Now I Ask Big Meech What He Know About Low-Ki

Low Ki vs. Ahtu  EVOLVE 1/14/12 - FUN

ER: A fairly infamous match, that doesn't actually feel as sadistic as it's been made out to be. This is Low Ki's Evolve debut, and he literally knocks Ahtu out with a rolling kappo kick to start the match. A lot of people on the internet hate Low Ki because a lot of people in wrestling weirdly side with management at any opportunity, but within the realm of pro wrestling shoot incidents this feels like one of the least malicious incidents. If you didn't know better before watching this, you might just think it's excellent selling from Ahtu to jumpstart a cool angle. The kappo kick looks no more savage than any other Ki kick I've seen. He has a great looking kappo kick, and this one hits Ahtu right in the temple and sends him timbering down to the mat. Call me naïve, but the KO blow didn't look intentional to me. There are way more blatant and efficient ways of knocking out an unsuspecting opponent, and this wasn't exactly Kurisu punting Jado in the head. Ahtu has that thousand yard stare, and Ki drags him to his feet (now that is probably the most inadvisable thing Ki did here), nails a handspring kick in the corner, then hits the Warriors Way on a potentially dead body to finish it (totally protecting Ahtu on it, although Ahtu also sells it like a man with a concussion who doesn't know he's just been double stomped). To add to the complete bizarro greatness of this spectacle, Ki gets on the mic and cuts a REAL wrestling is BACK promo and literally ends his promo quoting TAZ! I mean literally shouting out a man from Red Hook and saying "Beat me if you can! Survive, if I let you!" That's weird! And the crowd shouted along to every word! I wanted him to pick up Ahtu's corpse, give him a Stone Cold Stunner, and shout "And that's the bottom line, because LOW KI SAID SO!"

PAS: Eric wrote this defense of Low-Ki before he came out as a COVID denier, so there are actual reasons for the internet to hate Low-Ki now. Still it doesn't make sense to have wrestling be a place to go for morality and common sense, so fuck it, we are still Low-Ki guys. Ki obliterating a roids dude entertains me, and I agree that this looked unlucky rather then reckless, but either way it was bad ass. I wouldn't take health advice from Low-Ki or want to be in the ring with him, but I still love watching him.

Low-Ki vs. Ricky Martinez MLW Fusion #62 6/1 (Aired 6/15/19) - FUN

ER: Low Ki debuted in MLW a year before this, against Ricky Martinez. That match was a complete one-sided Ki squash, not a solitary moment of Martinez offense. But that was before he was The Sicario, and he fares a little better here. The match is a little underwhelming, as normally you can give Ki 4 minutes and expect something a little more cohesive than this. At a certain point they seemed to be killing time waiting for a run-in, but the interference never came so maybe they just got off page for another reason. Their interactions are good and I know they have a better match in them, and at minimum they're good at taking each others' offense. There are even a couple of callbacks to their first match (not brought up in any way on commentary), like Ki rushing Martinez at the bell. A year ago Ki did the same and landed a knee that was the beginning of the end for Martinez. This time Martinez just bails out of the ring the second Ki takes off running. Ki eventually gets into it with Salina de la Renta at ringside, leaving himself open to a great baseball slide dropkick from Ricky. In ring Martinez runs hard into Ki's boots in the corner, and Ki works a cool body scissors. The finish is odd, as Ki hits essentially an axe bomber lariat, and they stop the match with a TKO. Low Ki is a guy who can work a convincing KO finish if the match calls for it, and this lariat (elbow?) looked like the least KO move in the match, so it came off confusing to the crowd. MLW built Ki as a guy who can finish matches in unpredictable and violent ways - which is an awesome way to push someone like Low Ki - but this finish was not that. 

Low-Ki/Tom Lawlor/Marshall Von Erich/Ross Von Erich vs. Jacob Fatu/Josef Samael/Simon Gotch/Ikuro Kwon MLW 9/7/19 - GREAT

PAS: This was a match with some real peaks and valleys. It's main flaw is it's length,  it is hard to sustain the pre Match Beyond parts of the War Games, and this had some real dead zones. Gotch and Marshall had 2 minutes of cool stuff in the opening section, but they had to go five, and by the end of their one on one they were doing chinlocks. Samael was the best time killer in this, he bleeds a bunch, trash talks Kevin Von Erich on the floor, sets up a section with Low-Ki where they tried to gauge each other on the barbed wire, bites Lawlor in the ear, breaks the claw by jabbing Marshall with a spike. I thought Fatu looked good too, although his entrance into the match was the kind of super hot run of offense you want from a face, not really from a heel. Ki was a minor part of this match, but I did like his karate stand off with Ikuro Kwan to start. The other big problem of the layout of the match was the length of the Match Beyond, the last guy in the ring needs to be the start of the end of the match, but they had about five to seven minutes of wandering and brawling before the hot finish. The finish was what put this into great territory for me, you had the cool spot of Kevin Von Erich in Dallas putting the claw on a random masked Contra agent, a big near fall with Fatu hitting a huge Samoan drop, and the Claw doomsday device by the Von Erich's for the win. The match was really losing me, but that ending brought it back big. 

