TWE The Night Before 8/5/21

Tank vs. Ron Bass Jr.

PAS: This delivered what it promised. Bass is a huge guy with a great looking old school wrestler gut and it is fun to watch Tank have to work from beneath. Bass knocks him down a couple of times with shoulder blocks, Tank responds with a cuff to the ear, and then pulls the rope down when Bass charges him. They brawl on the floor and it is a slugfest from there, not everything lands clean, but that raggedness is what I liked about it. Finish was the kind of thing which put over both guys, Tank gets the win, but it looked like Bass was stunned rather then stopped.

ER: With no hyperbole, this might have been the match I was most looking forward to seeing SCI weekend. Two behemoths colliding is always going to be my favorite thing, and starting a weekend of wrestling with the Reverend shouting at us about Tank is a great start. I love Tank wrestling in his 2017 retirement shirt, feels perfectly professional wrestling. Tank is older and slower, so has to be crafty with the shockingly larger Bass. He can't budge him with his body, shoulderblocks don't make a dent, so he tricks Bass with a low bridge to send him tumbling to the floor. And then the striking starts. Tank throws some blistering right hands, and Bass is great at being the giant man falling all through a small building. Bass is huge so it's great seeing him against parts of the building for size/scale comparisons, and he's a great big man at falling into support poles and walls. Once it's a fight Tank is relentless with chops and punches, loved his combo to the body and face. Bass brings big clubbing and great presence, and while I'm bummed we didn't get a bunch of avalanches or standing splashes, the finish was killer. They have a big punch out, then clonk their melons a few times, then Tank just blasts Bass with a spinning backfist. A Saito suplex doesn't get much air (how could it?) but the backfist to the mouth with the low back suplex is enough to barely keep Bass down for a 3. I love how the finish looked, and loved the psychology of Bass still being in the match if the ref had been a split second later to the count. 

Nick King vs. Erron Wade

PAS: Nick King is a guy we enjoyed in the UWFI Contenders series, and he was a lot of fun here as well. Wade is doing a hyped up Karate guy gimmick with Matt Griffin as his coach, and had some nifty stuff as well. I really liked King's early mat control and his suplexes. Wade had a great spin kick to the head, and his finishing submission was nice stuff. They both got to show out a bit, but it didn't overstay its welcome, just what you want from the second match on the card.

ER: It's kind of hard to judge this as a match, as it was clearly two guys being given 5 minutes to show off some cool shit, and it feels like 5 minutes of guys pulling off some cool shit without actually being structured around much of a match. It's a quick showcase of some of what each guy has to offer, and would have made a cool 30 second highlight reel. King has real explosiveness and I wish we got that in more of a match, but he takes a big bump to the floor and shows off some impressive strength when he pulls Wade into a German suplex (also his safety green boots and trunks looked cool under a black light). Wade looks like he punches a damn hole through King's chest with a shotgun dropkick, and an earlier seated dropkick looked really good too. Wrestling needs more guys with brutal dropkicks. King fired out of the corner with a big lariat after taking that shotgun dropkick, and I wish that dropkick would have had more time to settle in, but that's not what this was supposed to be. Wade's armbar win surprised me, and this match did what it was supposed to do: Show off a couple cool things in the arsenal of two new guys.  

11. Daniel Makabe vs. Damyan Tangra

PAS: Very fun Makabe style match with Tangra hanging with Makabe on the mat, which isn't easy to do. You see a lot of guys with cool mat offense, but I was really into how slick the mat defense was by both guys, with some really sick looking reversals from the bottom by both. Somehow Makabe turned a scissors kick takedown by Tangra into an STF, and Tangra had this counter to an STF counter later in the match where he some how transitioned into a reverse STF which caused me to rewind multiple times to figure it out. I am not a fan of strike standoffs, but I did like how both guys mixed in different stuff instead of just forearming and staring, I am always going to dig going to the body, and there were some nice kidney shots here. Finish was awesome with Makabe eating ground and pound until he slapped on a triangle choke where he jams his fist into Tangra's carotid artery. I mean who even thinks of crazy shit like that, much less pulls it off?

