Death Valley Days: Road Report

ACTION Wrestling Death Valley Days: Road Report 2/28/26

MD: Usual disclaimer to start. This is Segunda Caida, of course. But I don't personally have a hand in these shows. It's all Phil, Eric, Matt G, and JR. I get no privileged info. Up until now at least, I don't suggest that they try to book Marco Corleone. While I'm proud of these guys for putting their money where their mouth is, my mouth is here. I wouldn't say what you're about to read is fully unbiased, but it does have a level of distance at least. That said, they're doing great. But they already have a Matt, and he could hit an Iconoclasm on me.  

It's also been great seeing so many people write about the show in general. Engage with pro wrestling, write about it, talk about your experiences. That's the spirit that drove DVDVR and this place and the internet needs more of it once again.

Ok, on with the show.

Darian Bengston vs Ryan Mooney

MD: Kicking things off and setting the tone, this was for the ACTION title, one of the two title matches on the card. Bengston is free-flowing, technical, engaging, dynamic, entertaining. He's constant motion, shifting from one hold and position to the next. 

It was up to Mooney to stop him cold as many ways as possible then. Sometimes that meant throwing himself headlong at Bengston, foot first off the ropes and with a body block from off the top. Sometimes it meant throwing Bengston all around the ring with tricked out offense. And yeah, sometimes, especially when things got particularly hairy and Bengston inched closer to the Makabe Lock, that meant biting. 

As things escalated, tricks that worked earlier in the match failed later on, like a hitter who had seen a pitcher a couple of times late in a game, and that was true first and foremost for the biting. Bengston was able to redirect Mooney's hand right into his own mouth, lock the legs, and flip over for the Makabe Lock. This was solid, smart, straightforward. Both men were stylized in their approaches but the match itself was grounded and easily accessible compared to what was to come.

Angus Legstrong vs Oldman Youngboy

MD: I made the choice to write about this all at once, because it, even more than the DEAN shows, is a single card and should be looked at as such. In some ways, this match is here to prep everyone for the BattlARTS match to come, but it's also to pull people out of their comfort zone. Bengston vs Mooney was very much in their comfort zone, something well executed and familiar.

This though? 

This probably took a lot of the crowd for a ride into Parts Unknown. Legstrong looks like a mostly bald Cliff Clavin, if he had the strongest legs in the world, which he immediately showed off. Youngboy returned the favor with a super impressive bridge. 

And then they were off to the races. Gritty grappling where nothing was given and everything was opportunistic. In theory, it was a bit like a CWF undercard match where Eddie Graham sent a couple of guys out to shoot. 

Back on their feet, neither getting a decided advantage (though Legstrong was able to get Youngboy to go for a rope break), they each utilized more of a professional wrestling flourish. Youngboy faked high and picked a leg with a roll; later on he'd hit a beautiful takedown scissoring Legstrong (ironically enough) with his legs. Legstrong, on the other hand, was able to get Youngboy in a vulnerable position and just paintbrushed him.

Maybe, just maybe, Oldboy was winning on points, but none of that mattered after Legstrong hit the first real bomb of the match, a literal one. Oldboy, on instinct, managed a kickout on the folding press, but Legstrong did his best SENKA impression and bullied Oldboy over for the pin. 

This was two men plying their trade, showing off their skill, presenting a vision of what pro wrestling can and should be that's very different than most of what we've gotten this century and it was very welcome to see.

Isaiah Broner vs Jake Shepherd

MD: Exactly what it should have been (which is something you can say about every match on the card, really). Two behemoths going at it. Jake Shepherd possesses real Jerry Blackwell energy in the best way. There's just something about how he moves. They just threw shots at each other to start and Broner got the better of him. Shepherd had this way of shaking his leg as he stumbled backwards. When you're a super heavyweight, every movement matters. It draws the eyes, it tugs at the imagination. By stumbling back like that, it put over Broner's shot in a massive way. 

Then he crashed right through him (which is no small feat). They ended up on the floor and Broner started to get the best of him again, but there was Shepherd out of nowhere with an unlikely kick. He had an answer. And then he punctuated it with an absolutely brutal splash on the floor. Much of the rest of the match was Broner trying to heft Shepherd up for what the commentators thought might be a Death Valley Driver. Eventually, after catching him on the ropes, he did get him up, and then he planted him with the craziest F5 you'll ever see. I could have watched these two throw massive shots at each other all night, but clearly in a clash this titanic, something had to give. Broner's always worth watching, no question; we knew that. But Shepherd is such a perfect DVDVR guy.

Kasey Owens vs Adrian Alanis

MD: Character should always drive action, but that's especially true when you're deviating from conventional narratives. This was heel vs heel, but it was completely driven by who these two were.

That meant Owens came out, turnbuckle in hand, causing a fit and demanding the ref to check Alanis. That let him slip the brass knuckles into the turnbuckle himself, presumably to use later. 

Once the action started however, it was more akin to goofus and gallant, if both were heels. Alanis had one poised piece of offense after another, posing in between. Owens, on the other hand had cheapshots and finger pulling. 

After Alanis nearly got the win with a Flosion and Owens finally hooked in the Chicken Wing, things completely devolved into one of the best and rarest forms of wrestling there is, a dirty rotten scoundrels scenario. A crutch ended up in the ring, then one chair after the other. Owens tried to use the turnbuckle. The ref was yelling at them. They were yelling at the ref. They were yelling at each other. Then they both went for the Eddy Guerrero chair fakeout at the same time and only came to when it was obvious the ref was going to throw the match. It was fun stuff and completely different than anything else on the card and most things you'll see on any card all year. 

Alanis felt a little more out of his element though, which allowed Owens to get the better of him. Instead of getting to use the knucks, he ensured that Alanis went head first into the turnbuckle. I'm not 100% sure about the actual physics of that, but the pro wrestling physics (which tend to be more moral than anything else) were spot on, and the slovenly trickster of yore beat the slicker athlete on this night.  

