Found Footage Friday: SAVAGE~! LAWLER~! MABEL~! PCO~! TAKER~! MANKIND~! JARRETT~! RAZOR~!

Jerry Lawler vs. Randy Savage Memphis 3/23/85 (Jonesboro)

MD: I'm not going to wax poetic on the WWE Vault finding this. You know. We live in amazing times.

The match itself was very interesting. Savage had turned a couple of times during his primary Memphis run and he was a familiar face and he was over. He had Newman with him. He was clearly the heel. The fans were still split. So they did everything they could to present Lawler as worth cheering and Savage as worth booing. To start, they had Lawler break clean at every point and get the best of Savage on rope running exchanges. 

After Lawler got a knee up in the corner, and raised his hands to show he meant for it to be a legal attack, Savage went out, got on the mic. Then Lawler did the same complaining about Tux, then Tux got to talk, and Savage again, and they went around with it, really laying out the case that you should cheer Lawler and boo Savage, even if it didn't look like that at face value. And then, when they got back into the ring, Lawler nailed Savage on the break, but by now, it was fully established how much he deserved it and how Lawler had tried to play nice first. On the next break, Lawler stepped on Newman's hand on the apron instead. The fans want to see the babyface hit hard and clown the heel and they built to it coming off as a pure babyface move and nothing petty or spiteful. 

Then of course, they inverted it by having Savage freak out about Newman getting stomped, run around with a chair, and get a cheapshot in on the next break. Unlike Lawler, though, Savage celebrated as if he'd accomplished something monumental. Suddenly, the crowd wasn't split anymore. They were booing Savage. Pretty masterful stuff. 

Because they had to tear things down and then build it all back up, Savage didn't really take over until around twenty minutes in and he did with a clever bit of misdirection with Tux and his cane. From there, things were pretty wild with Lawler coming back a couple of times and the fight spilling out to the audience. Incredibly crowd pleasing stuff with rapid fire slamming of heads into turnbuckles and grounded punches. Lawler turned Tux interference back on Savage one last time and hit the fist drop for a definitive win. Post match, he ALMOST got his hands on Tux but had to fight off three other heels instead (and he did to the crowd's delight). Really brilliant stuff overall in how they ensured that the crowd was exactly where they wanted them.

ER: To think there was a time in my fandom that I would have been bored by something like this. Savage, avoiding contact to rile up the half of the crowd who hates him while simultaneously appealing to the half who adores him, an incredible cross section of fans that not only allows this match its beautiful slow burn, but encourages it. This was 20 minutes of slow burn and shifting allegiances with men actually pleading their case on the house mic far more than hitting each other. They get so much mileage out of Savage just going out to the floor and getting upset, with little bits of in-ring character like Lawler popping his head up and down for four straight dropdowns while Savage sprinted back and forth over him. 

All the bullshit started breaking down when Savage finally started hitting Lawler and Lawler caught a Savage kick, hopping him out to the center of the ring, holding Savage's leg high up on his chest and drawing it out before finally tipping and fistdropping him in one move. Savage then catches Lawler's leg the same exact way and goes  through the same routine, only this ends with a Lawler enziguiri (a great one!). The misdirection around Tux Newman getting his cane to Savage and everything that happened after that was the kind of fire you want to see from a Lawler/Savage match. The way Savage punched Lawler all around ringside was filmed so perfectly it's as if they purposely took the brawl in front of the cameras, without actually doing that. It was just Savage giving everyone some close up magic and popping Lawler in the forehead around each side of the ring, these individual reared back shots every 10 feet, then hitting a big axe handle to the floor, then another. It's an honest to god miracle that he didn't blow out his knee until his mid-40s because he was just jumping onto concrete on every show for 15 years with or without cameras present. 