Low-Ki vs. King Mo MLW 2/17/21 - FUN

PAS: This was a no ropes match on Filthy Island which was MLW riffing on UFC. I don't really get what this whole Low-Ki vs. King Mo feud was trying to accomplish. Mo squashes him in the first match, and then Ki wins by tap in a minute and a half, when he locks in a choke by crawling on Mo's back. The curse of MLW since it first started was cool looking on paper things which don't deliver, and this feud didn't. I did like the vibe of the show OK, and the post match Team Filty vs. Ki and the Von Erich's brawl was fun stuff which does keep this out of skippable. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE LOW-KI

Read more!

On Brand Segunda Caida: 2019 Kassius Ohno

Kassius Ohno vs. Ashton Smith NXT UK 2/22 (Aired 3/20/19)

ER: This was Ohno's NXT UK debut, so this will likely be the quickest of his UK matches. Watching every Ohno match in NXT UK will be a fun way for me to gauge whether or not there are other guys on this brand worth following. There are a couple I follow now, several that I am not interested in, and some people like Ashton Smith who I have never watched before. Smith had a couple off moments, timing spots that needed tighter timing, but had a couple kicks and elbows that played well and looked good enough to hang with Ohno. One of Smith's kicks lead to Ohno flying fast through the ropes to the floor and landing on his feet, a super impressive bump for a guy his size. And as always I love when Ohno uses his size, dug his almost running vertical suplex, and I hope in one of these matches he just wins by hitting eight or so straight sentons. He hit two nice ones here, and I always want more. Also liked his stunned frozen sell when Smith caught him with a fully extended kick to the face a couple times. Smith's Samoan drop looked impressive, but Ohno's brutal match finishing elbow to the back of Smith's head looked far better. That's a killshot finisher right there.


Kassius Ohno vs. KUSHIDA WWE NXT 4/10 (Aired 5/1/19)

ER: This didn't totally work for me, as I couldn't buy into most of Kushida's offense actually toppling Ohno. I've seen Ohno agaisnt plenty of small British guys, and they almost always step up their strikes and landings and Ohno is always able to make them look credible. And I don't think there was anything Kushida did here that looked like it would put away Kassius Ohno. Kushida went through the freaking dojo system, he should be absolutely able to slap the taste across Ohno's face. Ohno had plenty of killer moments, so things were still plenty watchable. Ohno broke out some tricks I haven't seen and it sucks that they kind of felt wasted on this match. He had a super cool headlock takeover, and he catches a cravat off a Kushida Asai moonsault, from his back. That's something I've not seen and it could have come off silly, instead came off like Ohno was a master of positioning. There's an amusing moment where Ohno does a long Hector Garza on his knees handshake request, everyone obviously knowing it's a trap, and Ohno pays it off by yanking Kushida's handshake right into a big ass boot. Kushida seems to exist solely to put in weak performances against my favorite guys.


20 Man Battle Royal feat. Kassius Ohno ROW 4/13/19

ER: This felt like some wrestling brand from another dimension. I have never watched any of Booker T's Texas-based Reality of Wrestling promotion, but I saw Ohno was in this battle royal so I figured that would be a good way of seeing if there are any guys in the fed worth seeking out. After a lengthy royal rumble style battle royal I'm not really sure that I've found any worth seeking, but I certainly got a sense of specific ways his students are trained. Outside of Jacob Fatu and Kassius Ohno, this match was filled with 18 other guys who all got reactions from the crowd and all inspired excited exclamations from the announce team, 18 guys with established reputations and championship reigns...and I've never heard anyone mention a single one of them. It felt like a private Texas City brand of excitement, 18 fully formed stars who are created exclusively for Texas City, and nobody outside of Texas City is allowed to mention them. The announcers called this rumble with a certain David McLane enthusiasm, where everyone was a star but it all had that feeling of none of them being a star and they were all just fake wrestlers created for a TV product that may not actually exist, announced to us like they were implanted memories of things that had never happened. "It's E. Snow! I can't believe we're seeing the return of the 3 time champion E. Snow!" "Erik Lockhart is back! The Lockhart cousins, Erik Lockhart and 'All Day' Will Lockhart, are running wild!" Everybody was a multi time former tag champ, TV champ, World champ, with an established nickname, and the crowd was actually responding to these guys as if they were indeed stars.