Slim J vs Tim Bosby

MD: Slim J looked like the most professional professional wrestler in the world here. This was sharp as you'd expect, one of the most imaginative, versatile babyfaces of the century, with some of the best, smartest instincts, against a dynamo of a athletic base with bomb after bomb after bomb for offense. 

Slim tried to pry off an arm early, and he'd have some success with that technique, but there was always the sense that Bosby was just too big and too much for it to slow him down enough. Even then, were it not for Hales getting involved, maybe it would have been. But Dylan did get in the way and that let Bosby start in on the back. 

Some of his offense looked like it broke Slim in half. Despite that, Slim would climb up and around, bound over, hit from every angle as he was want to do, but he couldn't turn the tide. A match like this, while being as pro wrestling as it possibly can be, also has a bit of that sports feel. Bosby had the ball and was driving on net again and again but no matter the pressure, Slim J didn't break. And once he got ball possession, he ran with it. 

Even then, it seemed like it all came to naught as Bosby finally planted him with an F5, something they had conditioned the crowd to be a match-ender earlier in the night in the Broner match. It led to a huge kickout here. Finally, after a couple of finishing stretch counters, Bosby hit a spinecrunching German and it looked like that might be it. It just wasn't that sort of night though. It was, instead, the sort of night where Slim leaned as hard as anyone possibly could into being an arch-babyface, hulked up, ripped the shirt, nailed Dylan off the apron, and wholly immune to even the idea of negative consequence of that distracted action, took Bosby up, over, and around for the pin. And for at least a few minutes, all was right in the world. 

You know what? Sometimes we need that. Sometimes we need pro wrestling to be that. Why the hell not here and now?

Toby Klein vs Nathan Mowery

MD: Variety is the spice of life, and if you ask these guys, blood is a viable spice. This would be the death match portion of the show. The great thing about using a VCR as a ranged weapon, like Klein did to start this before Mowery could even make it to the ring, is that then you can use the tape from the VHS itself as a garotte. It's economical when you think about it.

This was about as straightforward as could be. Two maniacs (said affectionately) jabbing jagged objects ranging from antlers to a handsaw into each other's forehead and then peppering the bloody remnants with punches. Occasionally you'd get a DDT. More likely you'd get a chair, or a door, or a light tube. 

If there was the overarching theme to the night, it was wrestlers giving it their all, not in the A for Effort sort of way, but instead in that these characters, these unique, twisted, brilliant, wonderful entities, were pressing up against each other in this overwhelming cacophony of violence, technique, and grit that would drown out all the petty, meager worries of the day. And that was completely at play here. These two were, in this moment, the very most of their class, of their type, and they battled each other with all the trappings of their chosen style. It just so happens that Mowry had the Reverend at his side and the means to set his elbow on fire. Past that? Could have gone either way.

Jamesen Shook vs Tank

MD: Speaking of characters (but then I could start literally every one of these matches like that; that's the strength of this card!)... Shook and Tank. 

For a guy with just a few years under his belt, Shook is markedly good at commanding a room. He's very entertaining, especially when he's taking stuff. He wrestled this match big even in a small room, and you need to wrestle big to stand out against Tank. 

Tank's got the mass, but he's a center of gravity not because of what he is but because of who he is. It's because of the timing, the gravitas, some of the best punches you could possibly see in 2026 (or 2016 or...), and the wisdom to know how to twist the act just a little depending on his opponent, like here with the eyepoke. Meanwhile, Shook was living up to his name, arms flailing at every shot.

Even so, there's over a thirty year age gap between these two, and you got the sense that Tank wanted to win this one through crook as much as hook, just to show that he was canny, that he was the master of whatever game you put in front of him. Thus the feigned knee injury. If he had just plowed through, maybe he could have won this thing, likely he could have, but he wanted to win it on his terms and that gave Shook exactly what he needed to get a roll up and slip away with his title for yet another day.

Karl Greco-Malenko vs Matt Mako

MD: So Greco-Malenko could be Timothy Olyphant's stunt double on Justified, and I mean that in the very best way. He doesn't need to be though, because he's already Karl Greco-Malenko, and that's more than enough.

Back during the DEAN~!!! 1 review here, I noted my own difficulties in writing about shoot style given that it tends to be so free-flowing and full of primarily intrinsic storytelling. I've watched a lot of Newborn UWF since then, and I've more or less come up with a framework to see me through.

You're looking for the contrasts. They say styles make fights, but it's really a combination of character, physical attributes, and preferences (you can call that styles, I guess). If you can map out all three through the action, you've got things managed.

Here, Mako was younger, stronger, faster. He wanted that armbar. Was he starstruck a bit? Hard to say. Greco-Malenko was savvy with plenty to prove. They both had hunger but it maybe manifested differently, and it's in that difference, as much as all the skill and technique between them, that a fight like this shines.

The sum of it felt fairly equal to me. Mako looked for his opportunities, was quicker to grapple, was more the aggressor. Greco-Malenko had answers for mostly everything; sometimes that was firing off palmstrikes, both when in a hold and not. Sometimes it was a clever reversal. There was one time where he avoided a rope break by spinning out into a leglock. That was the sort of escape that would have gotten a huge pop in Japan decades ago from educated fans who knew the skill needed to not just settle on grabbing the rope and the crowd here, to their credit, understood and reacted just as they should have. 

In the most whimsical part of the match (proof positive that just like when Tank went for the eyepoke or the double drop down chair spot between Alanis and Owens, humor can find its way into almost any situation if the wrestlers are talented enough and allow their humanity to shine through), Greco-Malenko turned things around into a floating bodyscissors with his hands outstretched like he was king of the world. 

In the end, Mako came close, very close, to prying that arm off and getting what he wanted, using a fakeout punch to score a huge takedown, but maybe he wanted it too badly and Greco-Malenko was able to pull out one last counter into a heel hook and seize victory. It was a triumphant return in every way for Greco-Malenko with Mako looking all the better for pushing the old master as far as he did.

