Jersey on My Mind, Deranged in My Heart

Deranged vs. Homicide JAPW 12/13/02 - EPIC

ER: For whatever reason the Youth Gone Wild main event lumberjack match the month before didn't work, but back in Bayonne a month later with Deranged in the main event and everything works perfectly. Deranged is a main event superstar who perfectly understood what kind of little shit everyone thought he was, so went above and beyond to be even more of a little shit. It's beautiful. This boy, voice cracking, draws real heat and knows exactly what he's doing. Everything he screams at the crowd is straight out of Memphis, from an era he couldn't possibly have seen. Who was passing the Memphis tapes around New Jersey high schools? He talks trash whenever he has the slightest fleeting advantage and he got a real guffaw out of me when he started yelling, "I TRAINED THIS FOOL HERE! I TRAINED HIM!" He yells, "I'M THE MAN" like the cute Puerto Rican kid in Gloria before pathetically cowering in the corner to break a lock up, running away on his knees. When he's far enough away from Homicide he yells, "HE AIN'T GOT NOTHIN HE'S SCARED OF ME". Deranged is working a Gallagher II version of Jamie Dundee, playing the states Dundee barely wrestled. Is Bayonne familiar with Dundee's shtick? Deranged understands it perfectly. He does a multiple cartwheel escape out of a wristlock and yells, "LOOK AT THAT" before getting his teeth knocked in with an elbow smash. Complaints of hair pulls are requisite, for Deranged is wearing a du-rag. When he screeches, "YOU WANNA SEE A HOT MOVE!?!?" and locks in a chinlock, we know we are watching a wrestling genius. 

If Deranged is a wrestling genius, 2002 Homicide was a wrestling monster. Deranged may have talked a lot of shit, but Homicide made damn sure he got hit. The man fully sidesteps a Deranged rope flip dive and lets the man fully splat on the tile floor of the Bayonne Charity Hall. Good god. He throws hard kicks and chops, and a beautiful leaping kneedrop that lands perfectly worked to Deranged's temple. Homicide was hitting hard on his chops and kicks, but working everything else while making it look fully evil. His elbowdrop lands with similar form to Fit Finlay's, except Homicide also has a nice one off the middle buckle delivered the same way. He hits multiple faces washes with his knees driven into and past Deranged's head, and I watched them over and over because they are impactful, but somehow safe, while they looked devastating. They looked like they were smashing Deranged's skull in but he was somehow going in full speed while pulling every one. Homicide even makes his chinlock look punishing, leaning his weight forward on Deranged, never looking like either man was resting. Aside from all this, Homicide can also draw sympathy. When he gets baseball slide dropkicked into the railing and curses angrily on impact, a little kid leans in and sincerely asks, "Are you okay?" 

Homicide has insanely great offense, and Deranged is great at making it look even better. It's not just the lack of consideration for his future, it's the way he utilizes late kickouts, and how good he is at sneaking in those late kickouts and making them work. His kickouts made Homicide's brainbuster, falcon arrow, and insane kneeling Michinoku driver all look like potential finishes. Although, the actual finish was undeniable, a Cop Killa so dangerous it could only be done by a man named Homicide. It's a running Cop Killa executed with no regard for Deranged's well being. Homicide performed the move like he was doing it to a CPR dummy, not to a living breathing human. He had no way of knowing if Deranged would land okay, he was doing this move to commit murder. He pins him with one finger to his chest because there was zero chance there could have been a kickout even if that were the plan. Earlier, Deranged did a backflip kick that instead shot both his knees straight into Homicide's chin, hard enough that I'm surprised Homicide wasn't knocked out. Since Deranged failed to knock him out, I have to imagine this Cop Killa - the most disgusting one I have ever seen - was a classic Come at the King, Best Not Miss payback. 

Hilarious note: there's a weird altercation as the ref didn't know the finish and thought Deranged was supposed to kick out of THAT Cop Killa, but it was clearly the finish to anyone watching and Deranged's body didn't move because he was not conscious. So the ref is acting like Deranged got his shoulder up, even though Deranged was still lying in an unconscious heap. The bell rings, Homicide's music starts playing, and the ref stays down on a knee signaling to Homicide that Deranged got his shoulder up while Homicide looks at him like he's a real fucking idiot. This ref, presumably, was asking why they weren't starting the damn match at Over the Edge '99. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE SPECIAL K

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2018 Ongoing MOTY List: Doom Patrol vs. Kingston/Homicide

95. Eddie Kingston/Homicide vs. Chris Dickinson/Jaka Beyond Wrestling 11/25 - GREAT

PAS: Really fun old school vs. new school NYC indie battle. I really liked the trash talking, with Dickinson calling Homicide grampa and daring Kingston to try his bullshit jujitsu. It felt a little good natured at first, but it started to get a little sharper, the way a pick up game can all of a sudden turn into a fist fight. This really did turn into that fist fight with Kingston tagging in and rag dolling Dickinson in a really disrespectful way. Those two especially brought it right to the edge in ways that I always love from both guys: a lot of chops to unsafe parts of the neck and sharp looking kicks. There is a great spot near the end of the match where Kingston is in the corner eating kicks, chops and punches from all angles by both guys while throwing his own shots back. It's one of the cooler strike exchanges I can remember seeing. We get a 2010s tag near fall run, which is what it is, but the big moves were appropriately big and it ended when it should. I am a big fan of all four of these guys and this really delivered. 

ER: I think we've had this sitting in drafts for over a couple years, waiting on me to force myself to watch some of my favorite guys. Obviously it's filled with things I love, and I knew that it would, but wrestling fans are weirdos and we can't always predict which direction our wrestling viewing hours will be spent. The match built well within the framework they established, veering into directions I didn't always like but always kept my interest. It starts with some cool dickhead kneebars from Dickinson with Homicide offering little defense, leading to Dickinson asking for Eddie Kingston's "fake jujitsu ass". Homicide having little ground answer for Dickinson and Dickinson being a loudmouth quickly leads to Homicide going after eyes and fighting the way we love to see Homicide fight. Dickinson and Jaka were great at getting Homicide away from Kingston and it felt like the whole match could have kept that formula, with Dickinson wrapping his arm around Homicide's neck from the apron while Jaka kicked and chopped away, and Eddie's insults grew less eloquent as his anger level rose. 

Jaka got a little too cute on an outside in suplex, choosing to do a ropes balance course with Homicide that is a bit too complicated, but it throws Homicide all the way across the ring, with Kingston tagging in as Homicide rolled to the floor. There was a little undercurrent of Kingston and Homicide disrespecting Jaka, and it was made a bit more obvious by Jaka looking a step behind skill-wise from the others. I was a big Jaka fan (weird to think he's only had like 10 matches since this one) and liked his commitment to using Islander strikes in Catch Point matches. Those strikes throw off the rhythm of this match a bit, with the best moments happening when King and Homicide throw bombs and chops. Jaka's strikes looked a little lighter, so when the OGs would hit him back it read as great old man disrespect. Homicide and Kingston even both SPIT at Jaka! Watching this three years later and that feels even more insulting, now that it's not just the biggest sign of disrespect but also potentially deadly. Kingston's flurries were the best, like dropping Dickinson with a mean Saito suplex and a stiff arm standing lariat. The ending got a bit bombastic and I think every single one of them got their own 1999 Kings Road fighting spirit moment. Pulling from 1999 All Japan is kind of like pulling live material from 1995 Grateful Dead shows, an era with less worthwhile stuff to steal from than the other 25+ years. Kingston takes one of the most scarily accurate backdrop drivers to that 1999 AJ style, and it's mostly glossed over to make way for both members of Doom Patrol to walk through backfists. It was a bit much, but it was in a match that also gave us Dickinson and Jaka teeing the absolute fuck off on Kingston in the corner while Kingston somehow screamed his way through it to chop them both in the neck, and it's the kind of high that many attempt but rarely make look this good. 

2018 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Kingston is Hell in Harlem and Poppin' in Queens

 Eddie Kingston vs. Necro Butcher CZW 10/14/06 - EPIC

PAS: This was Eddie's first defense of the CZW title and he was full heel with Robbie Mireno and Larry Legend running interference. Necro opens the match bumping Kingston all over ring side. Kingston takes a big time beating on the floor, getting chairs chucked reckless at him, landing awkwardly on folding chairs and guardrails, you rarely see Necro out bumped, but in this match he took a backset. Eddie is able to take back over by punching Necro right in his bare feet which is a tremendous transition, and he unloads a pretty big beating of his own. There is a great section where Kingston backs Necro into the corner with a Tenryu chop/jab combo and Necro fires out with a multiple potato punch head and body combo. They had maybe my favorite bar fight spot ever. Kingston is slumped on some stairs, Necro grabbing a chair to sit down, clocking Eddie in the face, and Eddie just throwing a missed concussed air punch, only to get smashed again.  Finish has Kingston getting powerbombed on set up wooden stairs, but having the pin broken up by Mireno pulling out the ref. While Necro is savaging Mireno, Kingston hits a backdrop driver on the stairs, with Necro's neck bending at a sick angle, and a clothesline for the win. This had a little bit of a pacing issue when Eddie was setting up the steps for the end, but a hellacious fight like this is always going to be special. 

