Matches from Limitless Actin' Up 5/28/22

BEEF vs. Jake Something 

ER: Fun way to open up a show, just have the two biggest guys on the card block shoulderblocks and throw clubbing arms and elbows. I'm so used to seeing Beef play a brick wall, that I really liked how Something was the brick wall while Beef was the injured shark swimming constantly forward. There's a great spot where, after a couple shoulderblocks go nowhere, Beef tries a leapfrog and Something just runs right into him, knocking him flat back out of the air. Something goes after Beef's knee with a couple of straight kicks, and would use that hurt knee as a way to bully through some offense. He keeps playing brick wall, stopping Beef cold with a back elbow, and when Beef's head is hanging a bit too horizontal he gets caught with a mafia kick. Something choked out Beef in the ropes with his boot, choking him all the way out of the ring, extending his leg under Beef's chin until the big man plopped elbow first onto the floor. I liked Beef's big crossbody off the middle buckle, and the fight over Something's powerbomb was cool: Beef almost reversed it into an Alabama slam, but Something tipped the weight and kicked Beef's knee out to hit a cool messy sitout bomb. Beef had a cool missed low crossbody into the ropes, and a nice quick surprise piledriver for the win. They kept this under 10 minutes which let them keep a quick pace, all fun stuff. 

Rickey Shane Page vs. Rip Byson

ER: Man, RSP is a real pro and might seriously be in the discussion of best "hands" on the indies. He has great timing, personable charisma, plays comfortably to the crowd, and he takes action to all sides of the ring while blending that coherently into a match. He's a smart worker, and an entertaining one. He stalls on the floor to start, getting hit with a Byson suicide dive to get things rolling. I never totally bought Byson as RSP's equal and don't think he did anywhere close to enough to believably stop the big man, but he had a couple things I liked. There was a cool spot where he caught the much larger Page on a leapfrog and rotated into a powerslam, but most of this was him taking a bunch of cool RSP offense. Page does fun small things, like causing Byson to trip himself on an Irish whip by placing one of his feet behind the bottom rope before sending him. It's the rope running equivalent of tying someone's shoes together. Page throws several nice right hands, a big superplex, falcon arrow, a cool bridging vertical suplex, and his rope walk frog splash is one of the great moves in modern wrestling. Honestly it's crazy Page doesn't finish matches with that frog splash, as this one just flattened Byson. Time to start writing more about Rickey Shane Page on here. 

11. SLADE vs. Manders 

ER: Slade/Manders is the match that drew me to this card, and that's a match that will draw me to literally any card. Phil wrote about the match over at The Ringer, and I love just the idea of Slade being exposed to a broader audience. Compared to the end of the fight, this starts out downright genial, with "only" hard punches and elbows. It all goes south real quick when they brawl around the vets building and surprise a poor man exiting the bathroom, his guilt-wracked face revealing that he surely didn't wash his hands. I start to roll my eyes when Manders goes on a long walk to the other side of the room to take a big convoluted run at Slade, but this match understands what it is and it understands that Slade wouldn't stand for that brand of  impertinence. So, Manders takes a long run at Slade that deservedly ends with his face getting introduced to a chair, then gets introduced to a ringpost with a chair around his neck, then gets bashed on the top of his head with a chair. It's not long before Manders' face is covered in blood, and he has that show off run to blame. Also, he signed up to face a psycho. 

This gets real gritty, and my favorite visual was Slade pulling Manders jaws apart while Manders tries to get his thumbs into Slade's eyes. There's a quick and violent Manders comeback with a stiff back elbow, spike DDT (which Slade takes with a tucked head!) and a running powerslam through a door that crumples Slade. One thing I most love about Slade is that he doesn't always take offense like a trained wrestler. This is not an insult to him, quite the contrary. I love how he takes offense and can make things look even more dangerous than they really are. This man actually looked like he got DDT'd onto the top and back of his head, and his matches benefit from it. Manders beats Slade with his cowboy boot, but Slade laughs, flexes, and welcomes the boot. You see, Manders didn't know that Slade's step-dad used to beat him with a boot, right up until Slade did time for murdering his step-dad. Manders takes a couple of disgusting uranages through set-up chairs, the second bending both the chair backs and the back of Manders, and the finish is an awesome Slade finish. Slade puts handcuffs on himself for the sole purpose of getting leverage to choke the life out of Manders, letting the cuffs chain dig into Manders' throat while he pulls back on the chin with his hands. I swear, getting booked to fight Slade is like getting booked to fight Anton Chigurh. 