ER: Probably the most technical soccer hooligan fight I've seen. This match was heavy on reversals, and yet it was clearly not one of the awful modern "this match is only planned out reversals". The reversals here all looked great because they looked like actual reversals of offense, not planned reversals. It's an important difference that I feel is getting missed. There were some moments here where it looked like Makabe was baiting Tangra into throwing something out there, and Makabe had so many interesting counters to Tangra that he really came off like an amazing three steps ahead wrestler. Makabe comes off like someone who really analyzes his opponent and works out reversals to match each opponent. Yes, obviously that is how pro wrestling works, but Makabe makes them feel like his wrestling character is a guy who is doing all of this tape watching in advance, and that is another small but very important distinction with him. 

I loved him reversing Tangra's rolling body scissors, knowing immediately which leg of Tangra's to grab and roll into a kneebar to trap the leg before moving into an STF. Both guys know how to work really compelling STFs offensively and defensively: Tangra locks his forearm straight across Makabe's throat and goes for the kill, while Makabe's STF has him hooking his arm around Tangra's throat and it always looks like he's using the STF to set up something as a surprise. But that's kind of the trick with Makabe, as he has so many directions he can go that you never know what the killshot is going to be. I like how Makabe telegraphed a few things, sometimes to sucker in Tangra, other times because he was just telegraphing them. Tangra was smart at picking these up, loved him thrust kicking Makabe's arm on a punch or dodging out of a charge so that Makabe Psychosis's himself in the ropes. 

But Makabe is proud and keeps flexin' his way to that Flexen right hand, also throwing some nasty cupper hands to Tangra's ear/neck/jaw. The finish stretch was incredible as I had no idea who was pulling away with this. When Makabe maneuvered his way out of a sub and somehow worked Tangra into a nasty tombstone, I thought for sure that was it. But the actual finish ruled even more, with Makabe trapping Tangra in a triangle choke. But we've also seen Tangra escape a triangle, a couple STFs, and more, so - ever the showman - Makabe holds the triangle, flips Tangra's hair out of the way so everyone can see what he's about to do, and jams his fist into Tangra's carotid. Right first into the neck, left hand gripping the right wrist for maximum pressure, brilliant. The Carotid Fist feels like an untapped wrestling submission. It feels like a move that would have made Wild Red Riggins a huge 60s territory draw and been on the cover of lurid wrestling magazines.  

Brett Ison vs. Lutha X

PAS: This didn't work for me at all. They started this as almost a kickboxing fight, which is a cool idea, but nothing landed hard enough to make it compelling. There were some stiff shots mixed in by both guys throughout but not consistently. Eventually they gave up the attempts to do something different and just had a US indy match complete with forearm and stare exchanges, and a 1/2 speed All Japan 2.9 count finish. This was a miss. 

ER: This didn't offend me as much as it offended Phil, but I agree wholeheartedly with the lack of consistency being a problem. This felt like several different matches in one, and I think the match would have worked if they had chosen one and stuck to it. The UWFI stuff at the beginning did not look good, coming off like sparring or half speed practice. If those shots were all making solid contact live, it sure wasn't reading that way through the screen. This was at its most interesting as they gradually upped the stiffness, as Lutha X had some excellent selling off some brutal Ison elbows. Ison really rocked Lutha's jaw and Lutha had several different great staggers to get back to his feet, stumble to the ropes for support, fall fist first into Ison's face, and I liked how all of that looked and felt. But the match felt longer than its 15 minutes because it never felt like they were sticking to a thread. It felt like we had unconscious restarts after every couple sequences, and I did not love the pop up suplex finish. Ison falling onto Lutha for the pin looked like some great timing, but great timing after a sequence I grew tired of years ago only goes so far. 