Eddie Kingston/Homicide vs. The Briscoe Brothers PWR 8/4/12 - GREAT

PAS: The show was in Delaware, and really worked like a returning hero, please the crowd tag. Briscoe's bump around Cide and Kingston early, they move into a shortish face in peril section, a crowd brawl, table spot and a near fall finish. This is a very 2000s formula tag, but there were a couple of fun tweaks. You can count on Kingston to add some spice, and I liked his convulsion selling after getting smushed on an unbreakable plastic table. I thought the structure of the match wasted Cide and Kingston, they didn't really get to demonstrate what makes them special, but a hot tag with an over hometown team is always going to work for me. 

Eddie Kingston/PAC/Pentagon El Zero Miedo vs. Brandon Cutler/Young Bucks AEW Dynamite 6/11/21 - FUN

ER: I kept liking and then disliking this match, but it ended on a high note and that always makes me like a match more. If there's going to be stuff I dislike, the worst spot for that stuff to happen is the home stretch. This had a good home stretch, and good moments, but also some guys I don't like doing things I don't like. I'm about as over Penta El Zero Miedo as I am any wrestler this side of Seth Rollins. He is now one of those guys that makes me wrinkle my nose when I find out he is in a match, especially if it's with guys I like. The important difference between Penta and Seth Rollins, however, is that Penta was one of my absolute favorite guys in wrestling to watch, during season 1 Lucha Underground. I never got that excited for Rollins, but Penta had me hooked for a year. But now I've disliked him for far longer than I ever liked him. If we were doing DVDVR 500s, Pentagon Jr. would be a guy in the Top 25 that one year, then down to the 270s the next, then down to the 490s one place below Shane McMahon. His offense is obnoxiously selfish, always requiring every person in the ring to stop what they're doing just to stand and feed his overcomplicated offense, that always requires way too many moving parts all moving at his expense. Guys kill themselves to take sluggishly executed Penta moves and maybe it just has to loop back around to being cool again in my head. 

Brandon Cutler also felt really out of place in this match. Kingston and PAC were bringing asskicker energy to things, the Young Bucks and their actually great gear (with matching silken tasseled hairline secret keepers) were working a good smug match controlling PAC, clearly building to a big Kingston and Penta hot tag...and Cutler was there working the match like he was Screech substituting for Slater against Valley. It wasn't an unentertaining presence, but he was bringing this indy wrestling Jim Cornette forced to be in a match vibes, and it all felt a little too distracting from some of the actual cool stuff that could have happened. I liked the finish with him missing a big springboard elbow and standing up into a Kingston backfist, but we could have used a couple less moments of him hamming his way through two other guy' moment. Kingston's involvement was the highlight and just kept getting better than longer he was in. He had a couple of great cut off spots to interrupt someone's highspot, and the build to him and PAC hitting stereo dives was fantastic. PAC is an unexpectedly fun Kingston ally, a guy I wouldn't have ever thought of as a Kingston tag guy, but I liked their rhythm here a lot and wouldn't mind seeing more of them together. Kingston pummeling someone into a PAC flying move is a cool way to set things up, and we can see they know how to build to a good finish. 

PAS: I actually liked Cutler in this match, that kind of Downtown Bruno forced into a match added a different flavor to something which would otherwise be another workrate trios. I thought it added to the cool stuff rather then distracting from it. It also gives Eddie a foil to work off of, and one of the great Eddie's is Eddie beating on a young guy, he doesn't Shane Storm him, but it is in that world. The high spots were fun, and I liked the hot tag. Good TV match for sure.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE EDDIE KINGSTON 

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Coliseum Video Thanksgiving: Smack 'Em Whack 'Em (+ Bonus JAPW!)

As has happened the past few years, my friend Josh came over on Thanksgiving and we played video games and watched a Coliseum Video. I'm not sure we intended this to become a tradition, but whenever Josh comes over he tends to want to either play old NES games, Silent Hill 2, watch a Coliseum Video, or watch old WCW. This time he chose to just wear a Silent Hill 2 long sleeve while watching a Coliseum Video, and this was the one he chose. It's a pretty legendary tape, often regarded as the best in the series due to the selection of Bret Hart matches. I will not spend any sentences beyond this one writing up any of the Bushwhacker segments that happen between every single match of this tape. 

Berzerker vs. Crush 

ER: Oh my god this was GOOD! It was also WEIRD! Because Crush appeared to be completely zonked out of his mind on something, anything. His eyes were really shut and it felt like Berzerker had to keep kicking him his the face a bunch just to keep him awake. Berzerker has to put in a real overdrive performance, Crush taking a beating that only built to his big comeback. I am not trying to paint too negative a portrait of Crush, but there was just something very off and very far away about his mannerisms in this match. Kona Crush was one of my least liked guys in WWF. I hated his look, hated his fluffy frosted mullet, hated his chubby baby fat face. Crush was not a wrestler I looked forward to seeing. But this was arguably the most I have enjoyed him, and we can point directly to Berzerker as the reason. Berzerker put over Crush's strength HUGE, and it was great. They do a couple tests of strength, one ending with Berzerker getting thrown backwards and taking his fast backwards bump over the top to the floor, and then a shoulderblock exchange sees him also quickly whip himself over to the floor. I love that bump. Berzerker comes back in with a big boot and the Crush admirably takes his own bump to the floor, opting to go out through the middle ropes but taking it more like a luchador, which looked weird but cool. 

Berzerker controls things with these great annoying boots to the head, not letting Crush get to his feet, just stalking around him and needling him with these push kicks. He hits a big delayed piledriver, and it's a shame (and also logical) that he didn't break out the piledriver more as he has a nice one. He misses the big kneedrop which gives Crush an opening, and Crush hits a really nice atomic drop and a side slam, before squeezing Berzerker's head until he passed out. I was realllllly hoping for one minor Berzerker comeback during the head squeeze, such as him looking as if he might fight out of it, before eventually succumbing. It did take Crush awhile to finish him with the vice, so perhaps we were supposed to be interpreting that as Berzerker fighting through it, but I would have liked that visually represented better. Still, this match was so good, which is a strong upgrade over every single online review I found. Those reviews collectively described this match as essentially the saddest fart sound in the world. And they were wrong. If anything, this was a joyous, confident, trumpeting fart sound, delivered in front of your friends and family, who would go on to share in your joy. 

Earthquake vs. Repo Man

ER: I was hoping for more Earthquake here, and the crowd is really quiet for a lot of Repo Man's control. Repo tries to use his verbal skills to get the crowd engaged, and I thought it was hilarious when he locked a headlock on Earthquake and said "I got him now!" Gorilla Monsoon calls Earthquake "Mr. Quake". Which would make his first name Earth, I suppose. "Mr. Quake is my father's name. Call me Earth." To be fair to Repo Man, Earthquake doesn't sell his offense very engagingly. He falls down a couple times, but is a little quiet in his emotion. He catches Repo off an attempted top rope axe handle in a bearhug and hits a nice powerslam, nice elbowdrop, does that awesome Earthquake thing where he just steps on and walks over someone's chest, and then brings that big Canadian butt down on Repo's chest. Babyface Earthquake might make more sense against a bigger heel challenger, but Repo Man was not someone the crowd was interested in seeing give Mr. Quake any issues. 

"Cooking for the Single Man"

ER: This is a segment with Yokozuna eating a comical amount of food in a Japanese restaurant. It was not discussing his relationship status, but we were rather seeing just how much food one single, solitary man could eat. Okerlund is there doing kind of running commentary and seeming genuinely amazed by how many buffet size portions of sushi Yoko manages to quickly engulf. They grill up 6 pounds of shrimp, 10 ribeye steaks, just a huge amount of food. Gene keeps bringing up how there is no way they could eat this much food, and Yokozuna just stares directly at the food the whole time. Gene is talking to Yokozuna and asking questions, but Fuji answers all of them while Yoko just stares mesmerized by the grilled shrimp and steaks. It should be noted that Yokozuna used chopsticks to eat this massive amount of food, and he is really great at using them. That is some unexpected dedication. He houses so much food in this clip. It's the most method performance, just a man filming a home video segment on his day off where he gets to eat 25,000 calories without getting up. Gene, Fuji, and Yokozuna were all perfect in their roles. Top end Coliseum segment.  

Ladder Match: Bret Hart vs. Shawn Michaels

ER: This is one of the reasons this tape was so popular, a ladder match before the more famous Michaels ladder matches. It's probably my favorite era of Michaels to watch, as he's more of a conniving big bumping heel and still has Sherri singing his theme song and looking like a smokeshow at ringside. He takes nice bumps into the turnbuckles, into the ringpost, and a great shotgun blast bump after Hart leans full body weight into a European uppercut. There's some strong Sherri distraction that leads to Shawn quickly climbing a ladder in ring and come fingertips away from grabbing the belt, and the climbing is a real strength in this match. A lot of ladder match quality really hinges on climbing for me, because as uninteresting as climbing something can be, it's an important aspect of this stipulation. The best ladder matches have climbing that doesn't insult your intelligence. Michaels gets knocked off the ladder and gets a real lucky break when the ladder falls over directly onto him but the ladder bounces off the middle rope before getting to him. That top step would have dropped right onto his teeth. Both guys take nice bumps off the ladder, and Michaels continues flying around for Bret's final stretch run, takes a great teeter totter bump into the ladder, and there's a nasty moment where Hart hooks his leg in the ladder bumping off it. I think it was exactly how to take the bump, but it looked like his knee got snagged in a disgusting way. They really take turns taking painful bumps around the ring, and Bret finally grabs the belt after Michaels lands crotch first into the ropes, hitting the ropes, apron, and floor in three successive great bumps. 