Mad Dog Connelly vs Slade

MD: Six minutes. Six minutes bell to bell, almost exactly. Maybe off by five seconds, maybe. 

That could be the review, right? I could stop there. That they packed this much violence, animosity, and mayhem into just six minutes. For a complete match with a beginning middle and end, it might be second for second, the most ... well, let me leave hyperbole aside. 

This was hot iron clashing with cold iron. Mad Dog Connelly is, and I say this with great fondness and at a great distance, a maniac. He channels the gaping wounds of the world into rage, seeking vengeance for all the wrongs done by man and done upon man. Slade on the other hand is a stone cold sociopath, the sort of man that would gleefully inflict those wrongs in the first place. There are universes of torment to be found in the eyes of Mad Dog Connelly. Within Slade's? Nothing, nothing at all. 

And here they were, in the middle of the ring, two dynamically opposing forces throwing fists, throwing heads, throwing each other. When they were done wailing on one another in the ring, they went to the floor. There they entered into an unholy pact to bloody one another with the crash of bone on bone alone. Goal achieved, Mad Dog drank in the fruits of their collective effort.

Things boiled over. This wasn't six minutes due to curfew. This wasn't six minutes due to people wanting to go home. This wasn't six minutes due to another show starting on IWTV. This was six minutes because it couldn't possibly be seven. Something had to give, and after the gutwrench and after the choke slam, what gave was Slade's throat with the chain from the dog collar wrapped around it. Violent fiend that he may be, he's still only flesh and blood and bone and sinew after all. Of course, the bell wouldn't stop these two. Six minutes now, but the promise of more to come. I'd expect nothing less from such polar entities of wrath and spite.

MD: Which takes us to the end of the card. I leaned hard into the six minutes of Connelly vs Slade, but look too at the tight two hours that this show came in under. It had a little bit of everything, an ode to the sort of shows that were written about by those of the Death Valley Driver faithful two decades ago, and those that they obtained on tape. 

There was conventional wrestling, Slim J vs Bosby being a modern version of Tito Santana vs a Heenan Family member in its own way. There was like vs like, contrast vs contrast. A deathmatch, a shoot style classic, a hoss fight, title matches, an outright war. It ran the gamut, with the underlying unifying element being the competitiveness, the struggle, wrestlers giving it their all across different styles. 

And that's exactly what pro wrestling, in all of its variety and gripping wonder, is all about, right?

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A Week of Death Valley Days: Mad Dog Connelly

The ACE of the Segunda Caida ACTION project, the kind of wild blood on his teeth brawler they just don't make anymore, and someone who is on a collision course with a fellow outlaw in SLADE. 

Mad Dog Connelly vs. Shane Mercer 11/2/25

PAS: Mercer is an indy veteran, who kind of wrestles like a shorter Scott Steiner, insane strength and a kind of meat head recklesness. This was the second of a series between the two and was a chair shot and guardrail heavy brawl which is the kind of thing Connelly is very comfortable with, and the kind of thing which makes his opponents uncomfortable. Everything doesn't get hit cleanly which actually adds to the match, the ragged sharp edges makes it feel more like a fight. I especially loved Mercer reckless suplexing a ring guardrail on top of Mad Dog's head, there was also a press slam by Mercer where he yanked him down using the dog collar, it didn't feel like it hit like they planned but it looked even worse. Definitely the kind of match where everything on both guys hurt the next day.

MD: In pro wrestling, ugliness is beautiful. That's what's been lost in this world and what Mad Dog Connelly excavates almost every weekend as he mows through any fool brave enough to stand to him. He's less the archeologist and more the profane, forbidden monster that our hubris-laden digging awakens, but whatever he is, his mad, violent bloodletting makes the world of pro wrestling more alive and vivid. 

We've seen so many no holds barred matches in the last couple of decades. The bigger the stage, the less real they feel. Staged props set up like a Three Stooges pie fight. There was none of that here. Connelly and Mercer tore through the venue pulling up anything not bolted down (and a few things that were) and used them as weapons. It was the sort of fight where a metal trashcan would do damage but the absolutely full recycling bin had more heft to it. 

Mercer is a unique Connelly opponent because he's so thick, a brick wall. Connelly flipped towards him off the apron and he jammed him in a way almost no one else could. He followed that up by yanking off a barricade and the heft of it as it crashed down on Connelly was one of those impacts that would stick with you for a while. There were callbacks and touchpoints and opportunistic transitions and big spots but they were so immersed in the mud of hatred and mayhem that they felt natural even while providing the whole thing some architectural substance.  

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To Summon the Storm; To Live Your Truth; Stevens vs Connelly

Mad Dog Connelly vs Erick Stevens [Dog Collar Match] DPW 12/12/25

Erick Stevens didn't come back for fame, fortune, or glory. He didn't come back to get a cushy agent or coach job. He was out of the game, was living his life, was raising his family. He was done.

But life has a way of not being done with any of us. 

He saw Mad Dog Connelly out on the horizon, off in the distance, and unlike so many of the Mad Dog's opponents, unlike commentators and even fans, he knew Connelly for what he was. He was a test, a crucible, an obstacle sent down by the gods so that man could prove himself, so that he could be pushed to the limit, so that he could know the truth within his own heart. He was a white whale worthy of turning Stevens into a modern day Ahab, to send him back out to sea.

No matter what he said, no matter what he claimed, no matter what he convinced himself that he believed, Erick Stevens came back for one reason and one reason alone.

He came back to live his truth.

So he started the work. He trained. He prepared. He fought with friends at his side. He gauged himself in contention for a title, and finding himself wanting, he called back a friend to push him to be his very best.

He grew stronger, sharper, fiercer. Yet he wasn't ready. He wasn't close to being ready. 

But then life doesn't care if you're ready or not.

Deadlock was closing. There may not have been another opportunity. 