Jaden Newman vs. Kyle Matthews

PAS:  Matthews is a southern wrestling maestro who has been one of the better traditional US mat wrestlers of the 21st century. There were a bunch of nifty moments of mat work which were the highlights of this match. I loved him countering Newman's fancy multiple kip ups by just dropping down with a side headlock, and he also had a really nice surfboard. This got a bit indy wrestling at the end with a bunch of elbow exchanges, superkicks and 2.9 near falls. I did like Matthews sick kick on the ring apron and he took a brutal bump on a springboard stroke to the floor, it looked like he divoted his forehead. Newman was fine, hanging with Matthews on the mat, but I think some of the bad parts of this match might have been his idea. 

ER: Up above I talked about how organic the reversals in Makabe/Tangra happened, and bemoaned our current state of "reversals" wrestling where you can barely tell what is being reversed. You can barely tell what is being reversed because you can see the move was never supposed to hit, the move was only thrown with the intention of it being reversed as part of the "real" spot. A lot of this, was that. I hate the kind of wrestling where someone kicks someone in the face and that kick to the face allows that person to spin around with a backfist, which allows that person to spin into another kick. It makes 80% of the offense look like trash because nothing is being absorbed, everything is just making people spin into their own offense. A lot of offense here looked actually good, some of the strikes looked like they were really rocking each other, but none of it had a chance to settle in. Nothing was treated as damaging, everything was only done in service to the reversal. Newman has a lot of offense that seems to do far more damage to him than his opponent, but since he hardly sells his opponent's offense I guess it doesn't make sense to sell spiking himself on a meteora or whipping his head into the floor going over the top to on a stupid botched apron move. They established pretty early that moves don't matter, only the reversal of the reversal of the spinning reversal of that move, and it only felt more egregious the longer they went on. 

Arik Royal vs. Graham Bell

PAS: Fun heavyweight slugfest which got cut off by an angle setting up a future match. Royal has great looking offense, including a killer looking black hole slam backbreaker which should have been his finisher. Bell looked fine too, I liked his senton to Royal's back. It didn't really have a conclusion which kind of kept this from anything more then fun. 

ER: This did end in a big schmozz angle (which was impossible to see any of because the ringside cameraman filmed it like he was recording a competitive game of ping pong), but we still got a lot of match before it turned into an angle. The best parts of this were the slugfest portions, as Royal has a cool array of chops, body shots, and uppercuts, and it never once turned into boring stand and trade. Bell would throw heavy kicks, Royal would hold his side while throwing a fist. Bell is a big guy but doesn't totally work like a guy with size, and doesn't really have lifting power. But Royal is great at making the best of Bell's offense, including catching a pretty crazy rana to the floor (paid off nicely later on when Royal caught a rana and planted Bell with a powerbomb). Royal's tackles are one of my favorite things in wrestling, here he does a diving tackle to knock Bell to the floor, and later after taking a hard cannonball - and to cutoff a second cannonball - he upends Bell with a nice explosion out of the corner. The big schmozz happens when Bell gets knocked into the referee (I really liked ref Kim's bump into the ropes, looked like her head whipped back into the top rope), but we still got 10 minutes and a lot of cool stuff. This whole thing was worked at a real fast pace, and they got a lot of bang out of their 10 minutes before the angle. 

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Paradigm Pro: UWFI Contenders Series 2 Episode 2

Cole Radrick vs. Yoya

PAS: This reminded me of a WEC Batanamweight fight, little guys moving fast and pressing a lot of action. Yoya really impressed me here, he did a bunch of really cool spinning mat attacks including one spot where he goes for an armbar, gets lifted by Radrick off the ground, spins on to his back for a choke and then slips right back into the armbar. Only flaw in this match was Radrick's selling, he sells this big kick like he got brain trauma with his arms sticking straight out in the air. That is cool stuff, but this promotion stops fights for way less, and it wasn't plausible that the ref would let him continue. Outside of that I enjoyed this a lot, interested to see what Yoya does in Bloodsport next week.

