heel. But it basically made this a Gary Jay vs. Joey Lynch match, which would have been my last pick of possible singles pairings out of these possibilities. Their stuff wasn't bad, but some of it wasn't my thing. There was a modern Malenko/Guerrero 2 count sequence that felt so weirdly and annoyingly out of place, but there were some real nice punches from Jay, a mean shot to the back of Lynch's head, a pretty wild spot where Jay only grazes Lynch on a dive, so Lynch grabs him and hits a hard Angle Slam on the floor. But there were some ugly patches, like Lynch hitting a wobbly twisting press to the floor that somehow none of the other three catch. Lynch fell hard and fast, right through everyone. So it was a little disheartening to just see him doing his thing after that. I know, he was going to win, but man it was a bad spill. He also just needs to ditch that moonsault. I don't think the two he used at the end looked good, they were overshot and didn't look nearly as painful as other stuff in the match. Plus, there was some badly thought out spot earlier where he broke up a pin with a moonsault but due to positioning he ended up almost breaking Yehi and Hollis' arms. This guy seems to be doing a 1998 Billy Kidman "bad landing for everyone involved" highflying tribute. I also really didn't need several Canadian Destroyers. Lynch doesn't hit them very well and they just felt really out of place in the tournament to me. I did really like the big Hollis ball kick on Lynch. After it happened I immediately wanted that to become the culmination of the weekend. We've already seen Hollis effectively moving up that ladder by targeting balls, and if the tournament had ended up being a showcase for the virtues of ball kicking. Hollis working his way successfully through a tournament just by kicking balls would have been legendary. They went a different way though, and at the end of the day I just really, really needed more ball selling from Lynch. Man treats getting kicked in the balls with no gravitas? That's not a man I can relate to. I can remember each individual time in my life that I've taken one to the balls. It hasn't happened often, but everyone reading this has a memory of taking an unexpected shot. I wanted more.

PAS: I came away from this match wanting to see a Corey Hollis vs. Fred Yehi singles match, and that was a matchup we hardly saw. I liked Lynch OK in the PCO match, but this was not his best stuff, the Canadian Destroyer into a Moonsault stuff is pretty bad looking, for a guy with King of Moonsault on his trunks, he over shoots it a ton. I actually liked him breaking up the Koji clutch with a moonsault, that looked like it hurt, which I never mind. I get why Lynch won, he is the local guy who finally climbed the mountain, but it wasn't for me.

PAS: I liked Night 2 fine, it didn't have the peaks of night one, but both Jay vs. Parnell and PCO and Lynch make our 2018 Ongoing MOTY list. I do want to give props to the guys who ran these shows, everything moved quickly, nothing wore out its welcome and the finishes were pretty flawless.

ER: Yes, despite not liking Night 2 as much as Night 1, I still love the presentation and timing on these shows. Two nights edited to a tight 4 hours (plus a brisk Futures show that I still plan on writing), with hardly any of the matches feeling "same-y". That's the kind of stuff that will keep me coming back to a fed/group. This tournament made me think that Yehi might be the best in the world, and made me want to seek out any Mack/Cross action I can find. I also don't think we mentioned the commentary crew as much as we should have. I thought Cecil Scott and Dragon Dan Wilson did a fantastic job throughout, truly captured the excitement of the whole weekend. Maybe I'll make my way to TN in one year's time...

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Scenic City Invitational 2018 Night 1 8/3/18

Curt Stallion vs. Joey Lynch

PAS: These are two of signature SCI guys, who haven't done a ton for me when I have seen them before. This was a solid US indy near fall, highspot match. Not a style I love, but it is a good type of match to start a show off with. I liked Stallion's in ring tope, stomps and top rope german suplex (although that move was so nasty that it was silly for Lynch to get the roll up after it hit. There were also too many variations of stuff for my taste, every regular move had a spin or ended on a knee. It had a nice pace though, and I never got bored, I imagine I will like other stuff much better.