Kamala vs. Bret Hart

ER: This was a real favorite of mine when I rented this tape as a kid. I always loved Kamala and this might have been his best full match during his 90s WWF run. Hart is someone who is just going to be better than most at working around Kamala, and Kamala really tightened things up against Bret. Bret knows how to stick and move and the moments where Kamala catches him are great, hitting big overhand chops and catching Bret right under the chin with a mule kick. Hart does a bunch of great things like stomping on Kamala's bare feet (why wouldn't anyone do that??) and I adore Kamala selling his stomped toes. Kamala really plays up the savage role here, and really does an awesome job working up to Bret's pace. There's a dropdown/leap frog exchange that some wouldn't believe, a great leap from the Ugandan giant, in a match filled with cool cutoff spots from Kamala. Kamala was always catching Bret with a cross chop to the throat or a bearhug, and Hart's comebacks were all so satisfying. Hart hit maybe the finest side Russian legsweep I've ever seen in this match, knowing that he would have to throw it completely on the much larger man. You see Bret working through every single step of the move, and it's so gorgeous. He traps Kamala's arm, hooks his neck, grapevines the leg, then hits it. These two are a wonderful pairing, and I loved how logically and interestingly this match worked through its story, a really strong way to fill an 8 minute match. The Kim Chee botched distraction leading to a high leverage school boy is the most believable way you can beat a monster like this. I love this match. 

Bret Hart vs. Ric Flair

ER: This is undeniably a match that could make a Coliseum Video tape infamous. An actual World title changing hands in a match that hadn't been seen before. The tape makes no effort to hide the fact that Hart wins the World title on this tape, as Lord Alfred Hayes reveals 30 seconds into the tape that later on we WILL see Bret Hart win the World Wrestling Federation Championship from Ric Flair, in a match that is available ONLY on this release. And for two guys whose egos will not allow them to acknowledge their in ring chemistry with each other, I think these two were a real natural pair. This is a great match and maybe the best time for these two to have crossed paths. I don't think you can get a better crossing of career axis, just the best time for these two to have their best possible singles match. 

Flair is super expressive throughout the whole long title match, and his yelps and screams really help put over a Bret hammerlock and other surprise Bret offense. Flair is a guy who, at this point in my wrestling viewing, I have seen so much that I no longer get excited for. But I can still get sucked into a strong Flair performance, and this was a strong Flair performance. He doesn't undersell himself by stooging around, and really acts like a guy who knows all the tricks and knows when to apply them. He's really smart at reversing Bret's offense, with the absolute best reversal coming on a sunset flip attempt. He basically  moonwalks with the momentum of the move until he regains his footing and punches downward to break it. Everyone always instinctually sends their weight forward, working against the move, but Flair treats it like a treadmill whose pace you have to match to keep your balance. Now, we do get a spot where Flair gets his full ass shown while Bret yanked his trunks down (and Hart really holds those trunks HIGH) and Flair takes a backdrop bump while still fiddling with his trunks. You would not believe how loud a Saskatoon crowd can get after seeing the toned buns of a man in his mid 40s. Hart's bumps make Flair look like a guy who knows how to utilize his strengths, and he uses two different sick sternum bumps into the turnbuckles to create openings for Flair. 

All of the work around roll ups, backslides, and the leg work to set up figure fours or sharpshooters was always engaging. Flair works a cool "stalking" portion down the back side of the match, dragging Hart around the ring by his arm or leg, holding Bret's arm while shooting a kick right across the jaw, throwing short uppercut punches that are my very favorite Flair punches, and Bret is always smart enough to know to grab a leg for a flash nearfall. All of Flair's offense looks fantastic here, everything looking like it just rocks Bret. It's genuinely impressive to me when Bret is able to shrug off Flair's chops, as they all look like really lightning bolts. We get an awesome moment leading to Bret's triumphant title win, when he takes a HARD chop and looks Flair straight in the eye while calmly removing both of his singles straps to invite one last chop. This whole match is so well worked, the time filled so well, building to a conclusive and deserving title win in Canada. This match deserves its reputation, and is the kind of match that would make an entire Coliseum Video worthwhile. 

Razor Ramon vs. Undertaker

ER: Ramon has to work a pretty generous match here, as he works the whole thing as if he's a lot smaller than the Undertaker, except he's at worst the same exact size as the Undertaker. Taker is a pretty big lug in this one, and Ramon doesn't seem fully used to being the "smaller big bumping guy" for a guy who is the same size as him. So the ropewalk smash doesn't look great, and Ramon does really well to make some of this offense look effective. But Ramon wasn't fully comfortable in the character at this point (just a few months later he was so much more comfortable in his gimmick and mannerisms), and there wasn't a ton to work with in a zombie Taker performance. There was one long spot where Ramon hits three straight very nice elbowdrops, and Taker just takes them like a real dead fish, not acknowledging that any offense is being done in any way. And that's just not an interesting gimmick or match development for me. 

BONUS THANKSGIVING  JAPW!!!

Homicide/Sandman vs. Da Hit Squad JAPW 2/3/01

PAS: IWTV put up 30+ JAPW shows as a special Thanksgiving treat, so while I am crazy busy today I thought I would add something to Eric's Thanksgiving post. This was in the ECW arena and it was clear that these guys were the spiritual successors to ECW. We get a full Sandman entrance and it is crazy how much taller he is than the doghouse guys, he looks like Robert Fuller. Much of this match is Hit Squad as big bumping heels for the triumphant babyface team. I tend to think of the DHS as guys stiffing rookies and tossing them into walls, but they are also great as stooging guys taking flip bumps and getting stiffed by the Sandman. Apparently Sandman was really into swantons in 2001? Great looking Swanton's too, he hits one with Monsta under the ladder, and one to put Mafia through a table. Finish was nuts with Mack getting lifted for the Cop Killa and Sandman adding a little momentum by shoving his legs, making Mack over rotate a bit so he takes it right on his neck. It's about the nastiest bump I have seen for a move that always ends up nasty. 

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RIP Xavier

Xavier vs. Homicide JAPW 8/24/01

PAS: This was a death match, and a great example of these two at their athletic primes. We had some really nifty wrestling early, including Xavier flipping out of the cop killer countering into a grounded cobra, which Homicide broke with a kick to the knee. Young Homicide was really explosive, even just a run into a corner had so much pop, and his flip dive was as crazy in this match as I ever remember it.  Xavier was great in this too, he was a natural unlikable heel and had his shit talk game down. I loved him pricking his finger on the barbed wire bat when he grabbed it, such a great little heel move. I didn't love the finish of this match, felt kind of cheap to end it on the distracted heel banana peel, but otherwise this was great stuff.

ER: This match ruled so hard. JAPW guys really beat the shit out of each other (there was probably a reason why I glommed onto JAPW and IWA-MS when I was tape trading), and this match really highlights the violent athleticism of this perfect era of JAPW. Both guys take some shots that look like they'd put someone on the shelf, just an awesome level of trust and fearlessness and craziness on display. Homicide gets a rope around Xavier's neck and chokes him over the ropes, then snaps him around by the neck. A lot of necks and bodies looked like they were getting messed up throughout this match. Homicide threw several kill shots, and Xavier leaned into all of them. Homicide's yakuza kicks, big lariat, and corner elbow all looked like they hit Xavier square in the jaw. And while the hits in the match are big, I'm not sure any hit was as big as Homicide hitting the guardrail on a tope con hilo. I don't know if I've seen a man crash faster into a guardrail, he just flew past Xavier and I have no clue how he didn't break or tear anything. Xavier wraps a chair around Homicide's neck when he's crazy enough to go for a dive right after, then kicks the chair while it's still on Homicide's neck. I loved Xavier's corner cannonball, and his somersault legdrop while Homicide's head was under a chair was nasty as hell. I said necks and bodies looked like they were getting messed up, and Homicide's manager Johnny D gets in on the fun. He didn't look like a guy who knew how to take a neckbreaker, but Xavier made sure he took a brutal looking neckbreaker. The cop killa looks like it could have punctured a lung, just a match filled with sick shots. I love the violence this crew are capable of with each other, truly a special era.


Xavier vs. Christian Cage NEW 4/5/08

PAS: This was the second phase of Xavier's career with him working these 90s WWF style main events as the NEW champion. It didn't have much of an internet profile, but NEW drew (and still draws) big crowds. Xavier wasn't doing any of the athletic stuff he was doing earlier in the decade, but was really great as an undeserving champion willing to take any shortcut. Christian is great at working babyface in these kind of matches, times his comebacks well and bumps big for Xavier's shots. I really liked Xavier's short forearms, added a bit of violence to this match. Full on Dusty finish which works well for this crowd, especially because it wasn't a finish run into the ground in 2008.