Sometimes you can't just live your truth. Sometimes you have to seize it.

He stole the chain. He stormed the ring. He disrupted the show before the main event. He laid this unholy, profane instrument of leather and steel on the mat before him. 

He made an offering.

The gods heard it.

Mad Dog Connelly was summoned to the ring, bringing with him the storm. 

Erick Stevens charged headlong into it.

He was not ready for this, but that did not mean he was not prepared. He took the fight to Connelly, brawling evenly with him, reversing a shot towards the post, tossing him into chairs, tossing a chair down upon him. 

It was not enough to just summon Connelly, however. He needed to chain him, so that he could chain himself to him, so that he could face the trial as the gods intended. Connelly was no mere beast. He had a mind of his own, a will of his own. He was a mountain to climb, but this mountain contained a canny sort of lava within. He resisted Stevens' efforts and bound Stevens instead with the chain while he remained untethered.

Chain in hand, he began to rain whipping blows upon Stevens, the storm bringing thunder and hail. In control of the moment, the aspirant stunned, cowed, battered, Connelly went under the ring, found another instrument of destruction, a screwdriver. Stevens was an open target, but an unyielding one. He kept coming back for more. 

So when Connelly opened him up with the screwdriver, things shifted. The chain had been the first offering, but this was no simple Mad Dog; this was Cerberus, hound of hell, and for him to affix the collar around his own neck, a second offering would be necessary, an offering of blood. 

With Stevens opened up and the collar around Connelly's neck, they were finally connected by the chain, and so connected, Stevens was able to pull himself back into the fight, using Connelly as a tether to drag himself closer to life, closer to truth. They crashed into one another, Stevens with a rolling forearm, Connelly with a low dropkick in the corner, Stevens with a powerslam, Connelly with a torpedoing headbutt, until finally Stevens wrapped the chain around his body, became one with it, and propelled himself into Connelly again and again. 

With a lariat, with a powerbomb, he finally took control, finally had the beast on his heels. Those blows would have felled almost any other man, but Connelly was no man. Stevens escalated matters, placing chairs in the center of the ring, meaning to utilize another powerbomb. Connelly thrashed and strained at the confines of the double underhook and back body dropped Stevens into them instead. 

Now Connelly looked to end it, locking in a half crab. Stevens began to crawl. Up until this point, he had been a man fighting, straining, pulling against nature, but now he had to become something more, a beast himself that could contest with the gods. He crawled to the corner, grabbed the abandoned screwdriver, and gauged at Connelly's knee. Thus freed, thus lost to the moment, living a truth beyond that of mere men, he jammed it between Connelly's toes, looking for a literal Achilles heel.

But Connelly was no hero, and that would not be enough. He went straight for the soft fleshy bits that all men have, tearing at Stevens' eye to escape. This was entering endgame. Seeing the red of his blood and Connelly's, Stevens charged in. Connelly lived his whole life in these moments, swam in this truth, and redirected Stevens over the top, into the hanging choke with which he'd slaughtered many a prey. 

Stevens hadn't been ready yet. The time hadn't been right. It was too soon. Connelly was too much. 

That's the thing, though. We're never ready. We're never truly prepared for what life throws at us. You can read every book. You can train every day. You can prepare for every eventuality. Life will still find a way to screw it all up and leave you gasping for air. 

It's in that space of risk and uncertainty that we truly feel alive and it's what we do in that moment that defines us. 

And what Stevens did here? He persevered. He stared truth in the eye and he did not blink. He managed to crawl back over the top. He survived the subsequent lariat from a Connelly that had been laying in wait. And when the hangman's choke followed, he pressed off against the top turnbuckle to land on his feet. 

He had tried to fight fire with fire, to embrace the monster he had become to defeat a monster, but when trying for his own hangman's choke, he got caught up in the chain. The spark of the man that still remained burst aflame. He shifted direction slamming a forearm into the back of the Connelly's head.

Then, with a moment so purchased, he took off the collar, becoming a man once again. In possession of his facilities once more, having passed through the crucible and seized control of his own fate, Stevens set up one last chair and dropped Connelly upon it, slaying the white whale and earning a three count that felt impossible both a few minutes and a few months before.

It's easy to mistake Mad Dog Connelly as some mere monster, but he's not. He's not the Minotaur, but the labyrinth itself. By traversing this ordeal, Stevens found not a mere earthly treasure, no golden fleece, but instead something that we all search for inside ourselves and that so few of us ever find. 

He found his truth, and he'll live every day of the rest of his life feeling the phantoms aches and lingering exultation of that discovery. 

The question now is this: now on the other side of this odyssey, what will Stevens do next?

And as for Mad Dog Connelly? He'll rise up again, fury and anguish in those crystal clear eyes, for the gods created him with Purpose and weary as he may be, it is not yet his time to rest.

Not while others still have their own truths to live. 

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D3AN~!!! Day 5: MAD DOG~! DEMUS~!

DEAN~!!! 3 9/6/25

Mad Dog Connelly vs. Demus [Hair vs Hair]

MD:  This begins and ends with the eye. Injured the day before in San Francisco, Connelly stumbled and crashed down the aisle in Philadelphia, a flimsy eyepatch the only thing protecting one of the most vulnerable parts of the body, already woefully damaged. He'd barely survived Demus on the first DEAN~!!! show, and now with stakes infinitely higher, on a more even playing field outside of his trademark match, he began from a deep, almost impossible deficit. 

Like a wounded animal, he leaned into his own pain and targeted Demus' eye. He knew his own agony and wished nothing more than to share that feeling with his opponent. Connelly's desperate back-against-the-wall impulse drove his every action. He went for an early pin and then started to tear at Demus' shirt. At first, I thought this was to expose the chest for chops, and he did that, but more so, it was to gather resources. The shirt became a weapon, one that he could use in the absence of a dog collar in order to hang Demus over the rope.