2022 MOTY MASTER LIST

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2019 Ongoing MOTY LIst: Darby vs. Teddy

14. Darby Allin vs. Teddy Hart Limitless Wrestling 3/9

PAS: This was a match between two of my favorites, I had no idea I wanted to see. Teddy works this like a powerhouse grounding a flyer which is trippy considering where he came from. There are some really great moments in this, Allin goes for his springboard armdrag, but Teddy counters it with a rip down Fujiwara which looks like it might have dislocated Darby's shoulder. I also loved Darby's low topes, and spinning sprinboard which Teddy sold like a left hook to the jaw. Classic Darby Allin finish, with him coming very close to pulling off a big upset only to get absolutely murdered on the finish with a top rope Teddy Destroyer, choice stuff.

ER: A lot of this was like the best kind of Eliminators tag, with Teddy Hart just practicing cool new moves on Allin like Allin was Hart's own personal Wrestling Buddy. Hart is so overpowering and hits so hard that Allin never really felt like he was in this, but I never really cared because these two matched up so well. Hart has the best punches of any active wrestler, and he throws so real tooth looseners here, and then throws in a delayed European uppercut that looked like some hard hitting time bending shit from The Matrix. If Teddy Hart isn't in Bloodsport next year it means that somebody fucked up. I think current Teddy Hart is the best Teddy Hart we've ever had, he's really turned into one of the names that jumps off the card. Not many guys have been able to pull off "aloof asskicker" before, and current Teddy Hart plays like a babyface version of 1988 heel Terry Taylor. He drops Allin with combos, throws him up in the air to drop him into his pointed knees, drops a moonsault seemingly intentionally doing a kneedrop across the back of Allin's head (he even smacks his knee a few times afterwards to rub it in!), and comes literal millimeters away from breaking Allin's neck a couple times, first with a disgusting double underhook piledriver and later with a wrenched arm DDT that you can't even see a pin of light through the top of Allin's head and the mat. Hart is either a master at working dangerous optical illusions, or he can just consistently barely drop opponents on their heads. And what's crazy (and again, makes him an absolute necessity for Bloodsport) is that his ground game is so convincing that he could be just as awesome removing any other element of his offense. I loved the way he violently took Allin down with a Fujiwara, really making it look like Darby was not along for the ride. Even on something like his trap arm DDT, he doesn't just trap the arm, he catches it and really sadistically yanks that elbow farther up Allin's back than it needs to be.

Allin is a great crash test dummy, as always, the guy is the most brilliant Spike Dudley of the decade. The Coffin Drop is one of my favorite moves in wrestling, and he hits a couple all timers here. They work a few different moments where a big Allin flying move sends Hart smooshing into front row fans, and Maine wrestling fans are cooler than I ever knew, as nobody budges at all for any of it. I go screaming out of the way on dives, shoving women out of my way like George Costanza. Allin does a awesome fast tope and falls really far off the top with a perfect Coffin Drop, and even when he lands a little sloppy (like his bottom rope tornillo), it works within the match psychology as him landing on Hart's head feels like a good equalizer. Hart's victory lap finishes are something that shouldn't work for a babyface, as he shortens Allin's career with a top rope Destroyer, throws him up into the air for a brutal backcracker powerbomb...but then refuses a cover, just so he can pump a few more slugs into the dead body. How does Teddy Hart work as a babyface? He's a truly unique character and performer, a guy who was kind of a joke for a long time (even when still being a good performer), and he's really feels like he's at the zenith of his career right now. And I think it's reassuring to my ego seeing a guy who is older than me is still hitting his personal peak. This match felt like a modern head drop indy match version of Bret Hart vs. 123 Kid, and I mean that in the very best way possible.