ER: This was real satisfying, a well worked title match with some big moments, and a fun engaging performance from both. NEW crowds must be really nice to work for, as they are always enthusiastic and respond loud for crowd work. Xavier's style would be completely unrecognizable if you had seen any of his early 2000s indy work, but he knows the crowd he's performing for and has a completely different bag of tricks. A few years prior he was a super fast athletic bumper who leaned way into strikes, here he is a classic stooging heel who still has some explosiveness but doesn't show it off as much. There was a really great turnbuckle gag, a gag you've seen before but with an additional crowd pleasing twist: Christian slams Xavier's head into the top turnbuckle a few times, works his way down to the middle buckle, throws him into the bottom buckle (we've seen this, it's a good gag), but then works him back up the buckles, which I have never seen. It was great, the kind of spot any stooge heel wish they thought of. Xavier always went the extra stooge mile on bumps here, not simply falling to the floor after taking Christian's teeter totter kick in the ropes, but leaping to the apron and then making a comical face after hitting the rail. Christian bumps to the floor off a hotshot (I thought Xavier was going to throw him to the floor with a belly to belly, too much French Catch has been seeping into my brain and wrecking expectations) and Xavier does a good job dragging Christian around ringside to give all sides a show (Christian did this earlier and even posed for photos while dragging Xavier). He crushes Christian with a clothesline, and his neckbreaker finisher is just as nasty as it was in 2001. The Christian kickout after the 2nd ref came in was really unexpected, a big babyface moment that got a huge reaction. The finish is something that I am into, but it works great on shows like this, and Christian is pro enough to know exactly how to handle the post match in a way that fans weren't even thinking about him getting DQ'd.

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Eddie Kingston is Behind The Diner Selling Marijuana to a Minor

Eddie Kingston vs. Thomas Shire vs. Joe Black vs. Matt Kenway AWE 11/3/19 - FUN

PAS: Kingston vs. Shire was one of my favorite matches of the year, but I never think this really got going. I did like that they mainly focused on one on one matchups, rather then running through a bunch of complex four way spots, and Kingston and Shire were really throwing heat both at each other and the other guys in the match. Black has a great look, he looks like an even more jacked Sabian, but I didn't have a great sense of his ring work and had an awesome loony dog collar match in 2020 . This was built up as a big Kingston win because of his history with Black, and I feel like they might have some good singles matches in them, hopefully AWE uploads more of their back catalogue to IWTV


Eddie Kingston/Homicide vs. Butcher and the Blade Empire State Wrestling 11/23/19 - FUN

ER: This doesn't quite rise up to the level I thought it could, but I'm happy we got to see these teams cross paths. Things felt almost a little too structured, especially during the parts where Butcher and the Blade were in control. I was impressed how quick Homicide was moving around, really working quick sequences even when it was setting up stupid stuff for The Blade (like that indy BS where Homicide will get knocked down with a move, hard enough that it makes him get right back to his feet, in time to get put down with another move). Kingston worked great shtick, was yelling from the apron the whole match, tagged in only to whiff on a backfist on The Butcher and gets dropped hard on the mat, then rushes to tag out. Even when Kingston is focusing more on making jokes to the crowd, he's still someone who will take a couple of high back bumps in a match. Homicide and Kingston's energy made this one for me, Kingston throwing big chops before taking a beating, and the finish was really nasty with Butcher suplexing Homicide right across Blade's knees, Blade sliding in at just the right time. This never lagged and had a lot of good, but the high floor didn't make way for a high ceiling. If they ever cross paths again I wouldn't be shocked if they did it even better. This felt more like Kingston and Homicide squaring off against Kazarian and Daniels to me.

PAS: This had it's moments but overall it didn't totally work for me. I thought Pepper Parks was pretty bad in this match. Kazarian is a good comparison, because he had that "old guy trying fast juniors wrestling" vibe to it. Butcher isn't great but he hits hard and the exchanges with Kingston were the highlights. This was house show Eddie, and he is a really great house show wrestler, shit talking, strutting, jaw jacking with the crowd. He still takes some big bumps and such. Didn't love the finish run, but the actual finish was badass. Worth watching for sure, but not a real standout.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE EDDIE KINGSTON

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ICW New York No Holds Barred 1/4/20

Tessa Blanchard vs. Nick Gage

ER: This was a brawl sprint, with Gage jumping Blanchard at the bell and her playing catch-up the whole time. I think it would have worked a lot better if Gage had taken time to sell Blanchard's shots better. Gage likes these quick brawls where he's pushing through the crowd, pushing through fans while exchanging big punches. But Gage's thing is also that he's the toughest guy in the room, so he's barely getting moved by Blanchard's strikes, and meanwhile Tessa is whipping around a head full of hair every time Gage throws a fist near her head. I like some of the ways they get from A to B, like Tessa taking the worse of a crowd beatdown only to escape into the ring and hit a dive. It felt like they were playing up Tessa getting the advantage even though taking more damage due to Gage being distracted by his adoring throng of fans (and it's true that Gage has more live show charisma than most people I've seen on indy shows the past decade). I don't know if that's what they were going for, but I went there for them because it made the pacing make more sense. Things felt a little abrupt and it was a pairing that sounded more interesting on paper, and the finish of Tessa throwing a chair at Gage's head and then DDTing him on it had some hinks, and Gage kicking out right after the 3 to manufacture controversy always just makes both sides come off worse.

8. Homicide vs. Casanova Valentine

PAS: This was like a version of those incredible Homicide vs. Teddy Hart matches in JAPW if Hart looked like pre-gastric bypass Kevin Smith.  Cide just massacres him early, stabbing him with the ghetto fork and spraying lemon juice in the cuts, smashing him in the ribs with a bolt cutter. Valentine does hit a nice belly to belly to take some control, and even garden weasels Cide in the nuts. Valentine brings out a dildo with nails through it, and Homicide kicks him in the balls and just starts brutalizing. I loved the idea of Cide totally unwilling to play along with that viral Tik Tok bullshit. Ron Funches isn't going to retweet you, I am just got to beat the living shit out of you. The end comes with Cide waterboarding Valentine with bleach and frenzy stabbing an already unconscious Valentine in the the head. Out of control Homicide is still incredibly compelling.

ER: It might be easier to be compelling as a worker if you have a lunatic like Valentine who is willing to bleed and get repeatedly stabbed. That's a big ask, but it seems to be Valentine's thing. This is my first time seeing Valentine, though I'd heard the "King of the No Ring Death Matches" moniker before (which does seem like kind of a hollow title. This match had a ring, but it could have easily been worked the exact same way without one, and "need a good ring" is not something that comes to mind when I think of successful death matches). With his big bushy beard and long hair he came off more "Piglet Champion" than Kevin Smith (although had he brought out a Fleshlight covered in nails I would have conceded the Smith resemblance). Homicide's mugging of Valentine started the match, and continued long enough that I wondered if this was turning into Ian vs. Peter B. Beautiful. I'd be really curious to know how much art there was behind Abby or Homicide's fork stabs; it's a quick bit of violent magic that sure feels like a shoot stabbing, and this is a match where people wanted to see a shoot stabbing. Valentine is a good bleeder (has there been a fat guy who is a bad bleeder?) and that was the star of the match, with Homicide stabbing, squeezing lemons into cuts, choking Valentine over the chain ropes, enough that I was genuinely rooting for Valentine by the time he made a comeback. Valentine hits a great overhead belly to belly and has really nice clubbing forearms. He had brought a Garden Weasel to the ring, and it doesn't really read when he's rolling it on Homicide's back. The motions just make me think of a toddler with one of those Fisher Price vacuums with the popping balls. Speaking of popping balls, the Weasel reads much better when he's hooking and pressing it into Homicide's genitals. The bleach finish felt excessive (feels more "feud ending" than "finish of the 2nd match on a show") but you know there had to be several fat wrestling fan Ackshually guys in attendance who explained that Homicide didn't use proper waterboarding technique. The visual of Homicide fork stabbing the unconscious Valentine was strong.


Jimmy Lloyd vs. Alex Colon

ER: The big spots in this were pretty great big spots, but I think they could have tied them together better. YMMM death matches are weird, weak transitions, just one guy falling into something sharp, then standing up and making the other guy fall into something sharp. Both guys are good at falling into sharp things, so the falling looks great, I just wish there was a little more build or sense to it all. But, the big moments are cool, and there is some nice nastiness in between. Colon looks like Death Match Jaka, and he seemingly has several pairs of scissors stashed in his cargo shorts. He slices Lloyd open with a pair of them, but not before Lloyd smashes the top of Colon's head with a thumbtack bat. Colon has a shaved head and we get the great visual of a couple dozen thumbtacks sticking out of head for the rest of the match. Lloyd takes shots with the same bat, but Lloyd is wearing more clothing and has a full mane of hair, doesn't read as impressively as a nutbar our hear doing deathmatch wrestling with no shirt. The board covered in cut up soda cans really shook me, like they keep coming up with new shocking death match props and I can't handle it. Anyone who has accidentally cut themselves on the mouth of a soda can only experienced the tip of the iceberg; those things are even sharper than razorblades and here's Colon eating a facebuster and a tiger driver on them. Crazy. Cameras mostly miss Colon hitting what looked like a killer tornado DDT tope, and the Spanish Fly finish through a barbed wire board was pretty spectacular. Maybe I liked this more than I realized? At minimum, this made me want to see more Alex Colon, and that's a good thing.