But as desperate as Mad Dog might have been, Demus' own survival instincts were canny and activated. He'd lost hair matches before. He knew the bitter shame of such defeats. He would not face it now, especially not against a damaged opponent. So for the first time in the match (but certainly not the last), Demus went to the eye to escape. This would be a theme as the match went on. All things equal, maybe Connelly could beat Demus and maybe Demus could beat Connelly. But all things were not equal, and Demus would stop at nothing to win. 

Before long, the eyepatch was torn off, and the mutual sense of desperation had escalated. The two were throwing their own bodies at one another. Demus crashed off the turnbuckles with the bulkiest body block you'll ever see. Connelly, able to stay in it with an awesome punch and crushing chairshot, went careening into the chair in the center of the ring as a seated Demus moved at the last moment. Demus likewise crashed and burned off a senton attempt. 

That left Demus open to Connelly's best shot, a Gotch style pile driver. Given the low center of gravity at play, the skull hit the ground with no give, no mercy, no respite. Yet still, Demus somehow survived it and desperation creeping back in, the wounded dog climbed the ropes once more. This time however, Demus made it to his feet too early and was able to brandish the chair himself, tossing it straight up and straight at Connelly's eye.

The throw hit true and Connelly was left staggered and hopeless. From there, Demus hefted him up and dropped to his knees with the meanest Muscle Buster you'll ever see. Connelly, channeling that desperate spirit one last time managed to kick out, but it was all for naught. Demus had one last trick up his sleeve, a dog collar of his own. If this had come into play earlier in the match, it might have turned the tide for Mad Dog, but now he was barely able to stand, and with it, Demus, in a pique of dark irony, was able to hang Connelly with his own twisted trademark. 

There'll always be the question of what might have happened on this night if Connelly had entered healthy. Maybe the pain drove him. It absolutely allowed Demus to prey upon a vulnerability and gave him an advantage in the match. Animal pride had empowered both men throughout and Connelly was possessed by it in the post match, causing chaos and shaving his own hair. He was defeated, but it would take far more than this for him to be truly vanquished.

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DEAN~!!! 2 Day 7: Mad Dog Connelly vs Adam Priest

DEAN~!!! 2 5/24/25

Mad Dog Connelly vs Adam Priest (Dog Collar Match)

MD: Work with me for a minute here. If you ever got a tape from Dean over the years, there was a real good chance that it'd just be something he had watched recently and enjoyed. You never knew what you were going to get. That was, in many ways, the spirit of the Death Valley Driver Video Reviews. The wrestling came to them. Maybe they had a good idea of what to seek after repeat viewings, but it was the footage that ended up in their hands. It was very much the opposite of the Observer. That was at the center, the keeper of the canon. These ruled the periphery, full of strange energy where anything counted and everything was a possibility. 

Now remember, this show was put together in part by Phil Schneider and to get a Schneider Comp was a very different experience. You were already in through the door. You knew the password. You were choosing from a numbered list. If the DVDVRs took the footage as it came, Phil took the best of that footage: the weirdest, the wildest, the bloodiest, the hardest hitting, the absolute must-see distilled from every corner of the world and put it all in one place. 

For those of us who watched the show at 7 PM last Tuesday having looked forward to it for a month+, it was a Schneider Comp. But I imagine for those who walked up not quite sure what they were getting into, that took their kids, that saw the social media posts and clicked, thousands and thousands of people, it was instead the cool tape that you got from Dean which might have anything in the world on it. 

The DVDVRs helped to expose people to the possibilities of pro wrestling, to push people out of either one box or another, the culture or the counter-culture, and realize there was so much more under the sun. And that's what this match was meant to do as well. It wasn't Connelly vs Demus II, and that's okay. It was a bit more of the touring version of a Connelly dog collar match. You could see them run this around the horn in 1985 in Memphis, Nashville, Louisville, and Jackson. It was a gateway drug for a Connelly dog collar match. Here's a taste. Intense? Sure. Not what you're used to? Not at all. Unsanitized? No Dunn Cuts and corporate speak here. Want more? You absolutely do. 

But it was one that leaned into contrast. Adam Priest can, of course, wrestle any style, and this is a style he can wrestle, but the strength here was in the differences. He was canny, savvy, underhanded, and backed into a corner and fighting for his life. That meant getting some cheapshots in early. It meant having the corrective collar in his back pocket, a real equalizer that might, might have put Connelly down if he could get it on him through hook or crook. 

The problem was, connected by the chain as they were, every bit of violence Priest could bring to the table, Connelly could return threefold. He could whip Connelly into the guardrail, bruise and batter up his side, but Connelly would burst forth and drive his own head into Priest without abandon, a living breathing guardrail coming straight at you at high, reckless speed. You aren't going to outchoke Connelly. You aren't going to outmangle Connelly. You might outsmart him, but if that buys you one opportunity, you better damn well put him down with it, because otherwise, he will get up and you will have hell to pay. In this case, hell came in the form of Priest's own corrective collar clamped around his neck as Connelly pulled and pulled until it seemed Priest's eyes might bug out. 

This was a free show. It was on YouTube. For those of us who knew what we were getting into, it scratched the itch but left us wanting more. Of course it did. There was always another issue, always another post, always another road report, always another match to be found in the crates or the distant corners. For those new to this world, however? Well, the first one's always free, isn't it? There's so much truth still left to be lived.

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Found Footage Friday: DEAN~! 2 Special!!

In honor of DEAN 2~! tonight. Here are some found footage gems from DEAN 2~! stalwarts

Torneo Cibernetico: Felino/Mega/Rambo/Super Mega/Ultimo Vampiro vs. Blue Panther/Bombero Infernal/Dr. Cerebro/Negro Navarro/Scorpio Jr. (Torneo Cibernetico) IWRG 2/15/01

MD: Once this got going it was a lot of fun. You never expect too much out of the battle royale seeding part at the start and there wasn't a lot to see here either, save for everyone piling on Ultimo Vampiro in the corner at the end. The sheer talent in the match was such that once you got into the pairings, there was always someone amazing in the ring. Even though they were eliminated relatively early, Navarro and Cerebro got to stand out during those first few minutes, Navarro with his tricked out holds and understanding of how to project himself as a star and Cerebro by creating a lot of motion, taking a lot of stuff and contorting at least one person in unholy ways. Unfortunately, we only had one brief moment of Panther and Cerebro going at it, with Cerebro sitting up out of a Panther Tapatia.