Savage is battering Lawler, and it all turns into one of the great turnbuckle smashing comebacks. Savage is bashing Lawler's head into the buckles, and they start coming a little slower with a little more resistance. The sixth time Savage is actively working to get Lawler's face to the buckle, and by the seventh Lawler has fully blocked it, and the crowd is here for it. When the strap comes down, Lawler's back is to the camera so we get to see Savage react to it, and Savage's eyes are the perfect eyes to be reacting to the strap coming down. We get them in shocking HD and it plays like such a famous clip that you'd think we'd have been seeing it in highlight videos for 40 years. Lawler's fistdrop off the middle buckle is as good as you can actually do a fistdrop...but his earlier missed fistdrop into the mat and subsequent sell might have been even better. Just another classic match we didn't realize existed until the last week. 

WWF House Show Footage

Mabel vs. Pierre MSG 11/26/94

MD: Really enjoyed this one. Pierre looked as good as anyone in the company at this point. He flew all over the place for Mabel early, timing all of his stooging perfectly and just bumping big given his size. One bit of punishment after the next. The transition was great. Mabel tried to suplex him back into the ring (and this didn't seem like a huge effort considering what he'd already done to him) and Pierre dropped straight down to the floor from the apron, causing Mabel to get hotshotted onto the top rope.

Then all of Pierre's offense was equally good, maybe too good, because the crowd was starting to go for him despite him working them a bit. Thankfully, they still went for Mabel on the comeback (reversing things on the floor to post Pierre) and Mabel hit two or three big things on the way out. Just a strong, larger than life undercard house show match.

ER: I love Mabel, ADORE Mabel, I will always back the big man...but HERE is a damn Quebecer Pierre performances if ever there was. It's no secret PCO is insane - it's been his main brand for a decade now - but I don't remember him going this hard in New Generation Raw matches, let alone on house shows. This was a man working UP to MSG, taking bumps that put 1-2-3 Kid to shame and hitting offense like a truck. I loved the layout of this, where it looked like the whole thing was going to be Pierre getting tossed repeatedly. He gets thrown so violently to the floor on the first lock up that there is no way he was able to work like this night in and night out....a thing one could have said before we found out how much he loves falling from great heights. Mabel suplexes him like it's nothing, throws him into the air with a high back body drop, really slamming him at will. 

Pierre turns the tide by stopping a suplex into the ring by throwing his body weight back and stunning Mabel on the top rope as he drops to the floor yet again. Then we get this great mix of Pierre trying to tame this sea beast by jumping all over Mabel's back, and taking big bumps as he's swatted away. He takes a back drop to the floor and responds by running up the nearest turnbuckle and hitting a real heat seeking missile of a dropkick. It always feels unsustainable, only a matter of time before Mabel would catch him again, and when he does it's just as great as before. Pierre takes an even higher backdrop than before, kicks out of the spinning heel kick but gets crushed by an avalanche, than takes his well earned time wobbling to the center of the ring and back, turning around to get flattened by a Mabel crossbody. 

Undertaker vs. Mankind Meadowlands 7/5/96

MD: I haven't seen any of the Taker vs. Mankind  stuff in a while and I wasn't quite prepared for where they were at this point in the feud. I don't remember Taker's shots ever looking quite this good for one thing. I don't know if that was Mankind leaning into them or Taker just laying them in because he was used to working him. 

This kept moving quite steadily, with Taker controlling for the first half but never in a straight line. Mankind would take over for a few shots and get cut off. He'd lose focus and start chasing Bearer. He'd go for a chair only for Taker to get it instead. He'd knock him over the rail only for him to come flying back with a clothesline. 

When he did really start to lean on Taker, he couldn't put him away. Taker punched out of the Mandible Claw in a great bit. He'd kick out of everything else and eventually Mankind lost focus again and started to hit himself and slam his head against the turnbuckle. Even then, even as he shot a choke up to stop the second Claw, Taker had to really fight for the comeback and it ended up as a pretty complete experience for everyone watching. A good entry into their series. 