ER: Yeah not my thing. That kind of get your shit in, GIF wrestling with improbable momentum shifts and a bad finish, with both men holding each other up with an embrace after it's all over. The more I see Lynch the more my thoughts are confirmed that he will have one match, exactly one match, and he will hit all of the dance step timing spots that he knows in that match. I liked a lot of Curt Stallion in this, thought he had some cool offense (that flying headbutt tope in the ring is a great spot) and is super smooth through potentially complicated sequences. But Lynch does little for me. Stallion felt like a guy with good ideas, stuck in a match with southern indy Kurt Angle. It's not like his stuff looks bad (although that thigh slap kneelift never gets quite high enough, and he overshot a moonsault that was supposed to be a dramatic moment of the match, and the fans kind of gave him credit for hitting it flush anyway), it's just that he has his stuff he's going to hit and he usually just opts to go to it. So Stallion will hit a nice DDT or big vertical suplex for a 2 count, and Lynch will just decide that he also wants to do a couple suplexes, so then stands up and does that. The Kurt Angle "my opponent is taking too much time selling" was strong. He also had that Kurt Angle "half ass the first part of this sequence to get to the good part", like when Angle would barely throw a clothesline that was supposed to miss because he was thinking about getting into position for the throw coming right after. Lynch does that a lot, barely hit one kick because he needs to be in position to spin around with another kick. He did hit a nice superkick down the stretch, and I loved how Stallion leaned cheek first into it, but man did I hate that finish. Stallion hits a big suplex off the top, Lynch takes it flush...then just rolls Stallion up with a crucifix. Man that's dumb. Stallion thought he had a good plan by hitting the biggest move of the match, but what he didn't realize is that big moves don't damage Lynch at all. Stallion should have scouted that.

Jake Parnell vs. Darius Lockhart

PAS: Darius is a guy I have liked a lot in CWF, and this is the first time I have seen Parnell. This was another solid opening round match. Lockhart opened the match flummoxing Parnell with WOS spots, including rolling Parnell up into a ball, and doing multiple somersaults to escape. Parnell took over with a double stomp off the apron to Lockhart's back and it proceeded into more of an indy juniors match. There were a couple of big shots I really liked, Parnell hit a really stiff crawling JYD headbutt and Darius landed a big straight right to Parnell's jaw, some of the other stuff didn't hit as cleanly. I liked some of Darius's wobbly leg selling too, especially right before the finish. Nice showing for both.

ER: I think this was a better version of the match before it, with really the only difference being the order of moves. I thought this one built much better and had a better finish (although that wouldn't have been difficult, just have the hurtiest looking move finish the match). I'd never seen Parnell and came away overall impressed. I liked this silly stooge elements like whiffing and hitting the match while trying to catch up to a somersaulting Lockhart, and liked his use of non-canon offense for a guy his size. He hits several hard splashes in a row, which isn't a move used a lot by non-fat guys (Cecil Scott says Parnell goes 195), but a splash in theory would hurt no matter the size of the guy doing it. It's still a body crashing onto a body. So I dug Parnell's aggressive falling splashes with a senton chaser. He also had a nice northern lights suplex, took a nasty hammerlock DDT, threw a great shotgun kick that ended with him kind of tied up in the ropes, went amusingly wobbly on a big stiff arm right cross from Lockhart, all nice stuff. Finish was indy fun and looked like a finish, with Lockhart getting absolutely dumped by a half nelson suplex (and then making the best of the planned spot, which needed him on his feet, and I thought Lockhart handled getting loopily to his feet well) and blitzed by an awesome burning lariat, finished off with a double stomp. This felt the right time, right pace, good match.

Corey Hollis vs. Ike Cross

PAS: This was really great. Hollis is a great sleazy veteran heel, kind of like a 2000s Tony Anthony, perfect guy to guide a green kid through a match Cross is a phenom, he is 6'3 or so, built like a NFL Free Safety, cut, and agile as shit. Match starts with a Cross explosion, he has this massive takedown, a great tope, and a crazy springboard spinning headbutt, he just launches off a springboard. Hollis takes over when he hurls Cross to the turrnbuckle and Cross flies out and lands on his head. We get some Hollis shit talking, and control, until Cross obliterates him with a spear. Cross misses a Superfly splash where he got more height then prime Snuka, and Hollis sneaks a low blow in for the win. Cross will be a big star somewhere, he seems about as can't miss an prospect as I can remember seeing. It almost felt like watching Sting for the first time.