From this battle royal it felt like Booker's training room must be covered in posters that say ENERGY, because nearly every one of these guys all entered the ring with that same kind of hot tag energy. Heel, babyface, doesn't matter, because all of these guys had energy! They also all took good bumps while getting eliminated, so the pluses were: energy, and nice bumps to the floor. That's probably enough of a floor to turn someone into a pretty decent worker. A lot of these guys were real same-y so I couldn't get much of a feel for who was best. My favorite (non Ohno/Fatu division) was probably Brendan Steen? He was kind of like if Kidman had worked more like Danny Doring, except I mean that as a compliment? Gino was a guy with great swoopy dickhead hair who threw a lot of big hangtime spinkicks; Terrale Tempo had nice leapfrogs and I bet he'll have a good shoulderblock or right hand shortly; Ayden Cristiano had more polish than a lot of the guys and came off like Chavo Guerrero Jr. had he started his career as more of a heel. Kassius Ohno was the big name in the match and was treated as such, and in a match filled with guys trying to throw striking offense above their level (looking at you, "Axton Lowe") it was fun seeing Ohno get a ton of time to showcase his strike repertoire. They saved a lot of eliminations for him, and since all of the ROW are somehow very good at taking elimination bumps to the floor, we got all sorts of Ohno throwing big kicks or tornado elbows followed by guys flying 8 feet off the apron. You get at least 20 good minutes of Ohno in this, as he's one of the final 3 (along with Fatu and Ryan Davidson, a man who felt like Jack Swagger working more like low budget Rhino), and it was at minimum fun to watch him ping pong guys around the ring with strikes.

Read more!

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.


2019 MOTY MASTER LIST

Read more!

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

Tony Deppen vs. Jungle Boy

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

Brody King vs. Hardcore Holly

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

Kyle the Beast vs. Jacob Fatu

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

Nick Gage vs. David Arquette

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

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

Read more!

2017 Ongoing MOTY List: Boyce v. Fatu

Boyce Legrande v. Jacob Fatu Phoenix Pro Wrestling 3/10

ER: Phoenix Pro Wrestling is a local Bay Area fed that I have been involved with since its inception, over two years ago. My good friend Josh is the owner/operator, and my good friend Tim Livingston and I do commentary/play by play, respectively. It's the only fed that regularly operates in Sonoma County, and it's exciting to have our own little pro wrestling fed. This was our biggest show in our 2+ years, both in importance and attendance. We had a year long build to a main event cage match, and the fans turned out in droves, shattering our previous attendance high. It was a really special night.

Boyce has been wrestling in the Bay Area for almost 20 years (well, with a 6+ year break in the middle), and was part of some pretty pimped "indy wrestling boom" matches of the late 90s/early 00s, I think even landing on a Schneider comp or two, and he's been on almost every PPW show. Fatu is the son of Tonga Kid, and I think he's only been wrestling a few years, but already looks ready for prime time. The crowd was hot all night and this match put everyone over the top. Both guys worked stiff, and Fatu has some ridiculous speed and leaping ability, totally unexpected if you haven't seen him before. The way he whipped over the ropes to land on the apron blew my mind, but that springboard lariat? Forget it. Boyce has spent the last 2 years getting over his big falling lariat as his "PPW finisher", so Fatu kicking out of it was a pretty big deal in our fed. Crowd wasn't expecting it. Fatu building to hitting his handspring moonsault was big, and I flipped for the pop up Samoan drop. I thought we were getting a legit title change, and couldn't think of a good way for Boyce to come back, so I quite liked the almost desperation "get the knees up" finish, with the more inexperienced Fatu beating himself and Boyce escaping with his title. My personal favorite PPW match so far, from a fed I couldn't be more proud of.

PAS: I came at this match without any emotional investment and really enjoyed it. I missed the middle 18 years of Legrande's career, saw him as a skinny rookie enjoyed him, and am now enjoying him as a more solidly built veteran. Fatu has some fun spots, is really agile for such a big guy, but this was clearly Legrande building an exciting match around those spots. Really loved both near falls and the finish was a great way for a crafty veteran to escape with the belt. Makes me want to watch more of both guys.


2017 ONGOING MOTY LIST

Read more!