ER: I shouldn't be surprised by Foley going this hard on a house show, but seeing it in HD it's shocking how much damage he took in front of a bunch of New Jersey sickos who knew how much of a sicko he was. If you ever look at Foley's schedule over '95-'98 and see a house show match like this, you'll wonder how his body didn't give out the first few months of his WWF schedule. When Foley started in WWF he was still making trips back and forth to Japan, going back and forth to take sick beatings on opposite sides of the globe. I guess his body was just conditioned to it by that point but I was still surprised how hard Taker was laying it in and how bad Foley's bumps got. It's obvious Taker is hitting him hard from the bell, clubbing him hard on the back of the neck and throwing tighter strikes than I associate with 1996 Undertaker. 

But then the chairshots start, which are much harder than 1996 WWF chair shots, and it all peaks with Foley taking his backwards bump off the apron to the guardrail...but this lunatic lands back-of-head first into the thickest bottom rail of the guardrail, and the leap back was FAR. The leap backward being so far is probably what led to his body not flying into the railing itself, but flying backward just to whip the most tender part of your head into the thickest steel...that's a guy who should be working 180 matches a year right there. That bump would concuss and give brain damage to most men, but it doesn't even slow Foley down. He still takes more crazy bumps on the floor, including a great one over the railing, off a chair and onto the concrete, which seemed to signal to the Meadowlands crowd that he really was doing this for them, as the chants for Foley started to have a One Of Us feel to them the more damage he took. Awesome fight. Foley really did himself a minor disservice by focusing on his goofy "having fun with Owen" house show matches in his first book, because I had no idea there were hard performances like this out there. I, of course, should have known. 

Jeff Jarrett vs. Razor Ramon Montreal 10/21/94

MD: Most of the Hall I've seen lately has either been 90-91 Puerto Rico or 88 NJPW so it's weird to see him as Razor. This went a few directions I wasn't quite expecting and I think, as much as anything else, it was them trying things. They had wrestled a few times earlier in the year but this was fairly early in their 'marriage' that would last a while.

It's funny because I buy it out of 2025 Jarrett, but I'm not sure I was feeling the strut here. Much more gripping and organic was the way that he paintbrushed Ramon's head after taking him down a few times. All of that paid off so well with him running right into Ramon's open handed slam and bumping huge. Beautiful stooging and feeding. He'd subsequently get knocked out, come back strong, and run right into the fall away slam and Ramon paintbrushing him a bit in return.

Once he took over, he controlled primarily through some nice cutoffs (an enziguiri, dropkicks, corner whips, a nice punch, etc). They really did a great job of building the hope spots, getting bigger and more elaborate each time until Ramon finally punched his way through it all only to get redirected over the top. Ramon controlled out there but Jarrett reversed a whip for a cheap (but effective count out). 

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Matches from Jimmy Lloyd's American Wasteland 2/17/22

2 Cold Scorpio vs. Slim J 

ER: This is a real dream match. The most impactful highflyer of all time and maybe the most underrated American wrestler of the last 20 years, finally locking it up. Slim J has been wrestling so long and still somehow isn't even knocking on 40's door, meanwhile Scorpio is still out here Jungle Boogying in his mid-50s. Scorpio is slower now and makes up for it by hitting as hard as ever, so this was about Slim trying to outquick him but still getting tagged and flattened. I love Scorpio as a big bully, and there was a lot of that here. He ran over Slim so hard with a clothesline, flipping him into next week and then flipping his own double legdrop right across Slim's torso. Scorp doesn't fly as much now, so instead he just lights up Slim with punches and vicious clinch knees to the body. Slim took all of Scorp's offense really well, and even paid attention to selling his own offense, like how he sold his own neck and top of his head after dazing 2 Cold with a jawbreaker. Slim's flying didn't hit with the crispness it normally does and I couldn't tell if it was Scorpio leaning out of the corkscrew moonsault and crossbody or if Slim was holding back, but Scorpio's selling throughout left a lot to be desired. There were several times where he just kind of stood in place waiting to take something. There were still other little things Scorp did that showed his cool instincts, like when he dropped a heavy leg and hooked Slim's legs when they reflexively popped up, and I cannot freaking believe that the man is still doing the Tumbleweed. That's pure insanity, and Slim is probably just as insane for taking it. 

