2019 Ongoing MOTY List: Savio Vega vs. Manny Ferno GLOBE OF DEATH!

23. Savio Vega vs. Manny Ferno IWA Puerto Rico 9/7

ER: Shout out to Tim Evans for being one of the sets of eyes keeping a look out for modern Puerto Rico, otherwise I might have never even heard of this absolute dynamite keg of weirdo ultraviolence. I have never seen a wrestling match held in a Globe of Death. This was One Step Beyond Lion's Den Match right here, a bloody ass fight that was like my family went for a weekend Reno trip and stayed at the Circus, Circus, and I'd play arcade games all day in their actually weird in-hotel midway, and I'd watch every single one of those Globe of Death motorcycle stunt shows. I can't even ride a bicycle, but looking up at two motocross racers driving upside down inches away from each other, I was fucking transfixed. And this is me watching those stunt shows, only this time one of the racers fucked up a stunt and the other racer has stopped the performance to beat the shit out of him. This was incredible, a bizarre setting with a bunch of old dirty weapons in that Globe of Death, Savio bleeding from the first minute and nothing but hard spills into slatted metal and thick old metal road signs bouncing off heads. It's a real dirty fight and Vega spends much of the match looking like a guy who is going to pass out from blood loss. Outside of great visuals like signs and heavy trash can lids being covered in blood, the unique environment added a ton to our few highspots: Savio Vega's leaping spinning heel kick and a big back drop inside the Globe of Death. Those two moments felt epic in this setting, happening amid ragged end board stabbings and bloody hard punches. This was an awesome concept worked exceptionally violently.

PAS: The Globe of Death was such an awesome looking structure. It felt like they bought it at a bankruptcy auction of a Circus which went out of business years ago. It was rusty and neglected looking, and all of the old stop signs and wooden boards they were smashing each other with looked old and dilapidated too. It felt like a Tetanus death match. Nothing fancy here, no big set up spots, just two guys bleeding profusely and smashing each other with things they had lying around. Manny Ferno absolutely wears Savio out with board shots, smashing it until it was pulverised. Savio is old and not particularly mobile, but he took the biggest bump of the match, eating a high backdrop into the globe allowing Ferno to escape. I am a sucker for weirdo gimmick matches, and this was a cool idea executed flawlessly.


2019 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Ricky Banderas is Smashing any Chest, Passing any Test Charles Manson in the Flesh

Ricky Banderas vs. Rey Gonzalez IWA 6/03? - GREAT

This is ladder match for the IWA title, and while I am admittedly a bit ladder matched out, this was based less on big stunts and more on hard metal ladders thrown into kidneys. Both guys take some really nasty bumps, Gonzales flies backwards hard over the top rope, Gonzalez catches the sharp part of the ladder right in the back. The finish bump was especially nasty with Banderas falling off the ladder and landing rib first hard into the side of the ladder, felt like the kind of thing that would cause internal bleeding. The brawling looked good too, there was a great spot where Rey is grabbing on to Banderas's ankle to keep him from climbing and Ricky just allows himself to be pulled off so he lands foot first right into Gonzalez's throat. Kind of surprised to see a gimmick match in Puerto Rico sans plasma and the stuff with the valet and Savio was unnecessary, still a great match and a very cool under the radar discovery.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE MESIAS

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His Rhymes are Homicidal, He'll Take Your Title He's Ricky Banderas far from Billy Idol

Ricky Banderas v. Slash Venom IWA-PR 10/18/03 -EPIC

This is exactly the kind of blood soaked spectacle I was hoping to unearth. I think I had seen clips of the finish before, but never the whole match. Slash Venom is awesome southern indy wrestler Flash Flanagan and he brings the crazy right to Banderas. Banderas works him from pillar to post early busting him open with chair shots and big bombs. Venom takes over a bit and hits a spring board elbow to the floor through the table, which gets crazy height, totally memorable highspot which is really overshadowed by the bat shit finish. Venom sets up a table and they brawl to a balcony legit 20-25 feet above the floor, they tease a couple of falls before Banderas chucks Venom over the rail, causing him to take a flat back bump on a gym floor after a 20 foot plus drop. It was as crazy, if not more crazy then the Foley HIC bumps or that time New Jack tried to murder Vic Grimes. Finish would have made it memorable no matter what, but this was a corker before that too.

Judas Mesias v. Abyss TNA 1/22/08 - FUN

This was a barbed wire massacre match, basically a no-rope barbed wire match with barbed wire weapons. This isn't a match which is going to pump up Mesais reputation. It had several gruesome visuals, and some nastish bumps (Mesias goes stomach first on a barbed wire board which had to suck). The fact they had an actual feud building to it, puts it above a throw away IWA-MS Mad Man Pondo garbage match, but not by much. Abyss will bleed a ton but man is he shitty at lots of other things you are supposed to do as a wrestler. Mesias didn't look much better in the basics category either, there is one point where they are on their knees exchanging "punches" which was about as bad as I remember seeing. Also the backstory of this some bad Russo knock off Kane shit. Apparently Father James Mitchell is Abyss's biological father, and he has brought his other son Judas Mesias in to destroy Abyss. Tenay for some reason keeps calling Mesias, Abyss's step brother as opposed to his half brother. Is the gimmick that Mitchell married Mesias's mother and help raise her blood splitting son?

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE MESIAS

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