Eric Ryan vs. John Wayne Murdoch

ER: What a couple of bloodletting savages. This brawl didn't rely on sections of extended cutting, one guy holding still for minutes while the other gouges at his forehead, and was instead driven by both guys just bashing each other in the forehead with fists and weapons. No gouging, but a lot of disgusting. We had a board with bent forks, a board with cut up soda cans, a board with razorblades, but the real blood factory are these gusset plates. Eric Ryan gets busted open good on impact, and it only takes him hammering Murdoch's face a couple times with a gusset to get him going too. Things ramp up when the go to the floor, both fighting themselves off the apron through a door, with Murdoch following with a cannonball off the apron, and Ryan bashing him silly with a door ("That door must weight 100 pounds," says a commentator who must think bank vaults are made of wood), Ryan really blasting Murdoch with shots who leans into them before eventually regretting that. The big spots looked great, like a wild superplex from Murdoch through a table, and there was plenty of Ryan stabbing and scraping Murdoch with bent forks before tossing bloody fork souvenirs to the crowd. I really like how Ryan's use of forks lends itself to a better brawling atmosphere, keeps action flowing from spot to spot and keeps blood fresh.

PAS: This was pretty good, Ryan is my guy for US death match workers, and he really opens himself up here. I loved Ryan really wasting him with right hands, and I think I would have liked this better if it was more of that, and less set up fork boards. It's weird, if this was just a regular brawl where a guy grabbed a soda can ripped it open and gouged a guy with it I would love it, soda cans on a board make the insanity seem very set up and performative. I loved the half crab stomps finish by Ryan, although I wish it wish it wasn't proceeded by a tough guy no-sell. I liked more about this then I disliked about it for sure, but it did have some stuff I disliked.


Killer Kross vs. Tony Deppen

ER: Deppen comes out in street fight gear, wearing cutoff shorts and a CZW is Pussy shirt (feels like someone on Drag Race could easily turn CZW is Pussy into a huge brand catchphrase), and Killer Kross comes out to murder him. The show needed a match like this, no blood or weapons but a big crowd brawl and a violent semi-squash like classic ECW. Deppen brings some big knee strikes (including one that really buckles Kross) and tries the Darby body-as-weapon approach, which occasionally works! Deppen's tope into the crowd looked great (the security guys in all black and ski masks is a fun touch to the atmosphere), and Deppen even flies off the White Eagle bar with a crossbody. But a lot of this is Kross catching and crushing Deppen, launching him into ugly hotshots on the chainlink ropes, and finishing the match with some sick rolling Riki back suplexes. The whole match worked really well as a palate cleanser, the violence all coming from throws and collisions instead of gouging.

Necro Butcher vs. SHLAK

ER: I got unexpectedly emotional during Necro's entrance. I knew what to expect from his physical appearance, I'd already been shocked by the pictures, but I was not prepared for seeing him in motion. I'm sure part of it was my mood at the time, but the Freebird entrance combined with the decomposing visage of a legend really hit me. I'm not sure what Necro has, but it is something, and possibly several things, and it's terrible. He's a big guy, and parts of his body still retain some size; he still has big calves and fists, but everything else has been wasted away. He honestly looks like my grandfather in his last days, especially in the face. My grandfather died at age 90. I was actually dreading the match by the time I actually saw Necro walk out, but honestly? The match kind of ruled. Considering all factors, here's a guy who looks like Death's ghost, and that is about as much built in wrestling sympathy as you can get. It's no secret that Necro Butcher is one of my all time personal wrestling favorites. He's one of the most fearless and captivating performers I've ever seen, and one of those guys who I would love to see against any opponent, just because of what he brought to a match. There aren't many guys like that, for me, that you can take literally any opponent, and the match would be intriguing just because of The Necro Factor. Necro Butcher vs. Davey Richards? Yes sir, I saw that match LIVE, and I can't fathom any other situation where I would be excited for a Davey Richards match.

I wasn't expecting a classic Necro performance here, but I really liked what we did get. For a man who looks as brittle as 1998 Giant Baba, Necro is still out here getting punched in the face, punching SHLAK in the face with heavy hands, getting his head bashed with the edge of a trash can lid, taking a chairshot to his elbow, and bleeding hardway. If you want to remind yourself how crazy pro wrestling is, just know that had I been in the crowd and a man who looked like Necro landed near me, bleeding, I would have shoved every woman and child I could find in front of me to shield me from whatever could be. But here's SHLAK continuing to open him up, like a total lunatic. Necro doesn't have the speed he once had, but he's still out there throwing big fists directly at SHLAK's jaw, and SHLAK landed several shots right to Necro's ear, and you could see that ear getting redder with every shot. The "sit and trade" spot is pretty played out at this point, but when one of the participants looks like he's a nursing home resident fighting for his supper, a new level of intrigue is baked in. The big shot that finally sends Necro crumbling from his chair was a great visual, and SHLAK just standing on Necro's skull while trying to rip his arm off was even better. And then my man kicking out of two sitout powerbombs got a reaction from me bigger than anything on the show so far. Necro's arm shot up off that mat like that arm reaching up from the grave in Creepshow, showing that this corpse ain't dead yet. When he kicked out of that second powerbomb I was howling, and yet I was thankful when he stayed down for the third. Necro Butcher is an absolute wrestling legend, and I loved what he was still capable of giving.

PAS: I can't say this was a good match. Necro looks like MPRO Dynamite Kid, and it is shocking how much worse he looks then he did even at Spring Break less than a year before. There was some real drama here, because SHLAK is so sloppy that it felt like any moment he might kill this very sick person he was in the ring with. Necro still has real instincts about pacing and storytelling in the ring, and the end was really compelling, with those perfectly timed kickouts. I just rewatched Necro vs. Joe for my book, and you could see that there were similar timing and and pacing instincts in this match. GCW or ICW should just hire Necro to agent their matches, shit NXT or AEW should hire Necro to agent their matches, I just really don't want to see him in the ring again.

I do wish, if Necro had wanted to get semi-squashed by a guy to put them over, that it was someone better then SHLAK. SHLAK looked like he could hardly lift a guy (who might be 140 pounds at best) up for those powerbombs. I have no idea how someone who is that jacked has so little upper body strength. Maybe he is just wearing a realistic looking muscle suit, or ICW has a big CGI budget.


Dan Maff vs. Mance Warner

ER: Big chops, big headbutts, biggest bumps. I will never complain about Maff just chopping fools, and Mancer is crazy enough to puff his chest out for all of it. This was a real bring out all the stops in ring brawl, with classic plunder like trash cans and doors and chairs coming into play. The match starts with an immediate chop exchange, and it goes long enough that I got restless and a little glazed, and Maff snaps me immediately awake when Mancer turns his back to prep for another chop and Maff just spears him unexpectedly through a door. Mancer's crumpled sell into that shattered door was perfection. And everything was big after that, with Mancer dropping big DDTs (including an awesome tornado DDT where he vaults off a chair), and Maff is one of the best at taking DDTs, rolling them right off the side of his big dome. Maff crushes Mance with a cannonball while Mance is laid out in a trash can, Maff drops him with a piledriver on that same can, and the kickouts get fun in a "why not this is crazy fun" kind of way. We get a great visual of Maff being run throat first into on of the top rope turnbuckle boards, and it looked nasty enough and Maff's sell was so good that I bought it as the finish. Mance beating down Maff with part of that busted door from earlier, and Maff's head burst through the door crazy eyed like Jack Torrance. And then Maff destroys Mance with a nasty suplex, before getting the confirmed 3 with a Burning Hammer. And part of me actually wanted to see Mance kick out of the Hammer, just so he could take another.

2. Low-Ki vs. Masashi Takeda

PAS: This was an interesting style clash, with Ki wanting to work the match clean, and Takeda losing his cool and trying to brawl. The early sprawls and wrestling exchanges were really fast, and caused Takeda to open up a wound on his ear. Takeda eventually tires of the wrestling and kicks Ki low, but each time he tries to bring in weapons Ki counters: Punching a chair out of his hands, using judo throws to avoid scissors shots, so cool. Finish was the kind of unique bit of violence which Ki has been coming up with lately. Ki ties Takeda's arm's behind his back with the belt Ki was wearing with his Gi. Takeda spits on him, and Ki responds with a spinning kick to Takeda's sternum, and a double stomp from an elevated platform directly onto Takeda's spinal cord for a well deserved ref stoppage. After that Takeda is going to be begging to take some gussets to the face. Really fun style clash and Ki just keeps rolling.

ER: I loved how Ki approached this match, playing it totally straight, and the ground game was good enough for both that I stupidly expected it to stay there. Once Takeda grabbed a cool kneebar that made Ki sit up suddenly, I was getting into a mat based main event on a death match show. But Takeda couldn't help himself and just punts Ki in the balls. I loved Ki still selling the nutshot on the floor with a duckwalk around the ring as Takeda dragged him, love the way Takeda's ear blood splattered across his face (Takeda's body is one giant wound waiting to be opened, so not a shock he was busted open early), and love just how damn HARD Low Ki punched a chair into Takeda's face. Takeda went to swing on the floor and Ki punched that thing so hard I assumed he had broken his hand. The work around Takeda's long cutting shears was awesome, with Ki holding him off from stabbing his eyeball, then working slick throws to toss Takeda without getting sliced. I wish Takeda would have taken Ki's kicks a little more seriously, there was one spot in particular where Takeda flipped Ki off and Ki William Tell'd that finger practically right off his hand and in one motion swept back and kicked him in the jaw. But Takeda sold some of Ki's kicks by just standing up after getting kicked. No fighting spirit, just a guy who was now taking his turn. I hate that shit. Luckily this match had Ki stomping through Takeda's torso bones, and that is something I am okay with. He hits one early leap onto Takeda's chest after leaping off the chain ropes, and the match ends with the most cruel Warriors Way possible: Ki plausibly ties Takeda's hands behind his back using the belt on his gi (love Ki in his 1994 UFC skin), batters the defenseless psycho, and leaps off the top onto a balled up Takeda. The finish either properly reset damage he had taken, or completely destroyed Takeda's back for life. Who can be sure?