They teased Mega vs Super Mega which the crowd wanted to see but if it happened, we didn't get to see it. There was a general excitement for rudo vs rudo pairings though. In general, I could have used a little more of both Dandy and Panther, but they both looked good in what they did do. Rambo got to shine with two rapid fire eliminations, first with this great double top arm wrench that someone should really steal and then with a seated campana. He fell almost immediately thereafter to a clever enough Scorpio foul only to get revenge at the end by sneaking one on him from the apron to let Panther win it. So fun stuff all around even if we only got the tiniest appetizer of Cerebro vs Panther.

PAS: This was fun rather then truly exceptional. We have some all timers on both sides, and we get glimpses of what made them great. A taste of Navarro, an appetizer of Cerebro, a sip of Dandy. Panther and Cerebro are the reasons we wrote up this match, and I did dig the little bit we got from them, 24 years later I am expecting more of a dish tonight. I really need to dig into this 01 IWRG Bihari is putting up, because I suspect their are some really hidden bangers (Panther vs. Felino on this show is closer to what we want) This wasn't one of them, but still well worth checking out.  

ER: Rob Bihari uploaded this lost gem not long after we announced the DEAN~! 2 Cibernetico, when I publicly said that we have no actual footage of Dr. Cerebro mixing it up with Blue Panther. The opportunity to prove me wrong led to us finally getting this Cibernetico out there for public consumption. When we found out who CMLL was letting us use for DEAN~! 2 we all immediately salivated at the idea of Cerebro getting minutes with Blue Panther and Virus, two compatriots that Cerebro hardly has any (taped) ring time against. There's an incredibly fun Cerebro/Virus singles from a decade ago (that Matt wrote up when he was just getting into lucha, which is funny to think in retrospect that it's only been a decade since Matt dove into lucha libre) and this Cibernetico that featured both Cerebro and Panther that was not in circulation. Once I publicly proclaimed that we had never seen Cerebro and Panther in the ring together, Rob swooped in minutes later proclaiming that we actually DO have that match in circulation now. Ask and ye shall receive, and we received a real gift. 

The DEAN~! 2 Cibernetico was one of the best Ciberneticos I have seen, and when I watched this match the morning of DEAN~! 2 my mind was in another place. I was somewhere else and watching this in a hotel room and pacing around my room until we left to go see the event space that morning and meet the crew. This match was on, and I was in theory watching it, but I knew I wanted to see it again. In the heat of the insanity that was the DEAN~! 2 live experience, every person backstage was buzzing during and after the Cibernetico. Blue Panther - at 64 - had one of the great performances of his life, young upstart Virus looked as good as ever, and really all 10 guys overdelivered in ways I don't think anyone expected. The DEAN~! 2 Cibernetico was, for me, the best case scenario for a match that looked like dynamite on paper. We got several to book several names that we never dreamed we'd have access to a year ago, and put them in a match with pairings we were dying to see. Then, it actually happened, and I was moved by how hard these men worked at our weird, exciting, outdoor Arizona mall show near a fountain display, lit by the neon signs of Universal Citywalk chain and axe throwing barcades. Nothing is going to compare to my memory of seeing this Cibernetico. Losing my mind with Phil, my good friend Will who I was meeting in person for the first time, wrestlers from DEAN~! and wrestlers who weren't on the show at all, is never going to be beat. Bryan Danielson coming out after your Cibernetico to give one of the greatest promos of his life, somehow convincing hundreds of people in the life affirming power of pro wrestling. 

I stated to at least a dozen people (probably more) over the rest of the night/weekend/next week, that I had watched a newly unearthed early 2000s IWRG Cibernetico and OUR Cibernetico, the one we all got to share, was better. I remember El Dandy suddenly being a top 25 guy on a DVDVR 500 and it made me want to get as much IWRG as possible. Trading for Negro Navarro matches, buying the Dr. Cerebro/El Hijo del Santo mask vs. mask match - and so many other shows - for $5 at Franks and Son Collectibles in some City of Industry warehouse whenever my friends and I would drive down to see wrestling. A 21 year old who now had opinions on Bombero Infernal and Rambo. Had this Cibernetico been available on VHS on any of the trips we made to Franks and Son lucha shows, I obviously would have bought it. Blue Panther, Cerebro, Dandy, Navarro, Felino, all guys I was buying tapes specifically to see. But I had never seen this match until Rob uploaded it, and it had the misfortune of being watched on the same day I witnessed live the most special Cibernetico of my life. 

So the competition was going to be stiff. The mindset was different, my brain was operating on other matters, I am no longer in a hotel room after binging on a breakfast buffet with the DEAN~! crew since we wouldn't be eating again for another 12-16 hours. Now, we're a couple weeks removed from DEAN~! 2, I've finally floated back to earth, I was finally ready, I can finally admit...this is a really great Cibernetico. I still don't think it's better than the one on DEAN~! but I don't think that matters because as with all Ciberneticos, this had things that no other one had. Maybe the only knock against this one is that it never felt like it built to a fever pitch and didn't have as much ongoing story threads, but at the same time it's filled with guys who I could watch wrestle in 2nd gear for hours. That is not to say that anyone dogged it, it just never built to any big bumps and dives, and I think that's incredibly cool in a different way. 

Also, all of these legendary names enter the ring collectively to Survivor's Burning Heart, which feels more like something you'd see at the beginning of a 90s Germany catch tournament show when everyone on that card has to come out and stand in the ring like an idiot. I don't think these Cibernetico teams were chosen based on their allegiances to Communism or Capitalism, but maybe this match is aligned deeper than I realized. 

