Heel Tommy Dreamer: It's a Joke!

Tommy Dreamer vs. Hardcore Holly WWF Metal 9/15/01

ER: This was a bunch of stiff violence packed into about 3 minutes, and seeing a match like this makes it clear that Bob Holly is the guy that should have been sent to ECW instead of Aldo Montoya. If Holly came into ECW in 1997 with the same attitude he was carrying to 2001 late night syndicated WWF TV matches, he would have been huge. Bob Holly in 1997 ECW would have been like Jon Moxley on AEW TV now. Dreamer is the heel AND larger, but Holly somehow comes off meaner and stronger while also connecting with the crowd as a babyface. Dreamer goes for a cheapshot and gets his ass handed to him for it, with Holly swinging his full arms as hard as he could to smack Dreamer across the back and face. Dreamer even takes a vertical suplex on the floor after just trying to get away from Holly. Holly is this amusing combination of ugly strikes that clearly land hard, and he works a quick aggressive pace different than the quick paced matches now. Holly fills voids with kicks and punches and maximizes time. Dreamer gets a couple bits of nice offense (a heavy backbreaker and a Russian legsweep he really yanked Holly into), but this was mostly just beating Dreamer's ass. Dreamer misses that Naniwa elbow and Holly commences with hard bodyslams, clotheslines, and a gorgeous dropkick under the chin (gorgeous and pinpoint even in comparison to Holly's typical dropkick). The finish is a super smart way to work into the Alabama Slam, with Dreamer getting a small opening and trying to hit a piledriver, only for Holly to effortlessly stand up and plant him dead center. I wasn't expecting Holly to be such a tsunami in this, as it came off like the kind of match you see someone lose on their way to being out of the company. 

Tommy Dreamer/Chuck Palumbo vs. Taka Michinoku/Funaki WWF Metal 9/29/01

ER: This was the kind of match that made Metal my favorite weekly show around this era. It's incredibly fun, and worked with far more originality that I'd expect a similar tag to be worked in 2021. Taka and Funaki evade Palumbo with their speed, then start working over Dreamer's arm, even hitting a nice tandem vertical suplex on him. Dreamer and Palumbo are good at plausibly selling for their much smaller opponents, never making it seem ridiculous that Kaientai are keeping them on the ropes. Dreamer is nice and vindictive when they gain control, as he starts punishing Funaki for working over his arm by working over Funaki's arm! I haven't really seem something like that, where one guy takes arm wringers and axe handles to the shoulder, then when he gets his chance starts doing the same thing. "You remember this? How do YOU like it?" Dreamer hits a bodyslam with Funaki's arm pinned behind his back, throws him into the ringpost, not planning on working the arm over for the finish, just punishing Funaki for insolence. 

The Kaientai comeback was really good, and Dreamer's timing really made it click. Funaki hit a really awesome reverse DDT, swinging into the position after Dreamer got him in a fireman's carry. It was a super slick reversal, someone needs to steal that. Taka is a great house of fire, nailing Palumbo with uppercuts, and I loved his cool running knee into the corner on Palumbo, flipping over the apron and nailing Dreamer with a springboard spinning heel kick. Dreamer gets knocked to the floor while Funaki holds Palumbo in a camel clutch while Taka slaps him, hits a baseball slide on Dreamer (as he's trying to get back into the ring from the floor), then runs back and dropkicks Palumbo in the face. Funaki goes for a pescado on Dreamer, who dodges and sends Funaki crashing to the floor, only to get kicked off the apron by Taka when he again tries to get into the ring. Dreamer takes a great bump onto the apron to the floor, but Taka kicking Dreamer distracts him just enough for Palumbo to lay him out with his excellent superkick. Palumbo angrily sells his nose and face during the whole pin, still smarting from Taka's dropkick. This match was a super smooth, super smart way of getting from A to B to C, and a style totally absent from WWE TV today.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE HEEL TOMMY DREAMER

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Matches from Joey Janela's LA Confidential 11/16/18

Tony Deppen vs. Jungle Boy

ER: I was curious about this as I'd seen Jungle Boy a couple times on Bay Area indies, but this is a bigger show that will be watched by people around the country. My impression of him from seeing him live is that he doesn't really do a lot to justify the gimmick, doesn't really commit to anything. He has young Ted Nugent hair, wears boots (pretty sure I've seen him work barefoot before, which makes way more sense for a jungle boy), occasionally pats his chest as if he picked up one specific sign from Koko, and I liked a couple of the early big vine swinging armdrags, but otherwise just wrestles like the same indy wrestler you see on every one of these shows. This is my first time seeing Deppen and he shoehorns in a bunch of spitting spots, which is arguably becoming a dumber indy spot than apron bumps. There are a few moments I like, a huge tope through several chairs, and really all of the brawling through the crowd, guys getting tossed through chairs, I'll always enjoy that. But you also get your throwaway reverse rana and they were going for the 2.9 kickouts from literally the first kickout of the match. Deppen missed clotheslines unconvincingly, and took some of those vertical Aleister Black type bumps, but exposed too much of the balancing magic and kept not looking like his head was making any kind of contact on impact. I like ending this kind of match with a roll up holding the tights, but it's also a pretty stupid fuck you to the big moves they kicked out of. This definitely is a match on a 2018 wrestling show.