2020 MOTY MASTER LIST

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE LOW-KI

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WXW Yokozuna Memorial Show 11/29/01

Full Show

I've never seen this show before, but had seen it in match lists, and it always stood out because of all the guys WWE allowed to work the show. Several big WWE names combined with a ton of early 2000s east coast indy guys I dig, seems like a show that might have some good stuff lurking within. There are somehow 36 guys booked onto this 2 hour show across 11 matches, so we're probably looking at a lot of 5 minute matches, and when we get to the end of this I'll likely find myself saying "Well, that's why nobody had written up that show before". But Roy Lucier threw it on Twitter, and it has a Low Ki match I didn't know existed, so let's roll those dice! (Also Reno is on this show, so dice will certainly roll)


Tommy Suede vs. Supreme Lee Great

ER: These are both guys I remember liking in my tape trading days, and wager that I haven't watched either since those tape trading days. But you know out of the gate it's going to be good because the ring announcer announces Supreme Lee Great as "ranked #498 on the PWI 500". Tell me no more. This match is worked fast, both guys running through their lines quick, but it works. SLG is a really good base, and Suede's strikes hit a lot sharper than I was expecting. Both guys threw themselves into their flying, and really didn't come off that differently than 2019 indy fliers. I mean both of them dressing like they're Matrix coders is going to come off dated in 2019, but their flashy styles could each blend in on a modern super indy card. Suede takes a super high backdrop bump, and both are good at landing on their feet after other backdrop bumps, Suede hits hard elbows, Great gets great height on a top rope elbow, their whole thing has aged surprisingly well. Little Jeanie is out accompanying Great, some woman named Arial is out with Suede, and their interference builds to a crazy moment where Arial hits a 450 off the top to the floor into Great, before Great gets pinned back in the ring by an air raid crash. I have no idea who Arial was, but there weren't too many people I had seen break out a 450 to the floor at that point (Low Ki and Extreme Tiger I know for sure, unsure who else) so it should have been a huge deal, but luckily Metal Maniac is on commentary talking about how hot both the girls are, before making poop jokes.

Afa Jr. vs. Nuisance

ER: Afa Jr. was Manu for a brief bit in WWE several years after this, and it was a run I enjoyed (and have no memory as to why it was so short). Nuisance is someone I have not heard of, but someone I enjoyed here. Make no mistake, this is an Afa Jr. showcase and was always going to be that, and Nuisance is good at setting up Afa to shine. Afa had genuine talent at this point and again, I'm not sure why it took him so long to get to WWE, or why his stay was so short once he was there. Though now that I'm looking it up he is apparently only 17 in this match, so I understand why he wasn't on their radar. But he has impressive agility here; his armdrags look a little light and require Nuisance to fly into them just to make them work, but his bigger spots seem fully formed. Afa comes off the top rope easily and lands sturdy, catches Nuisance with the back of his thigh on a spinning kick, finishes with a big frog splash, and generally works a little more daredevil junior than I was expecting. Nuisance doesn't get much but I liked the way he took offense and fed into Afa.

Danny Inferno/Nardo/Reno/Shane Black vs. Billy Dream/Protege/BADD/The Original Doink

ER: You know this is good because the guy doing commentary clearly doesn't know who at least three of these guys are. It's a mix of mostly WXW trainees and Reno from WCW (billed during his entrance as "Reno WCW"). I don't know who this Doink is, but he's only in for 30 seconds or so. All of the students are good and bad in different ways, but all come off like Power Plant adjacent guys getting a showcase match on a dead era episode of Worldwide. All of the trainees threw fixably bad punches, but in a uniquely bad way that doesn't happen often: Shane Black, Billy Dream, and either BADD or Protege had accurate punches with big wind ups, with an impact that slowed to nothing upon arrival. So they kept looking like they were going to be good punches, but consistent speed from wind up to delivery to follow through is really important, or every one of your punches will look overly pulled. But they're probably better off than guys that punch a foot past their opponent's head. Nardo is in this longer than anyone, and he's green as hell, and named Nardo, but has a lot of energy and makes weird yip sounds while doing literally anything (leapfrogs, armdrags, dropkicks, all with a bunch of high pitch yelps). A lot of these guys try rope running stuff that is beyond their abilities, and get in a little over their heads, but I like guys getting in over their heads in matches like this. Danny Inferno brings some professionalism, the cameras completely miss Reno rolling the dice for the finish, but trainee multiman matches are always some degree of fun.

The Tonga Kid/The Hungarian Barbarian vs. The Twin Tackles (Gene Snitsky/Robb Harper)

ER: The Hungarian Barbarian looks like 911, so basically he looks like a much bigger Al Hrabosky, which is a cool way for a wrestler to look. He's raw as hell, but that means he's still early enough in his career that he's throwing big dropkicks on the floor but trying to flip and land the same way you would if you threw them in the ring. Twin Tackles are a super green Gene Snitsky (picture him without all of the ring polish you remember from his WWE days) and another guy with lumpy caveman steroid head with odd stringy patches of long hair attached. Robb Harper is wearing football jersey 69, and Snitsky is wearing 67. I would love to know how that conversation went down, and I am curious why Snitsky went ahead and chose a number so close to 69. Hungarian Barbarian had a little of that Rocky Mountain Thunder energy, but this is definitely all built to Tonga Kid's big hot tag (the match was only a couple minutes long, so there wasn't enough time for things to cool down) and 2001 Tonga Kid still dropped a fantastic Samoan drop. He was so young during his WWF run that it's crazy to think he was only 36 here. Feels like a guy who should have shown up on more Japan and US indies for a decade plus after WWF.

The Island Boys (Ekmo/Kimo) vs. Cory K/Malaki

ER: Cory K's valet looks like Aida Turturro, Malaki is working an Amish gimmick, and The Island Boys looks ridiculously ready for prime time, and they elevate this to a real nice big man slugfest. Malaki and Cory K are Afa trainees who are willing to bump around for the Island Boys, Cory taking a big bump over the top to the floor and Malaki going down hard in the ring from strikes. Island Boys moved aggressively, bumping big and hitting hard. Kimo takes a huge bump over the top to the floor off a missed avalanche, and flies just as hard off the top for a rib crushing splash. Ekmo (Umaga) already comes off like a guy with major star potential, just moving with huge confidence. I don't remember them looking this fully formed and exciting when they got called up as 3 Minute Warning, my memory is telling me they were underwhelming compared to what I had seen on HWA tapes. This quick fun brawl made me want to go revisit 3 Minute Warning and look for gems.

Big Dawg Molsonn vs. Eric Cobian

ER: Here are two more large Afa trainees working a green big guys match, and it's not great, but they're stupid and they try some things. Big Dawg looks like if Dr. Death were a sloppy gamer, Cobian moves like and has a similar build to Erik Watts. All of their criss cross rope running stuff looks terrible, but Cobian hits a crazy plancha into the entrance aisle with one foot on the top rope and the other on the ringpost, the camera cuts away to the crowd during what was shaping up to big a Big Dawg overhead belly to belly suplex that I really wanted to see, and Big Dawg finishes the match with a shaky legs moonsault off the top that sloppily lands him knees first into Cobian's balls. So it was about as great as could be expected.

Billy Kidman vs. Low Ki

ER: This was the main match that drew my eyes to this card, a dream match of the era from two guys whose paths wouldn't have otherwise likely crossed. I guess Ki *was* doing frequent syndicated program job work for WWF around the time Kidman came over, so this was basically the best possible version of these two getting a match on Jakked. They would have gotten 3-4 minutes on Jakked, here they get 7, and both make the most of their time by breaking out all their tricks. Kidman was so damn exciting around this time, as he had put on a little size since his earliest WCW days but was still bumping as fast as his WCW cruiser days. So he was hitting harder than he ever had, while still moving around with a death wish. It was literally the perfect time for him to match up with Low Ki. Ki is one of the crazier bumpers in wrestling history, taking some that most guys just wouldn't be capable of taking, but here's Kidman showing that he can outbump Ki. Kidman takes crazy bumps like a guy trying to get noticed by WWF, not like a guy already on WWF PPV with a belt. And so you had two big bumpers, and you had Kidman working as stiff as Low Ki. It's glorious. Ki would be kicking Kidman's chest in, Kidman would throw tight close elbows and a couple of lariats that really looked beheading. Every strike from both guy looked really sunk in, and I loved how they worked the match as equals. Kidman came off like a big confident star and Ki looked like a guy who was outpacing a big confident star. I was just giddy through this little gem, watching Kidman take a big German suplex or Ki fly super hard into a rydeen bomb, it's a total crowd pleaser.