ER: I was super excited to see Cross for the first time, and man oh man did he deliver. I don't ever remember being this excited by Sting. Phenom really does appear to be the best word to describe Cross, and I agree that he's as close to a can't miss wrestling prospect as you can get. Hollis was the absolute perfect opponent for him, the kind of guy who can stall and create space between all of Cross' best stuff, so the moves don't get all stacked up on themselves. Cross launches Hollis with one of the highest backdrops I've seen (really reaching that rarified Rick Rude/Todd Morton air), hits a super fast dive, hits a double leg that looked so strong that he probably could have ran around the building with him a couple times before slamming him, hits a springboard elbow that gets such height that it looked like he could have leapt across the entire ring. Hollis is great at slowing things down and expertly tosses Cross into the ringpost, and Cross takes an awesome painful bump into the post and then down to the floor, really made it look dangerous. Hollis knew how to play the match, focused on setting up big Cross spots, and made his own little things look good, like his pinpoint stomps. A dirtbag like him needs good looking stomps, those kind where he's holding the top rope while lacing into a guy's sternum. Finish was perfect for this match, as how do you stop a runaway train? You distract the ref and punch that train in the balls. Loved this.

Cyrus the Destroyer vs. PCO

PAS: Fun big boy battle, full of thumps and some pretty impressive agility by both guys. Cyrus's Eddie Guerrero flip senton which was totally nuts for a guy 400+ pounds, and PCO's moonsault looked awesome. I think the secret to an entertaining PCO match is the pace. If he works really slow you can see the seams, but if the pace is pushed it can be really entertaining. This was a quicker pace and was just as focused on big bombs as it was on highspots. Really what you wanted this match to be when it was signed.

ER: Not bad, but it kind of bums me out that I've been low vote on PCO since his comeback. I fully respect how he's reinvented himself and created this buzz, but I never seem to end up enjoying the matches as everyone else. This was fine, but if you had told the match was "big fat guy vs. old tough guy" without telling me the names, I'd be starting a 5 stars before the first guy made his entrance. Fat guys and old tough guys are my bread and butter, and I liked this, but didn't love it. PCO is kind of a stiff, doesn't always get into position for things very cleanly, sometimes just stands there with bulging eyes, but he also works plenty stiff and takes/does some crazy offense, so I clearly understand what the appeal is. I really liked Cyrus in last year's Anarchy WarGames, a big guy who has no problem taking a crazy bump, and I liked him here. And Phil is right about the pacing being important in a PCO match, he's someone who actually benefits from a go go go match, just keep moving him to the next set piece or explosion, and that's what they do here. I weirdly think the PCO thing I liked the most here was a kick he threw to a bent over Cyrus. Cyrus was in position to give a backdrop and PCO hit a great extra point kick right across Cyrus' chest and stomach, a really nice kick. I mean, a 50 year old cannonball and moonsault are obviously going to always look impressive, but there's something to be said about a kick that many wrestlers don't go all in on. Cyrus hit a bananas slingshot senton, and it sucks that with his size and that move, 20 years ago it probably would have at minimum got him Roadblock's spot on the WCW roster. Cyrus gets great welts and bruises on his forehead (from his nice headbutts? From stiff PCO shots?) and commits to missing a big IZU falling meteorite off the middle rope, all things I'm into. There were some things I thought didn't quite work, the two PCO chokeslam spots came off a little flat, but overall this was fine. PCO is seeming like someone who would come off better live than on tape. I'm optimistic though.

AJ Gray vs. 2 Cold Scorpio

PAS: Scorpio is basically wrestling's John Witherspoon at this point I expected him to ball up his fists and tell AJ Gray that "These is all you need to be a man.. You win some, you lose some... But you live to fight another day" I loved his Uncle at the cookout dance moves, and his real willingness to lay in bruising shots. He hit Gray with a jump kick that put a cleft in his chin. Gray seemed to hold back a bit at the beginning, but once he knew who he was in with, he let them go. There was some awkwardness in this match which kept it from being a real MOTY list contender, but it really felt like a battle and Scorpio still has a gorgeous moonsault and some real pepper in his blows.