Brody King vs. Hardcore Holly

ER: I had just seen King take on another mid 90s WWF guy who is now in his 50s in PCO, so I'm sure it's just a matter of time before I see him work Billy Gunn or Waltman. And he seems to know the key to making these things work: Keep 'em short, keep 'em stiff. It's a smart formula that also reins his own tendencies in. Holly looks exactly the same as the last time you saw him in WWE a decade ago, and really the match is built around Holly leaning in to big clubbing shots and clotheslines and firing back with stiff boots to the side of King's head and hard chops. I can't imagine anyone would want to see more. Holly can still throw a nasty knife edge, got knocked around by King, I dug Holly's kicks, Holly plants him with the Alabama Slam and eats a big lariat for the finish, and this was what it should have been.

Kyle the Beast vs. Jacob Fatu

ER: Fatu has worked Phoenix Pro Wrestling (the fed Tim Livingston and I do commentary for) a couple times and I was excited to see him get some worldwide internet exposure (I know he's worked LA a good amount, and worked The Crash, but this was his first appearance on a "Super Indy" card), and I think he definitely delivered. The match was worked at a brisk pace and wrapped up in 8 minutes which is more than enough time to work some all killer no filler. Fatu moves real quick for a bigger guy, and his twisting moonsault press to the floor was a legit holy shit moment. The way he flew, nobody would reasonably guess that guy is 260+, but it was such a great visual seeing him crash through KTB after gliding through the air. The strike exchanges were a bit much, as I thought both guys were throwing nice blows (really liked Fatu's punches) but there was one moment where they were just standing and going back and forth with the same strike, back and forth, like a skipping record, like my old Quiet Riot record that skipped and looped the "More! More! More!" part. It sure did make me quickly not care about a bunch of nice strikes. Weapons get involved and Fatu gets to show off some of his cool power offense, big powerslam, and a bonkers finish with Fatu hitting what looked like a pop up Samoan Drop through a table that had been set up. Pretty likely that Fatu will be showing up in more and more east coast indies, gotta imagine WWE won't be far after that.

Nick Gage vs. David Arquette

PAS: It is hard to call something that ends with one guy accidentally getting his neck slashed, possibly shooting on his opponent out of fear, and then botching the ending a good match, but this was a pretty great match. Arquette obviously has a need to prove himself, dying on the alter of pro-wrestling to show he isn't a blasphemer. When you view the match through that lens it is compelling. I loved Gage leveling him with the forearm and all of the early beatdown, had a very Ian Rotten feel to it, which is a total compliment int this format. I dug Arquettes comebacks, all of his awkward topes felt like a crazy guy trying to do anything for crowd approval, a reckless dive is always cooler then an effortless dive. The Joey Ryan and Messiah run ins, felt like Janela getting too cutesy, and took away from the story being told. In some ways Arquette taking his sacrifice too far and almost dying works great as a finish to this match, in other ways it was a guy who had no business being in the match almost having his jugular cut.

ER: What a weird damn thing pro wrestling is. David Arquette was married to an American TV icon for 15 years, was a major part of the biggest horror franchise of the 90s/early 00s, is a successful producer, and has had a shockingly resilient career in Hollywood. And yet he feels the need to seemingly prove himself to doofuses like me. This is truly one of the damndest main event replacements in wrestling history, a match nobody thought possible, and it was probably way weirder and more insane than anybody thought possible. This whole thing became a real strange test of just how much Arquette was going to endure, how far was far enough to prove himself, and how nervous he had to rightfully be to be sliced wide open by a guy who is potentially one of many wrestlers who resent him coming into their area of expertise and garnering more attention. Gage feels like he sells Arquette's offense appropriately, which is not always at all, but Arquette worked hard to do stuff worth selling. His standing huracanrana was really impressive, he did a couple of big dives that felt like a 47 year old non-wrestler doing a couple of big dives, hits a big cutter onto light tubes and chairs, hits an awesome cannonball into the corner into light tubes, zero people can fault this man's effort. Oh, and he let Nick Gage beat the shit out of him. Gage certainly has a dangerous charisma that not a lot of guys have, and he beats Arquette with a door, hammers him with light tubes, and then the cutting begins. Arquette's body gets chewed up, guy is bleeding from his chest, arms, back, head, and due to who knows what Arquette gets his neck cut open. Things get really weird as Arquette walks off holding his neck and looking pissed, then goes back for some reason and things clearly look non-cooperative, Arquette jumps on Gage, gets tossed to the mat, gets pinned, and then immediately leaves. The run ins were pointless (you could have eliminated them entirely and not affected the match in any way at all), Kevin Gill was terrible on commentary, but this match brought spectacle and a true feeling that David Arquette might die for professional wrestling. It's a weird bizarre match that David Arquette certainly made way, way weirder.

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