PAS: This was fun, this was right when Ki was at his early peak, a couple of months after the Red classic and right around the Dragon matches. This was pretty formula Ki, but 2001 formula Ki is pretty great. Eric is a little more nostalgic for 2001 WWE than me, as I don't have a ton of love for Kidman. He was fun in this though, as he didn't seem to be working total formula. He did take a huge bump to the floor, and was clearly excited returning to the fed he was trained in. I could have done without the chinlock and the stuff with the heel manager, but I also love a Ki match I haven't seen before.

Shannon Moore vs. Jamie Knoble

ER: This was a super common match up during this era. They constantly matched up down the WCW home stretch, constantly matched up in HWA, these are two guys who have a match and are good at that match. Knoble is a nice No Guilt Benoit, locking in cravats and throwing hard back elbows to get out of go behinds, pressing in on side headlocks, high backdrop bump, quick suplexes, and even cooler stuff like a nifty over shoulder backbreaker. Moore works this like Psicosis, all big bumps and daredevil flying. Moore hits a gorgeous tope con giro to the floor and a corkscrew moonsault into the ring (Knoble makes sure to get flattened by both) but also goes down with a shot for big Knoble moves and even misses a flipping bump off the turnbuckles nearly exactly like Psicosis. They really had an impressive way of working super fast go behinds and managed to do several quick "reversal of a reversal" spots without making it look like untethered dancing, actually throwing in that sense of struggle with their quick reversals. This was only 5 minutes, and they cut to the finish too quickly after Moore took a massive superplex, but it also kind of made sense as Knoble's bump off the superplex looked just as bad. This was like an even faster version of their match, and these two psychos felt like they worked better the faster they went.

Homicide vs. Skinhead Ivan

ER: The way they came out of the gates I knew we were getting a quick match, really felt like they were sprinting through a few things, but even expecting a quick match you want this to be more than two minutes. No idea why they felt they were running long, but we knew from the beginning they had way too many guys spread across way too many matches, but it's ridiculous that out of all the matches to get cut this short, it's two of the guys who actually look fully trained. Homicide and Ivan could have worked an excellent Worldwide 5 minute sprint, what's 3 extra minutes? No, we get a 2 minute match with Ivan taking a couple nice bumps, both working some super fast counters (they felt like they were rushing to the finish right at the bell), big top rope cutter from Homicide, and a nasty cop killa to end it. Homicide looked pissed after the match, rolling immediately out of the ring and not slapping hands with any of the youth who wanted hand slapping.

Kane/Undertaker vs. The Acolytes

ER: You know, this wasn't great, or maybe even good, but I just kept thinking how exciting it must have been for the kids in attendance. This was during WWE's huge boom, and these kids are getting to see Undertaker on the smallest show he worked that year. Seeing some guys in an intimate setting while they're at their recognizable peak is a special thing. Nobody went hard in this match, which would have been fine, if Kane didn't look as bad or worse than literally any of the Afa trainees on this show. There was genuinely no difference between the greenest trainee on the card (Big Dawg Molsonn?) and Kane in this match. Not only was Kane working noticeably slower and lighter than everyone else in the match, but he got crossed up on every single spot he was involved in. If someone had told you "This was Kane's first match" you would have responded "Yes that statement checks out". There was one sequence, with Bradshaw merely trying to get Kane out of the corner with an Irish whip, where Kane looked worse than anyone on the show. He couldn't figure out where he needed to be, and I was still laughing about it when he hit a clothesline on Bradshaw that was essentially Kane falling towards Bradshaw with his arm out. But the fans were flipping out for Undertaker, and that's really all that matters.

The Headshrinkers (Rikishi/Samu) vs. Da Hit Squad

ER: Well this is one of the bigger tragedies in wrestling history. Who would have ever thought these two awesome teams would cross paths? Do you know how easy it would have been for these two teams to just slam into each other for 8 minutes? The match goes 1 minute. There's a Samoan drop, and 30 seconds of the 60 is spent on Rikishi setting up the stink face. This is the worst case scenario for a match that sounds great on paper.


Men who got more ring time than Mack, Mafia, and Homicide on this show: Nardo, Big Dawg Molsonn, Shane Black, and a whollllle lot more guys who are not close to as good as Homicide or Da Hit Squad. Well, that's why nobody had written up that show before. BUT. Ki/Kidman and Moore/Knoble slayed, and those were two of the three matches that brought me here. A tremendous waste of time overall, but those two matches would easily make a perm tape.

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IWTV Worth Watching: IWTV All Stars vs. Team Beyond! Dickinson vs. Homicide!

Chris Dickinson vs. Homicide Squared Circle Project 9/21/19

ER: This got plenty of time but never really jumped up to that next gear. The parts I enjoyed the most were the opening minutes, where we got to see them trading holds, doing some grappling and doing some tiring submission work. That wasn't what I was expecting and I found myself pleasantly surprised. And so by the time they worked up to the brawling portions of the match I was less interested, and the brawling also felt sluggish in spots. All of the brawling felt very 70%, like they were going through the motions of a Homicide/Dickinson match, including throwing in stuff like a ringpost chop and multiple chairshots that felt half-done and immediately forgotten. There was some inspired stuff like Homicide tying up Dickinson in the ringside barrier tape, and these are two guys who can still throw some nice strikes. They had a couple punch exchanges that looked really good - including Homicide punching Dickinson right in the throat - or Homicide going back to the mat and Dickinson biting him in the head to get him to break a kneebar. There was also a bit of weirdness, like Homicide maybe sandbagging a powerbomb leading to Dickinson just kind of sitting back into a piledriver, or a stand and trade section towards the end where Homicide keeps doing weird stuff like rubbing his hands through Dickinson's chest hair, yanking chest hair out (which Dickinson does not react to), or rubbing Dickinson's bald head mockingly (which is a weird flex for a bald dude to pull on a bald dude). This just felt a bit too meandering without much payoff.

IWTV All Stars (Manders/Dominic Garrini/Kevin Ku/Matthew Justice/Warhorse) vs. Team Beyond (Nick Gage/Kris Statlander/Thomas Santell/Bear Bronson/Bear Boulder) Beyond Wrestling 11/28/19

ER: I love team challenge matches, and this was even more on paper exciting to me because it's elimination. On paper this had the chance to capture the vibe of a good NOAH Captain's Fall match from the mid 2000s. It has a good collection of sizes and styles, and it wouldn't have shocked me if this wound up being something special. I do think it underdelivered, had a couple minor messy moments, but far more big spots and to it's credit, felt like a big main event. There was a wild dive sequence where Ku hit a fast tope while Warhorse hit a big tope con giro, Garrini hit a freaking Asai moonsault into everyone which just upped the energy level (is there anything Garrini won't try?), and then Matt Justice reminds everyone that he's Matt Justice and leaps off a 20+ foot ladder. Boulder is a huge guy and a nice presence to have in a match like this, especially when he's hitting double cannonballs and double powerslams like he's in an arcade beat 'em up. We get a lot of stiff strikes, Ku and a Bear really going at it, Statlander hits a totally nuts 450 splash while Ku and Garrini are stacked, and Manders kept showing why he's a cool guy to have on a show. Manders squaring off against Boulder was what I wanted, and we got a great taste. Those two slammed into each other as hard as I was hoping for, and Boulder leveled him with a lariat. This was a nicely assembled group of talent, and it kept a nice pace for the duration; a long match that stayed fresh is a solid rec.

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Matches from PCW ULTRA No Quarter 8/9/19

Mil Muertes vs. Dan Maff

PAS: Muertes has the PCW title, and this was an expected Boricua slug fest. Muertes has a great short punch and he and Maff pounded on each other, including Maff getting thrown over the guardrail into some chairs, and exchanging chair shots in the ring. Maff landed some real rib smushing sentons too. There was a bit too much hitting and staring while the guy you hit made faces, and I didn't love the finish with Muertes semi-no selling a burning hammer just to hit his flatliner for the pin. Still I dig both of these guys and will always be into a big boy fist fight.

ER: This is an on paper dream match that hadn't ever actually crossed my mind, two guys I always enjoy who have never been working the same place, so this is something that really leapt out at me. And then they make it the opening match on a card filled with constant movement guys! If Warbeast vs. Outlaw Inc. wasn't bookending this card I could have seen showing up for this one and then beating traffic by 2 hours. I liked this a lot more than Phil, I think this totally delivered on its on paper potential. I wanted a big boy slugfest, I got a big boy slugfest, and I honestly didn't notice any of the problems that Phil did. I thought they kept a great pace and impressively ramped things up without approaching overkill. They filled the match with hard standing lariats, big shots in the corner, Maff had some brutal sentons and cannonballs, Muertes brought big arm strikes and a nicely set up lungblower, I thought the whole thing ruled. Maff took a big bump into the front row, both guys beat each other up with chairs, it felt like the best Lucha Underground match that never happened. I was totally fine with how Muertes treated the burning hammer, as they established that Maff had trouble getting him up for it, and Muertes took it as a stomach bump rather than vertically. I liked him taking it lighter but still needing to barely get a hand on the rope to break it, showing that even when not dropped vertically it still came this close to putting him away. And it played nicely into him reversing it and landing on his knees moments later. I thought this was a damn cool first time match, delivering on its potential.