2019 MOTY MASTER LIST

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2018 Ongoing MOTY List: Dickinson vs. Kingston

63. Eddie Kingston vs. Chris Dickinson Limitless Wrestling 1/19

PAS: This was these guys working a tough guy match full of hard shots and suplexes. It is a match structure with lots of possibility for bloat and nonsense, but Kingston can hold a match like that together and Dickinson's Jersey Unite the Right marcher energy meshes well with Kingston's semi-retired Brooklyn weed dealer vibe. Loved all of the full body throws, none of suplexes looked cooperative and all of the shots were nasty. I especially dug Kingston's selling of the kick to the ear, and Dickinson was getting lit up with Tenryu chops. This wasn't the masterpiece the Kingston vs. Yehi match was, but I enjoyed it a bunch.

ER: Two of my favorite wrestlers, and I believe this is the first time I've seen them head to head. And not everything worked in this match, but if you're a fan of both guys then you got to see them do some stuff you'd want them to do. I liked Phil's "full body throws" description, because that was my first takeaway from this one: These two were hoisting each other into heavy, ugly throws, one meaty guy to another. Kingston doesn't do a ton of throws usually, and it's something he should explore because they look good. Neither man goes along easy with the throws, only making them look more important. Kingston is an expert at selling that kind of offense, especially loved when he stood up trying to massage out a sciatica flare up. If I thought Kingston throwing a bunch of suplexes was odd, we also get to see him barrel into Dickinson with a tope. I...I'm not sure when I last saw Kingston do a tope, so I was all in. There were a couple of awkward strike exchanges, a couple things that didn't quite land, but these two are also pros who can recognize when something doesn't quite land and make up for it. They mix up the strikes enough to keep it interesting, and I loved how Kingston started getting the upper hand and that's when Dickinson broke out the big kicks to the chest. I also loved how he was committing all the way on the kicks, so that when Kingston dodged we got a great moment of Dickinson getting caught up in the ropes. If you dig these guys (and why wouldn't you), you'd dig this.


2018 MOTY MASTER LIST

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This Happened a Year Ago and I Didn't Know: Keith vs. Cobb

Keith Lee vs. Jeff Cobb (Limitless Wrestling 5/28/16)

I just got done watching Cobb chuck Jaka around, and Lee chuck Tracy Williams around, and it occurred to me that these two must have crossed paths by now. And sure enough, they matched up in Beyond just a week or two ago. AND also matched up in Maine almost a year ago. And I'm sure their match that just happened recently is better, but we still get plenty of fun with their year old match-up.

As you click on the link, excited for the match, suddenly you notice something even more exciting: This is probably the biggest wrestling crowd any of us have ever seen. I mean, the attendance is small...but the crowd is...BIG. Almost every guy in the crowd looks like they're heading to an audition to play Kate's new love interest on This Is Us. Almost every guy in the crowd looks like they're heading to an audition for the new Pig Champion biopic that surely must be filming in Maine. The fed is called Limitless Wrestling, but I bet one of the limits is "the building needs to have an accessible scooter ramp". I had hoped the crowd would be more into the action, but these people clearly have too much on their plate. I mean the crowd is just so damn serious, many of them need to seriously lighten up. I've been to Mexico where there are "rudo" and "tecnico" sections for the fans to sit in, but at Limitless Wrestling I'm pretty sure I saw sections for "Gout" and "Considering Getting Gout".

Sooooooooo anyway, the crowd is amazing and I love professional wrestling. It takes place in a bingo hall/cabin, the kind of place where you play board games and sip cocoa when the ski slope conditions are too dangerous, and it's a couple of big hosses slamming into each other with abrasively terrible match commentary. What more could you want? Lee powers around Cobb early and throws some of his awesome big swinging body shots and launching Cobb with a German. Cobb wisely starts suckering him into attacks and dodging, capitalizing when Lee misses. Cobb hits his standing moonsault and crazy SSP that always looks like he's going to break his neck, and even tosses Lee with an absurd deadlift clutch suplex! That suplex my god. Lee comes back and grabs a double powerbomb before collapsing himself, and Cobb ends up getting a roll up for the win. Short match, but satisfying, makes me really want to see their most recent one.

And watch out Alabama*, Maine is coming for you! Slowly.



*I mean, I assume Alabama is fatter. It has to be Alabama, right?

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