I think everyone here had some legit moments. My favorites? Cerebro, Panther, Navarro, Bombero Infernal, Rambo. Maybe Rambo. I love Rambo. I love luchadors who move like Rambo. He looks like a poor kid in faded camouflage pajamas, just looking like total shit in there, but then he and Dandy are rolling and he dives into Dandy's leg with a takedown and Dandy is selling for him with that spirited 2001 energy he had and it's everything I want in lucha. Rambo's huracanrana roll up on Navarro is such a great surprise, smoother than even Dr. Cerebro's. Nobody bumps to the floor over the bottom rope like Rambo anymore. The old man luchador style of getting to the floor has been phasing out for a long time, and Rambo's exits are smooth and graceful and faster than you'd expect. "Faster than you'd expect" is one of the joys of older lucha statesmen. He hits two great butt butts into Dandy and the man shouldn't be this damn good with gear that bad. He's 15 years past losing his mask here and he's hitting his double wristlock and butt attacks like a 30 year old. 

The guys I fully expected to be standouts - Cerebro, Navarro, Panther, Dandy - were, and had a half dozen sequences each that any fan of theirs would want to see. Negro Navarro started the whole thing super hot with Super Mega, with the kind of llave and rolling I could watch for an entire match. Navarro had this drop toehold that seemed to work in reverse, body going one way, legs tripping Mega the other way, bending space and time for what could have been a simple single leg trip. Navarro has a snapmare strong enough that it could have been a piece of actual offense, and he kept gravitating to teaming with Panther to target Dandy in cool ways. Cerebro was incredibly vicious, a totally different approach than he's worked the last 15-20 years. He was real aggressive and rudo stiff. In the battle royal he was always running into frame swinging hard horizontal rights. He had great shtick to accompany mat bumps that were harder than everyone else's. His short run against Blue Panther was great fun, with a Cerebro huracanrana roll up and excellent Panther surfboard with awesome power. He also got all his limbs tied up by Bombero, who was holding the ropes so blatantly while laughing like a supervillain that nobody got in his way. Panther's crucifix on Dandy was maybe the most vicious submission of the entire affair, with Panther bending him back forceful, not smoothly, while Dandy screamed and crab walked slowly to a bottom rope.

Watch this Cibernetico. It's great. It's got as many special moments as the best Ciberneticos. They're all unique snowflakes. Can any nation truly stand alone? Maybe we'll answer David Bickler's question on DEAN~! 3. 

Rhyno vs. Low-Ki PWS 6/7/14 - GREAT

PAS: This was kind of a compact TV match, about seven minutes, pretty stiff, just a nice piece of business. Ki hits a couple of nasty kicks on Rhino a guy that square must seem like a perfect heavy bag for him. They each get a kick out of their big move, Ki liquifies his insides with a Warrior's Way for a two, and Ki gets a kick out of the Gore. Match ended with a bit of an awkward roll up, which kind of felt like two guys who couldn't agree on a finish. Give it another big move or two and it would really sing. 

JR: I'll always have a soft spot for Rhyno. I remember being right at the age where I could read magazines when he was coming up in ECW and finding out he had done time and being both mystified and terrified. I remember going to those Hardcore Homecoming shows less than 10 years later, and him working heel, cutting promos about how he was slumming it for a night before going back to TNA, and the guy behind me trying to get a "Bound for Glory" chant going.

What can be said about Low Ki that hasn't already been said? A captivating worker, an inscrutable person. If you hate Low Ki, you are anti-labor.

I had no idea what to make of most of this. I thought it funny that Rhyno is always notable for making his stuff look great while working pretty light, while Low Ki is notable for...the opposite of that. Here, I think they kind of don't know what to do with one another. In someways, it's a match between two guys who are good at working from underneath but primarily want to find ways to control pace, and I don't think either of them really found a way to get in a groove. I thought at the beginning, Rhyno was going to work kind of like a Stan Hansen brawl on the outside with Ki doing a Tommy Rich impression, and then when they didn't do that, I thought Ki would find a way to stick and move around the bigger man, but neither thing happens. Instead, we kind of get a house show match with a finish that feels like more generous on behalf of Rhyno, which I suppose is to be expected.

MD: I loved the look of this one, shot from underneath with those big windows up top. The crowd was more behind Rhino though he tried to turn them. Ki didn't care about them one way or the other. He just did his thing, full steam ahead. Rhino treated him like an absolute equal, like they were the exact same size. There was a small feeling early on that if Rhino just caught him that'd be enough, but it didn't last. He recoiled from Ki's chops. He focused on the back because size alone wouldn't cut it; it would open the door but it wouldn't even contain Ki, let alone defeat him. That led to a fairly long bearhug in a fairly short match but you didn't mind it much. I didn't mind the finish either, where Rhino kicked out of Warrior's Way and Ki kicked out of the Gore before Rhino got rolled up with a lumpy sunset flip as he went for the second one. I would have just liked those kickouts to register a little more emotionally. No one was expecting Ki to kick out but once he did, life just moved on. It's less the shocked face I'm looking for so much as the resolve that one gore simply wasn't enough and he had no choice but to charge back in, even though he was unknowingly charging towards defeat. I never got that feeling and to me that would have put the match just enough over the top.

ER: It looks like I'm the unexpected high voter on this match. It was everything I wanted out of a Ki/Rhino match and more. This was in the back half of a *13 Match Show*, some kind of damned spiritual successor to vintage post-midnight USA Pro shows of a decade prior, and it gets harder to harder to stand out in any way on a show like that. Well these too stood out. Low Ki hit Rhino hard enough multiple times to actually move him. I bet Rhino hasn't felt many chops harder than Ki's, and I know he felt that kick to the thigh later. I have now stood next to Rhino and realize that he is the same height as me, while being probably twice my width. He is a large freezer garage filled with 36 count packs of soft drinks but Low Ki's palm thrusts to the chest looked like something that actually would have tipped that fridge over. 

