Matches from IPW:UK Supershow 6 1/22/17

ER: A week back I asked twitter for recommendations on some 2017 guys who have maybe flown under my radar. CCK was the first name mentioned. A lot of their stuff is behind the Progress paywall, so I first tracked down a match from a few weeks ago with CCK vs. Jack Evans/Angelico. It featured an 8 minute dance contest. I did not write that match up. I saw Floslam had this show so figured I would give them another crack...

1. CCK (Chris Brookes/Mondai Lykos) vs. Project Lucha (Martin Kirby/El Ligero)

ER: ...And it is safe to say at this point that I can put CCK firmly in the "...but not for me" camp. There's a chance Gershwin wrote that song about skinny white fake luchador comedy workers. Lykos is the same as any masked indy goof you've seen and grown tired of years ago. We've seen Brookes before in the Tetsujin shootstyle tourney, and while he can be salvaged he is still just as much to blame with junk like wet willie spots (which are apparently signature offense as he did the same spot in the same way in that Evans/Angelico match). Ligero is your other breed of masked indy goof, the kind that doesn't do overt comedy, just has strikes that are bad enough to be comedic. Kirby is your Martin Stone-type who added a couple nice things to the match but wasn't ever going to be enough to save it. I liked Kirby/Ligero's backpack senton (that's a great double team spot), and I liked Kirby's kneepad (with Nintendo's Kirby), and the Gory special > blockbuster is a perfectly fine team move. We tried something new, it didn't go well, and I only feel slightly tricked.

2. Matt Riddle vs. Ryan Smile

ER: I hate Riddle against opponents like these. Smile is basically British Shane Strickland, and Riddle is far too generous with these types. He always lets them have 2/3 of the match and the other guy always looks terrible. There were things I liked, such as Riddle's crazy high senton that saw him bounce off of Smile and land on his feet, and dropping down into the bromission while Smile tried a suplex looked really cool. But we get an interminable moment of both men running back and forth to do strikes at the opposing turnbuckles, a slap exchange, ugly split legged moonsault from Smile, and overall the stupidity of Smile's strikes being treated totally on par (if not stronger!) than Riddle's, which is just lame.

3. War Machine vs. London Riots (James Davis/Rob Lynch)

ER: Damn, these guys are nuts. This started as a wild hoss sprint, settled into a traditional tag, bad into hoss sprint, into some overkill, and probably went too long. But it's crazy that 4 big ass dudes can take a match this long and still be doing huge slams and dives that late into a match. Both teams throw some big bombs here, they work some nice misdirection with Hanson accidentally getting blasted by a jumping knee that allows the Riots to take over. I was a big fan of all these exchanges, Rowe especially has always impressed me, throwing great rights and having fast twitch speed. We get big boots, a big belly to belly, and hings ramp up awesomely when Davis goes for a dive and Rowe somehow catches him. That's insane. And as I'm soaking that in Lynch crushes both of them with a huge flips dive. Hason gets bodyslammed onto Lynch, Davis hits a senton off the apron, this is now a 285 Live match. Lynch eats a nasty german suplex/middle rope clothesline combo, landing right on his shoulder (which he sells effectively and subtly enough the rest of the match that it appeared he actually hurt his shoulder), Rowe hits a gorgeous snap german, Hanson's stuff doesn't always look great but I loved his bombs away/bronco buster combo, some of the double team powerslams we get are insane, Hanson hits a meaty tope down the stretch, just a bunch of craziness. I do think it went to long and it seemed to peak early, but I was impressed at all they were able to do.

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Of Finlay I like to Speak a Raparee by Name and Deed

Fit Finlay v. Martin Kirby SWE 2/23/12 - GREAT

PAS: One of Finlay's last European matches had him grind up local star Martin Kirby. Hard to get much of a sense of Kirby as Finlay just beast moded him here. Smashing him around the ring, forearming him in the eye, grinding him down with holds. He has this great posting, where he just two hand shoves Kirby spine first into the post. One possible quibble you can have with Finlay's work is that he can decide to eat someone up. It is so much fun to watch Finlay beat on a dude, that I don't mind, but he really treated Kirby like a WCWSN jobber here, and I am not sure the promotion wanted their top guy Lorenzoed.

Fit Finlay v. Chris Jericho WCW 10/17/98 - FUN

ER: If you heard Finlay/Jericho were given 12 minutes then on paper you'd think that would be a really good match, right? Well, it turns out it was pretty disappointing. Most matches on WCWSN don't get this much time, but these two didn't really seem like they had a gameplan to fill that much time. There were plenty of fine individual moments: Jericho hits a cool running shoulderblock on the floor, vaulting off a chair. Jericho does a cool tombstone reversal by doing a reverse rana, planting Finlay vertically. The coolest and weirdest moment sees Jericho go up top for an axehandle, and Finlay catches him in the breadbasket, like ya do. But what makes it super cool is Finlay sells the arm like a 220 pound human just came crashing through it from the top rope. Well, obviously that makes 100% logical sense, but I have never seen anybody do it before. Of course that would destroy your shoulder if you hit somebody while they fell from above. So Jericho instantly pounces on the arm, stomping on it getting to bust out one of his hundreds of armbar variations. But then the weird kicks in, as after a couple minutes of getting his arm worked over, both of them just kind of stand up and Finlay transitions back to offense, doesn't sell his arm again and Jericho never goes back to the arm. And that's really the story of the match, as both guys do things, they hit moves clean, but nothing went anywhere. It was a pretty solid waste of 12 minutes, but a waste indeed as it just never evolved past "just filling some time".

PAS:  I liked this a fair amount more then Eric. I agree it was a little formless, but there was enough cool little moments in it for me to enjoy. This was Jericho at peak douche, and I liked how he would fishook Finlay, and throw in little cheap shots. Finlay is the guy you want mauling a douchebag, and he landed a beautiful elbow drop right on Jericho's throat. The stuff with the chair was a little awkward, but I liked the finish, it was a nuts bump to the floor and a nice variation on the "nobody jobs" syndie finish. Not a great match certainly, but I enjoyed the time I spent watching it.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE FINLAY

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