ER: I loved Radrick here and thought his selling was excellent. I've seen plenty of people try to work the fencing response selling into pro wrestling, and it almost always looks incredibly stupid (with the stupidest ever being Jimmy Yang taking a Tank Abbott punch in WCW), and here it looked like Radrick clearly had a concussion. And as Phil said, that was why that ended up being a pretty pointless use of such a realistic sell. We've seen a dozen matches in this UWFI series alone that have been stopped for less than a man visually suffering a traumatic brain injury, so the idea that the match wasn't immediately stopped was ridiculous. That really should have been the finish if they wanted to work that spot into the match, makes no sense to give a guy a standing 8 after he's doing a horizontal Frankenstein impression. 

That aside, everything else ruled. Yoya is super small and super quick, and Radrick can use cool power offense against him even though he is small against most other guys. At one point he does a fisherman's buster that starts with both men lying flat, just powers Yoya up. Radrick's selling was strong throughout, loved how he leaned into all of Yoya's strikes, fell into the ropes after a few of them without ever coming off as "acting". The shotgun kick that lead to the should-have-been stoppage looked great, really would have completely worked as the finish. But I did love Yoya pouncing with punches to try to capitalize, and Radrick really paid back that kick with wicked hammerfists and elbows before locking in a wicked armbar for the tap. These guys want to get a lot of their ideas into these quick fights (and Yoya has been one of the biggest "get my ideas in" guys in this series so far), but they really need to save some of them for later in the series. Can't have two cool finishes in one fight, you'll burn out the concept. 

Ron Mathis vs. Nick King

PAS: Mathis works a comedy gimmick on these shows as a garbage guy who claims he is a shooter. I get why you want to mix things up stylistically, but it doesn't do it for me. I liked King on last week's show, but he gets squashed here which is a shame. I would have rather seen King use his skill to flummox Mathis a bit, before Mathis figures it out. Instead he was a comedy guy claiming to be a shooter who steamrolls an actual guy in that style. Nice rear naked choke though.

ER: I was really looking forward to seeing more of King after his fantastic debut last week, and this was not quite what I wanted. What they did was good, but it was not the thing I wanted to see. Mathis rushes King with body blows that King anticipates, and outquicks Mathis into a great Vader/Inoki German suplex. When he recovers, Mathis comes in with a couple strong front chancery suplexes, then locks in the chancery again, but instead of going for another suplex he twists hard into an awesome rear naked choke for the tap. Paradigm has been good at bringing in unknowns and working them up the ladder through this series (guys who were unknowns in season 1 are now treated like known quantities, getting matched up with season 2 newcomers), so I know it's just a matter of time before King is getting to bigger matches. So, within context, I think this worked. 

Freddie Hudson vs. Alex Kane

PAS: Hudson is a former PPW champion who was returning to the promotion, and got a takedown here and even a suplex, but this was a Kane showcase. Kane really uses his hips when he throws people, and that head and leg clutch suplex he uses as a finisher is really sick. This US shoot scene needs an Otsuka, and Kane might fit that bill.

ER: I love when a new guy comes along with real suplex power, and Kane is like new Cobb. I like the set up of the match, with Hudson making his Paradigm return. I like the story of the guy with more matches in a promotion than anyone, returning to find the landscape is different than when he was last here. He comes into the match happy to be here, gets a nice suplex, but once Kane gets down to serious business it is over quick. Kane can really muscle guys around, and that Mark of Kane finisher of his is like he's throwing someone as far as he can after tying them up in La Nieblina. 

Kerry Awful vs. Aaron Williams

PAS: Awful was a lot of fun here, working this like Wellington Wilkins Jr., this old carny wrestler who might not know jujitsu but knows how to twist a wrist or pop a knee. I liked how he taunted Williams early to "take the cowards way out" by grabbing the ropes, which leads the crowd to chant "Coward" at him when he takes a rope break of his own. Williams had some moments too, and the finish was great with Williams hitting an Anderson Silva front kick and going for a stretch muffler for some reason, which Awful turned to a crucifix sugar hold for the tap. 