Rhino is one of out more uniquely shaped men and I love him working a bearhug down to one knee after press slamming Ki onto the buckles. Low Ki has excellent selling and this unmatched ability to recoil on bumps like no other wrestler has (maybe Lio Rush?), selling something huge like a bump to the apron or something less like a headbutt to the stomach or creating activity in a bear hugs. It makes him an ideal opponent for a man of any size, but a big couch of a man like Rhino can make him pinball and rebound in the best ways. And, as Rhino is the size of a couch, Low Ki treats him like me doing Macho Man elbowdrops onto my parent's couch, fucking up that couch with a Warriors Way, just messing up this living room set of a man.

Ki took the Gore so well that it makes the move feel new all over again. It was a great Gore anyway, and would have been great no matter who was taking it. What I loved most about it was how Rhino did not do his typical set up out of the corner but instead used it as a much cooler 180 surprise. He shot past Low Ki with a clothesline and turned on a dime to stop him cold as Ki was rebounding off the ropes. It looked fucking awesome and I don't remember seeing him use it as a momentum stopper. Rhino is always the one supplying the momentum behind it. I wasn't expecting Low Ki to kick out of that surprise Gore and I wasn't expecting Rhino to kick out of the Warriors Way so both popped me good. And I loved the finish, with Ki leaping over a  Gore that Rhino had set up at a charging distance, showing that Rhino should have kept trying to surprise the ninja and not give him any of time to quick react counter. When Low Ki is given actual time to react to an attack, he has too many ways to use that time against his opponent, and Rhino paid for that error. 

Mad Dog Connelly vs. Jordan Blade PPW 9/25/22

PAS: This was Connelly's first dog collar match, and outside of the Demus match I think it is my favorite. These were two staples of the PPW UWFI rules division, and this had the pace of a one round MMA brawl with a chain. All gas, no breaks stuff with both wrestlers trying to decapitate each other with huge chain shots from the break. I loved how nasty all of the wrestling moves felt with the chain in the mix, everything felt like it could go wrong and someone could land temple first on steel. The whole thing felt like a finishing run, sometimes you want to sip, sometimes you want to shoot straight whiskey. 

MD: There's such a Hansen-ian bent to Connelly and especially his chain matches. It's all implicit storytelling, the path of least resistance. They're not building a castle in the sky. They're not loading Chekhov's Gun. They're hitting you with a shotgun blast to the face. There's a cold hard logic to eternal forward motion. The train's coming. Either you can stop it or not.

And at times, Blade could. Connelly went for a choke with it almost from the get go and that put him at a disadvantage that allowed for a German Suplex. Less could be done when he hit the floor and simply pulled. That said, it wasn't until the chain came loose and the ref halted proceedings that he was finally able to start choking Blade with it, striking mercilessly by surprise. That was the opening for the gutwrenches, three in a row, with the chain dangerously dangling between them enhancing the image of each impact.

Blade was skilled, strong, and tenacious though and had an honest shot at it, but wrapping the chain around Connelly's face to further mangle him wasn't the way to go. Thus equipped, loaded, primed, he burst forth, that aforementioned shotgun blast in the form of a headbutt (because I can load Chekhov's Gun in this review, even if he won't). Maybe one last hopeful Blade Rear Naked Choke followed, but it was too little too late, for Connelly was able to roll through and end it with the selfsame sense of brutality that he tried to begin it with. There's no out-hating the Mad Dog in a dog collar match. The chain knows who it serves.

ER: I'm not sure this even goes 5 minutes and it clearly didn't need to go longer than that. I saw this match for the first time in 2024. Phil showed it to me in our motel room the night before the first DEAN~! show. I was sitting up in the bed that we would be sharing - there was some mistake because the in-over-his-head motel manager messed something up with our reservations, giving us a small room with one bed and Tom K the literal largest hotel room I have ever been in - and Phil was seated at the motel desk, laptop on desk. We were both exhausted after a very long travel day. I had a red eye flight and had hung out with friends in Philly all day, so I had not actually slept in over 36 hours. But we were both excited about the show the next day, and Phil asked if I had ever seen Mad Dog vs. Jordan Blade. I had not. 

Now we are in a post-DEAN~! 2 world and I saw more than one person disappointed that Mad Dog vs. Adam Priest "only" went 7 minutes, but I am of the mindset that Mad Dog Collar matches don't need to go that long at all. This is a wild man, unleashed, and most humans aren't going to be able to take a "normal" main event's worth of time enduring a chain beating and chain choking. This match against Blade is a complete match in its 5 minutes. There's no way to stop Mad Dog, only briefly slow him down, and I thought it was great how Blade didn't wrestle a bad match, she just got overwhelmed and couldn't find a way back in. It doesn't diminish her, doesn't mean her strategy was bad, she just got beat by a maniac. She tried to stop the boulder from rolling down the hill but those arms get tired real quick and before long you realize you can't even step aside, that boulder is going straight over the top of you. 

Hard to believe this was Mad Dog's first collar match and he already had full mastery of the chain. I lost my mind when Blade wrapped the chain all around his face and it only made Mad Dog want to use his face as a weapon. It was a good idea but she couldn't have predicted how Mad Dog would have reacted to having a face full of chain. If you've already taken balled up chained up fists to the head and barely weathered those, you just can't prepare for a chain wrapped maniac's face. I love how Mad Dog's violence does not just revolve around the chain. The chain is a weapon he will use but also a tool he will use to facilitate violence, in the same way the Gracie's used their gi to advance to the real violence. He knows how to use the chain to cut angles and change distance, but it is not his only method to bring violence. One of the more violent things in a match made of violence happened on the floor, when Mad Dog just charged into Blade's face with a back elbow. No chain needed, while the threat of the chain loomed always.

2022 MOTY MASTER LIST

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