ER: I laughed at Phil's uncle at a cookout line, because I was watching Scorp dance and immediately thought of Sam doing the Detroit Hustle on Detroiters. This match had some problems, but they were mostly cosmetic. Gray doesn't really get up to deliver a rana, they flub a powerbomb reversal spot (but recover well enough), Scorp damn near Picasso's Gray with a Tumbleweed that falls short, Gray kind of awkwardly hold up on a frog splash, things like that. They were all over the match, but it's one of those things where if you had them go out another night and work the exact same match, all that stuff likely hits fine. So I don't get too hung up on cosmetic stuff like that, because I really dug the actual bones of the match. They worked a slower pace strikes match, with flying peppered in, which is a nice combo that most guys couldn't pull off. You need some heft to pull it off, and these two have heft. I love all of Scorpio's kicks (especially those no nonsense yakuza kicks), and this was a rare instance of me not shutting my brain off during a standing exchange. This captured the vibe of what I imagine most wrestlers are trying to capture when doing stand and trade, and the key to it is simple but difficult, because it just has to naturally happen. One guy drills another guy and it's probably the hardest shot of the match up to that point, and the other guy gets that "oh that's where this is, huh?" and drills him back. The back and forth has some meaning, some heft. The elbow strikes landed hard, the kicks and misses were great, and I thought for sure Scorp's moonsault was it (how far across the ring did he opt to set that up!?). Gray had an awesome sell on that short Tumbleweed, but, there's a great chance he was just feeling that numb heat that happens when someone flips halfway across the ring and nearly lops your ear off. Obviously I'm pissed we got robbed of Scorp vs. Cain (or Scorp vs. basically anybody), but wouldn't mind these two running it back.

Cain Justice vs. Gary Jay

PAS: This was a short sprint with a great flash KO finish, that still left me a little bummed. Jay is a guy who works a hard hitter gimmick, with some really stiff chops and Justice is a CWF boss and my favorite young wrestler in the world. Match starts fast with Cain Jumping Jay at the bell, and never lets up. Jay hits a trio of tope's in a row, before torching his chop hand on the ringpost, we have some arm and hand work by Justice interspersed with some shots by Jay. Match comes to an abrupt end when Cain goes for a move off the ropes and gets caught with a driving right hand to jaw, which led to a quick ref stoppage. It was a cool finish and I liked a tourney match having that kind of unpredictable finish, but I can't help but being disappointed that Cain was out of the tourney in four minutes. He was the guy I was looking forward to the most, and hoped he would get a mini run in the tourney, or at least a showcase match.

ER: Well color me a tad disappointed. Let me say that I really, really, really liked the finish. Also, I really, really, really didn't want to see this finish in this match, when it happened. That's tough to reconcile. I think the ending might have been the best part of the match, and yet I also didn't want it to happen. It wasn't the best I've seen either guy: Jay had a few of those thigh slap moments where the shot doesn't actually land, so you end up with a thigh slap on a high lariat or a missed big boot, and while Cain bumped great for both (big flip bump on the lariat and a great staggering slow drop on the boot), it felt a little bit too much behind the curtain. I also thought Cain went to the "take a move, bob back up with glazed eyes sell" wayyyyy to often. He was doing that after almost every move which started to come off more comical than "I just took a big move". Cain jumping him to start was great, I thought Cain was throwing some of his best shots, and I loved Jay hitting the post leading to Cain doing some hand work. Finish was great, but yeah, too many guys I wanted to see opposite Cain, when I'm not sure there would be other opportunities for those match-ups.

Mance Warner vs. Fred Yehi

PAS: Yehi has had a hell of a year, leaving WWN, where he was getting a bit stale, and having cool matches with a different variety of folks. Warner is a fun brawler, kind of works a little like a more athletic Roughhouse Fargo. He has some really fun expressive punches and takes big bumps. Yehi is one of the most innovative wrestlers in the world, in a really cool way, and there is this awesome spot where he jams Warner's arm into the hollow top of the ringpost and mangles it with punches and yanking it back and forth. Totally something I have never seen before and a contender for spot of the year. Whole match had a great energy to it, and I really enjoyed the finish run with Warner faking an eyepoke and hitting a DDT, and Yehi hitting a great folding powerbomb. My favorite match of night one.