60. Tessa Blanchard vs. Sumie Sakai

ER: Hell yes this ruled. This was some great ass kicking at an awesome pace, and I thought it nailed a classic 90s GAEA feel. Both gals threw fists, and both leaned into feet and fists, and it was all so great. Tessa punched her right in the mouth early on, they traded sharp angles, and Tessa dropped her with one of the nicest cutters I've seen. They had me hooked quick. Tessa came off like a badass in the moments she was getting her face busted open, and the moments she paid Sakai back. Sakai threw a nice beating her way, busting open her nose, stomping all over her in the ring and on the floor, rubbing her boot on her jaw, throwing a missile dropkick right at her face, and then stretching her with a lengthy Indian deathlock. Tessa is always a heel for great reason: I can't think of many wrestlers who read more "heel" than her in 2019. She comes off mean, and this was a cool glimpse of her showing vulnerability while roaring throw the pain. I thought her selling in the Indian deathlock really started to put this match on the next level. Her screams as Sakai pulled her arm back and the wide eyed panic with bloody nose, she saw that blood and she worked with it. She also has this way of going on a real furious comeback, and doing it with babyface energy, but still coming off like a clear heel. Her comeback shots after taking a long beating were great, really looked 1.5 speed in her quick violence. The kicks landed fast and didn't feel locked into combos, and Sakai winning felt like a great moment. Her winning cradle looked like an absolutely impossible trap to escape from, and I loved how she held the cradle past the 3 count, as if she was just as tangled into the pin. The chemistry between them was great, I totally bought into everything they did.

PAS: I haven't thought about Sumie Sakai in years, but I have seen two bangers in the last month (this match and her Bloodsport match). I agree with Eric about how great Blanchard was in this match, she is really great at conveying disdain and that disdain makes the post match handshake a bigger deal. I thought the near fall on the jumping chestcracker was pretty great (although that is a very 2012 IWRG finisher). Sakai's kickout seemed huge, and I liked how that brief shock Tessa had allowed Sakai to hit that awesome cradle for the win. Good stuff, and I need to look for more from both ladies.

47. Eddie Kingston/Homicide vs. Warbeast (Jacob Fatu/Josef Samael)

PAS: This is the stuff right here. Homicide is at his best when he can let his inner psychopath fly, and he jams Josef Samael's face into thumbtacks, stabs him with a fork and hangs him with a chain. They work this as a NYC invasion into California and are working straight heel which is fun to watch. Kingston wanders around the arena talking shit to fans and hitting Fatu with chairs, he also takes a huge thrown Samoan drop through a door which was the biggest bump of the match. Kind of weird to see Warbeast work as babyfaces, but it works surprisingly well. Finish was a no contest with NYC hanging Samael and leaving him laying and bleeding. We get a post match challenge for a Samael and Homicide dog collar match and a Fatu vs. Eddie I Quit match, both of which I am very excited for. This match was JAPW as fuck, which is something I both miss and love.

ER: This kind of felt like an XPW brawl, as you had guys disappearing for minutes at a time, and other guys doing super violent stuff that most people in the crowd wouldn't have even been able to see. It doesn't get much cooler than Kingston/Homicide as invaders, and I like seeing Warbeast as crazed local babyfaces. I love the unhinged babyface as a wrestling character, but it can be done pretty poorly; not here. Fatu is working a 'round the venue garbage brawl while barefoot, total insanity, stubbed toes just waiting to happen. But it doesn't slow down any part of his attack, as he's still falling to the floor, wastes Kingston through a table with the alley oop Samoan drop, and had several moments of popping into frame with a nicely timed punch to the neck. Samael takes some cruel punishment, with Homicide digging a fork into his head (Homicide should keep getting fatter and just spend the next years being the new Abby), grossly hanging him over the ropes with a chain, and my favorite spot: smacking him face first into some thumbtacks on a chair. Fatu even throws thumbtacks at Homicide's face! Kingston is endlessly entertaining in these kind of brawls, impossible to not watch as he swears at people, swears at getting hit, and then grabs body parts and yells. The finish was more to set up a pair of intriguing stips matches, and yeah Kingston and Fatu disappeared through a big chunk of the middle, but this should be the start of something awesome.


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

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

54. Nick Gage vs. Dan Maff

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

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

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

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

Homicide vs. Chris Dickinson

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

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

25. Eddie Kingston vs. Daisuke Sekimoto

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

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


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Ian Rotten Was Living In a Devil Town, He Didn't Know It Was a Devil Town

Ian Rotten vs. Homicide NWL 8/2/04 - EPIC

JR: There are two ideas about wrestling that I find myself fixated on. The first is the inherent romance of the idea of professional wrestling: the idea that the world, or some approximation thereof, still has intrepid and conquering heroes, willing to fight for something beyond themselves. The second, and perhaps the inverse to that, or at the very least something that informs that first idea, is that successful wrestlers are broken and jagged people, whose success in wrestling is because they have no other avenues for success. They are people who live outside society.

I’m not sure that Ian fits the first idea, but he certainly fits the latter. He never presents himself as someone with any goal beyond bleeding to put food on his table, but there is a workmanlike joy in that from him in some way. I wonder then if these seemingly rare mat work exhibitions were moments in time that he relished. Rare opportunities for him to show off, to do things that are reserved for performers that other think more technically sound, sleeker, more proficient, more practiced. But like we’ve touched on in almost all of these reviews, there is an earnestness to Ian’s work that sets it apart. The spots that he relies on, the aspects that are revealed as performative only through study, still have a groudedness to them. He ignores the flash that other, showier workers use to keep people invested. He trusts himself, and he trusts that he knows his audiences. He makes no apologies. There is something admirable about it. 

Take, for example, the way Ian (and Homicide, to some extent) uses his head. In a rear mount, Ian digs his chin in to Homicide’s spine. He uses it as a tool, as a way to gain leverage, as a way to press upon his opponent. And because of that, he exposes himself to harm and to danger and often finds himself caught. It’s an encapsulation of his style as a whole, using anything he can to continue to press forward, putting every bit of weight on his opponent. 

In the first match we looked at for this project, in which Ian fought Chris Hero, Phil talked about the palpable sense of dread that Ian’s matches have. There is a wonderful example of it early in this. After both men get back to their feet, and Homicide has control of the arm, Ian pulls them both down. Cide rolls quickly and decisively, as he did earlier to gain advantage, but Ian has learned, and Homicide finds himself rolling directly into contact. He squirms away and goes to the outside and there is the first real breath, the first show of negative space, and it works because of a moment on the mat that feels almost like a near death experience. And Homicide, for his part, despite pointing to his head after the escape to tell us how smart he is, is hesitant to get back in the ring, and even more hesitant to lock back up. He’s a wrestler that doesn’t show fear, that doesn’t beg off, but for a moment he has to regroup, and that is perhaps just as powerful and just as telling.

From here, the match falls in to a familiar rhythm. Ian uses headbutts as another reset button of sorts, creating a clear second act within the match, although not before once again trying to use his head for leverage, digging his forehead in to the back of Homicide's neck. They start to exchange blurry eyed strikes, Homicide on his feet, Ian on his knees. Homicide continues to show hesitation to go back on the mat, and when Ian finally bring Homicide back down, Cide cheats and bites and claws his way to an advantage, all so he can stand back up and strike. It’s strange. While the match itself has some different notes, this almost feels like the touring equivalent of the Joe match we just watched, albeit one that has a definitive finish. Rather than ending during the threatened brawl on the outside, here they continue to swing wildly, and Ian breaks a whiteboard over Homicide’s head in a truly preposterous moment of violence. 

While I think Rotten has a lot of strengths as a worker, I think his genius in this series shows in how clearly he finds breaks and ways to escalate. This match is almost a three act play, with each division acting as both an escalation and a separation. After the whiteboard, even the matwork is more frenzied. A figure four is countered and both men roll off the apron to the floor. When Rotten goes back to the same submission it gets broken with a chair. There is a desperation to the work from both men. Ian tries a double leg takedown from his knees, but ends up in a choke. Homicide starts working the arm again, paying off his work in the early portions. The finishing stretch is mostly lead by Homicide, with him trying and testing various ways to grab Ian’s arm. It is a definitive and rather abrupt finish, and somewhat less clever and decidedly more “wrestling” than what we’ve seen until now. Perhaps had this match taken place in IWA-MS and not NLW, we would’ve seen the Ian we’ve become accustomed to, the one who moves ever forward, even in defeat.

PAS: I always thought of these two guys as mirror images of each other. Pair of guys who started out as Deathmatch wrestlers and brawlers but had this secret skill on the mat and desire to show off. Both guys had training schools, both had cult favorite indy feds which they headlined. In many ways this was like a battle between a DC and Marvel versions of the same superhero, like if Quicksilver and Flash had a race.

I think the crowd was expecting a brawl, and it was cool that they decided instead to hit the mat as hard as they did. I loved how Ian would grab rollups from weird angles, and how vicious Homicide's arm work was. One thing about Ian is that wrestlers seem perfectly willing to violate the unspoken agreements, Homicide really kicks the shit out of Ian's arm in ways that had to ache for weeks, and those headbutts were knocking large parts of Ian's education out of his head. No wonder the IWA-MS payouts were always hinky, that guy couldn't do math after those headshots.

According to Cagematch this is their only singles match, I had never heard of this match before, it had 40 views on Youtube. One thing that is so great about this hobby is mining for lost classics, and this totally counted. This feels like it should have been a legendary rivalry. Like Ian vs. Homicide should have ended in a JAPW vs. IWA-MS War Games match or something, instead we got this one shiny jewel of a match.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE METH LAB BATTLARTS

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