ER: This was a nice change of pace from the other matches this episode, worked very differently, a little more tentatively but not shying away from hitting each other. Williams' kicks all looked cool, loved when they went for a knucklelock and Williams kept kicking at Awful's head with axe kicks and front kicks. I actually thought this was going to end way earlier than expected, as Williams locked in a sick grounded full nelson that could have gone a few different directions, but Awful broke it by reaching back and clawing at Williams' head. The finish was awesome, thought the Silva front kick looked spectacular, and I loved the wrinkle of Williams going for an ill-advised stretch muffler but not locking it on quickly enough, allowing Awful to tap him with a slick anaconda crucifix. Very cool. 

10. Tom Lawlor vs. Lord Crewe

PAS: I think this is Lawlor's best performance in this style. Crewe is a guy with a bare knuckled fighter rep, and it was great to watch Lawlor ground him and work as a mat master. Loved how he kept controlling with a hammerlock, and how decisive and powerful his takedowns were. Lawlor had an awesome looking Anaconda vice head and armlock, and his reverse triangle choke finish was class. I thought Crewe was fine as a brawler who found his moments, although he should have left his spinning Vampiro kick on the drawing board. Lawlor versus Justice should be a lot of fun, and I hope he works it like this. 

ER: Love seeing Lawlor work a match like this with blinders on, working patiently through Crewe's strikes to land takedowns and work subs, all of which looked finish worthy. Lawlor was able to really convincingly work in a leg scissors submission and make it look like something that could happen in MMA, and I love that submission. There are a lot of ankle lock spots in wrestling now, hard to make one stand out, but I loved Lawlor refusing to break his ankle lock on Crewe, Crewe trying to kick him off, Lawlor grapevining the leg while yelling a FUCK YOU, Crewe hanging in with a worthy attempt of his own before wisely getting to the ropes. Crewe's standing strikes look better than most in this series, long arms sneaking in powerful shots, and once he started landing on Lawlor I loved all of Lawlor's muscle memory takedown selling. I really loved the sequence of Crewe missing a haymaker to set up a Lawlor rear naked choke, which I thought for sure was the finish, until Crewe slipped out and absolutely BLASTED Lawlor with an elbow strike to the cerebellum. Goddamn I thought Lawlor was hit so hard his spinal column separated. Hard to pull off two zombie sells on the same hour of TV, but I can't see any other way to sell that elbow other than Lawlor getting turned into a zombie statue. Lawlor's inverted triangle looked fantastic as a finish, thought this whole thing kicked ass. 

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Paradigm Pro: UWFI Contenders Series 2 Episode 1

8. Hoodfoot Mo Atlas vs. Akira

PAS: One of the longer Hoodfoot UWFI matches I have seen and one where he sold a lot. Akira took most of the match, including landing a couple of big knockdowns, one with a stiff liver kick and one with a flurry ending in a running knee. Akira is good at bringing an appropriate amount of stiffness to his shots, and I bought him taking a lot of this match even though he was smaller. Finish was a classic Hoodfoot finish, with Akira rushing in and getting obliterated with that looping right hand. It felt like King Kong swatting a plane out of the sky.