ER: I think this is the best Yehi has looked in 2018, and Yehi is a guy who looks great almost every time I see him. He was ruthless here, finding all sorts of cool ways to torture clear local favorite Warner. Everything Yehi threw out looked fantastic, and I fully agree that him shoving Warner's arm into the ringpost to tee off on the arm was amazing. The shots to the arm would have looked vicious without the help from the ringpost, but the post really added something special to the visual. Yehi's low dropkicks hit with a ton of force, his chops looked among best of the night, he had this nasty diagonal strike to Warner's neck, all brutal stuff. Warner has a nice way of tapping into the energy of the crowd, he gets a good local reaction the same way Chet Sterling does. I actually liked how he still used the hand and arm a few times, and Cecil Scott was excellent at pointing out that he's still using it by instinct, but it's not as effective. And Yehi was always there with a stomp to remind him, and he does all these great mean things like stopping short on a snapmare so it's just him yanking Warner's neck forward. Maybe the best thing about the SCI tournament up to this point has been the finishes. We have gotten a night of logical finishes without anybody taking anything stupid on an apron, everyone avoiding excess while treating appropriately big moves as big moves. Yehi running him into the turnbuckles, then hitting a folding powerbomb is a great example of this. He didn't need to spike Warner into the mat, he hit a hard snap powerbomb and then expertly folded the legs over to make it near impossible to kick out of. Simple, effective. There were finishes that could have come off cheap in the wrong hands (Hollis winning with a low blow, Jay winning with a punch) but these finishes have all felt nicely tailored to the wrestlers advancing.

Kerry Awful vs. Nick Gage

PAS: This was built up as a legendary brawler from outside coming in and taking on the craziest guy in the local town. I liked big parts of this, with Awful taking some big bumps, including a suplex on the bleachers and it had some real energy with the crowd brawling. I liked Awful just putting Gage's arm on a chair and stomping on it. I do wish the shots had landed with some more steam. Necro Butcher brawls always had hard punches in between the bumps and stunts, I though Awful's shots had a lot of windup and not much follow though.

ER: The things we've both said about PCO probably being a guy who plays much better live can likely be said even more about Nick Gage. I match up pretty exactly with Phil on this one, as we get several great moments and a nice concise finish, but some of the meat and potatoes of the brawl portion felt lacking. He's totally right about Awful having great body movement and windup, but were lacking that weight, never feeling like they were landing with the expected thud that the delivery promised. He's kind of like an inverted Dirty Daddy. Daddy shots always look and sound like he's killing a guy, he has these great chops and elbows, but he doesn't have a lot of flash before the landing. Awful has all the movement down, but falls short on the landing. I'm someone who has watched more Jerry Lawler than I can remember, and while I'm still regularly amazed at how great he can make every punch look, after getting used to how precise the landing is on the punches you start noticing all the other things he's doing with his body to give his punches style. You could practice for a year to get your worked punches to come in fast and land soft, but there's so many other working parts: you need to figure out what your non-punching arm is doing, you need to figure out your footwork, you need to get your head movement down, you need to properly recoil your body after a punch lands, etc. Awful has all of the other things, but doesn't really have the connection of the strike. It's kind of like how hard Lance Storm tried to work his chairshots in ECW. He was a guy who never wanted to stiff someone and certainly didn't want to brain someone with a chair, so he worked on the windup and actual physical delivery of the chairshot, and then would hold up on the landing. It would get roundly booed by the deviants who wanted nothing more than full force shots to the frontal lobe, but I always saw and liked what he was going for. Awful takes a few really great bumps here, getting backdropped into the bleachers and eating a suplex through a couple of chairs, Gage gets run into the ringpost with a chair around his neck, gets his arm jammed into a chair and stomped on, all that stuff worked great. The brawling really didn't work for me. The finish was a heck of an exclamation point, with Gage just drilling him with a stuffed piledriver to put an instant end to things.

PAS: Fun first night, nothing mindblowing, but I liked how this show had a real variety of wrestlers, old crazy guys, monsters, mat workers. A lot of indy tournaments just have a list of pimped indy workers all doing 2.9 wrestling, this had a real appetizer sampler feel which I enjoyed.


ER: I had a great time with Night 1. They kept things simple and quick, and each of the guys involved stood out in their own way. That's pretty special. We've all sat through enough marathon 4 hour indy shows, and I think it's incredibly refreshing to see that both nights of SCI total 4 hours. It keeps things fresh and moving, keeps the crowd alert, and shows that guys can still do some absolutely crazy things without doing absolutely stupid things. A nice, welcoming and fun night of wrestling, with Cross/Hollis and Yehi/Warner being quality additions to our 2018 Ongoing MOTY List. Night 2 review coming soon.

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