ER: I expected this to be a kind of Hoodfoot steamrolling, but what we got was much more special than that likely would have been. Atlas is great at steamrolling guys, but he's perhaps even better at showing believable vulnerability. The mat scrambling looked really good, and Atlas is strong at little mat details the whole match, like grabbing Akira by the meat of the calf on the ground, or holding down Akira's elbow late in the match while in a triangle. Akira's striking looked like it was legitimately taking Atlas apart, and I exclaimed out loud to nobody when the liver kick knockdown happened. I went from expecting Hoodfoot in a walk, to not expecting Hoodfoot to get up from that kick. Akira rocks Atlas with a back elbow, goes back to that kick in the corner (Atlas is so good at using the ropes to save him from a knockdown, I've seen him rely on them in cool ways a few different times now, great way of integrating the ring into his matches), and drops him again with an awesome running knee. You knew Atlas was going to throw big hands, and all of them looked predictably great, loved him going for heavy kneelifts, and I can't believe Akira got up after that right hand sandwiched between two Saito suplexes. I'm glad he did, and I love how the wrapped it up instead. Great stuff through and through, so much better than the match I thought I wanted.

Robert Martyr vs. Nick King

PAS: I though this was good stuff. King is listed as having a folkstyle and judo background and there was a lot of mat scrambling at the start including King throwing a really seamless fireman's carry, and a nice snap german. Martyr actually uses the ref to block King's view, stomps down on the ankle and hits a big german of his own, before he gets a chicken wing for the tap. Lots of energy in the early mat work, and I would be into seeing King again.

ER: Great bang for your buck, under 3 minutes and all of it great. This was my first time seeing King, and Paradigm is really making me think they have a bottomless supply of interesting new guys at their disposal. King was really gluey on the mat, looked like he hardly let go of Martyr's left ankle and kept rolling and pivoting into new holds from that ankle control. His fireman's carry alone was great enough that I think I was counting myself a Nick King Fan one minute in. Martyr stomping King's ankle while the ref was clearly obstructing King's view is a real dickhead twerp move, and commentary was super sharp to point out how Martyr would likely get a point docked for that but gained a point and damage from following it up with a German. The chickenwing was a surprise quick finish, but a good one, and King was great at looking like a guy who got caught in a chickenwing. 

Isiah Broner vs. Flash Thompson

PAS: Felt like they were writing Flash out of the territory here. Both these guys have boxing backgrounds, so I enjoyed the timing and movement. Broner is able to shoot in and grab a quick double leg and clean out Thompson quick with ground and pound. They do a post match angle with Bobby Beverly turning extra heel by turning on his heel group and joining another heel group. I like this sub-promotion a lot, but all of the angles that aren't just one guy calling out another have been misses. 

ER: This was mostly angle, which is fine, but the execution was muddy and the implications were unclear. I'm not bothered by the 1 minute fight, even if the stand-up slapping thrills me less than any other options open to guys under these rules. But I did like Flash's selling on the shot that made his legs wobble, and thought Broner dragging Flash to the mat with a papoose takedown kicked ass. But you have Broner getting a stoppage in a minute, then Flash beating Broner down after, then Beverly cheapshotting Flash, which leaves Broner slumped there waiting for an angle to play out, his quick finish already in the rearview. I think filming something separately with Beverly and Flash could have played better, as a big Broner win should have been played up as a bigger thing than a Bobby Beverly stable change. 

Austin Connelly vs. Jordan Blade

PAS: I have compared Connelly to a shoot style Buzz Sawyer before, and he has really leaned into it with a chain and barking, which is great. Like always, Connelly is a missile aimed right at his opponent, constantly moving forward throwing reckless forearms. He run rights into a forearm by Blade which busts his mouth, and they are moving with such speed and wildness that it doesn't seem possible to control the force of blows. Blade grabs the ankle and really cranks it until the ref has to stop the fight. I am into both of these fighters, Connelly especially is one of my favorite wrestlers in the world to watch right now.

ER: My god Austin Connelly rules. There have been a ton of standout moments and standout wrestlers on these Paradigm UWFI shows, so it's high praise to say he might be my favorite. I like Phil's Shootstyle Buzz Sawyer description, and while I harp on other guys not really adhering to UWFI style, I hypocritically love how UWFI rules cannot contain Connelly as he rushes headlong into kill or be killed. These two were throwing elbows straight at mouths and not pulling things, and we got a great visual of Connelly yelling through a mouth filled with blood while trying to break an ankle lock. Blade hung in with the mad man and weathered the storm, fighting for that ankle lock even while Connelly was pounding on her knee to get her to break. I would have liked another minute or two of this, but also love experiencing the joy of Connelly in these starbursts. 

PAS: Filthy Tom Lawlor comes out and introduces Matt Makowski as the newest member of Team Filthy, which is awesome. Love Makowski, and I am excited to see what he does in this format. They do another angle that sets up Makowski vs. Hoodfoot which is of course great, but there is some stuff with Bobby Beverly and Lexus Montez which wasn't great and ended up with some shoving, and the angles continue to leave me cold. Makowski vs. Hoodfoot should rule though.

ER: Getting more guys than necessary out there to do some shoving was really not necessary, as the purpose of the Lawlor segment should have only been to build excitement for Makowski/Hoodfoot. That match is something to be excited about, and I left the segment excited for it, but everything else distracted from that excitement. 

Derek Neal vs. Gary Jay

PAS: This didn't work for me, the striking had a real Lisa Simpson windmill feeling, and there were some New Japan forearms and even a knife edge chop. It had some nice energy and Neal threw a good clothesline, but it felt out of the style and too many thing didn't land but got sold anyway.

ER: This didn't bother me as badly as it did Phil, but you know when Phil breaks out the Lisa Simpson reference that he is getting ready to really hate something. I don't know what part of the match those punches are referring to, as it's a tough criticism to levy towards a match with no closed fists allowed. When you're only allowed slaps (technically), you are going to be walking that fine line between hard strikes and "kids having a slap fight with 90% of them missing". And from the looks of this match, they landed in that unfortunate valley of strikes that likely really hurt, without actually looking good. That's a shame, because you could see how hard Neal was laying things in with his clubbing shots to Jay's back, and I liked the big powerbomb Neal used to start the match. He has 60 pounds on Jay, hell yes he should Sapp him up into a powerbomb. That kind of stuff worked for me, and I also liked how Neal kept getting solid knockdowns for the first minute: That powerbomb, a kind of waterwheel suplex, a couple of strikes, good way to keep Jay down early. But by the time they started in with bad looking chops and some real bad looking Jay roaring elbows, I was ready for it to be over. I'm sure it's possible to hit a cool roaring elbow that would fit right into the vibe of a Paradigm match, but these elbows wouldn't have looked good in any setting. 

Dominic Garrini vs. Matt Justice

PAS: This was really cool, and a great main event for a season premier. Garrini had only lost once in this style, to Hoodfoot, and Justice had been a guy working primarily superfights against UFC guys. Garrini controlled early with grappling, although Justice showed some skill there including a great gator roll and some really nasty elbows to the side of the head. We get a camera close up of the shots and they were brutal. They get back to their feet and Garrini shoots right into a KO knee. Felt like it was building to something bigger before being suddenly finished, and I liked how it really felt out of nowhere.

ER: Really impressed with both guys here, but it's hard to not be more impressed with Justice. Justice went for a single leg to start and really took a grappling match right to Dom, an ambitious strategy against a world class grappler with a notable gas tank. Dom is really good at being calm and cool on the mat, using his low gravity to put a lot of weight on Justice, to tire Justice out. Justice decides to break this by throwing two brutal back elbows at Garrini's head and face, another that scraped hard across Dom's face, and then rained down with a few more after shifting positions. On a weekly show filled with stiff strikes, these elbows were among the heaviest blows we've seen. The finish was so so, as Dom gets his hands way out in front of the knee that leads right to the finish. I obviously can't really blame anyone for not diving face first into a KO knee, but still a match finishing knee needs to look like a knee that will lead to a finish. Still, I love these guys, and would love to see this run back. 

ER: You could make the case that this episode was the best episode of the UWFI rules series so far, with nearly all of the matches delivering at minimum something memorable. We added Hoodfoot/Akira to our 2021 Ongoing MOTY List. 

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