Matthew Justice vs. PCO

ER: I wrote about Scorpio's match, so it only makes sense to write about another guy in his mid-50s who I watched on TV when I was 12. I never had Honor Club so I didn't see PCO during that era, but it's clear nothing has changed. He is a stiff moving goon who will take real damage, and Matthew Justice is a guy who always damages his body for the people. Justice is going to take a backdrop on the floor, get speared off the ring apron through a door, obviously he's going to do a big splash off the weird Aerial Assault Cube affixed to one ringpost that was only used one time in the Aerial Assault Scramble earlier in the night, and he's also the guy who will rush to hug a seated woman who he accidentally bounced a door off of. The longer it goes, the more it becomes about Justice taking damage and refusing to stay down, taking two gross PCO somersault sentons while laid out on a table that refused to break even just a little bit. Justice had a large man bounce off his body twice, and PCO was crazy enough to do that off the top, not get the result he wanted, and immediately decide to do it again (to the same result). I always get hyped when Justice does his one count kickout, and after PCO hit his unhinged moonsault the kickout was a good one. I also like Justice because that kickout usually doesn't mean he's just going to get up and shrug off everything that's happened to him. He uses that kickout last a desperation strap removal, psyching himself up as much as he's psyching up his fans. He still gets brained with a chair, but he went down like Matthew Justice. 

Jimmy Jacobs vs. Effy

ER: I think this is a pretty great pairing and I liked the match a lot. It felt like the big stuff really ramped up down the stretch, although I liked this a lot more when all of the chairs weren't involved. Jacobs went to the spike almost immediately in a weird violent Bugs Bunny spot, letting Effy go down on him under his skirt so he can tap him on the shoulder and spike him in the head. The spike stuff was all great, loved the visuals when Jacobs ran across the ring and stuck it in the turnbuckle when Effy moved, but then moved out of the way when Effy came flying in and almost tore his sac open on that spike. I don't want to see Effy get his sac torn up, personally, but flying towards a spike ass first and legs spread eagle is a good way to tempt that fate. Luckily, he only got hung up by a leg and it's a gift to us, as being hung upside down made the blood flow more. Jacobs's offense looks as tight as ever, like his perfect kneedrop to the back of Effy's head, smacking it down into a chair, and the camel clutch hooking Effy's chin with the back of a chair was gross. All of the big spots on a stack of chairs looked incredibly painful, but I think it hurt the flow of the match a lot. It meant a lot more time in between the violence, and I thought this was really singing when it was Jacobs working a cut while Effy started working over his back. I would have liked to see that play out more, but I do appreciate the punishment. 

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New Footage Friday: You Can Never Break the Chain

Franz Van Buyten vs. Johnny South Hamburg 9/22/91

PAS: South is gritty looking guy, sort of a less skilled Terry Rudge. These Van Buyten Piratekamf matches definitely have a formula, Van Buyten takes a big beating at the beginning, does a couple of big leverage spots to keep his opponent from climbing the poll, and then has a fiery comeback. The South beatdown here was on the more brutal side then normal, with Van Buyten getting some nasty looking cuts and abrasions on his nose, and Van Buyten's comebacks are always great. I enjoy good formula wrestling, although I am interested to see if any of these new matches deviate at all.

SR:Well, it‘s 1991. Van Buyten was 4 years away from retirement, and Johnny South, while having a reputation for being a really good worker on British TV in the 80s, was slowly morphing into a Road Warrior clone as European wrestling was dying. Piratenkampf magic was at play here, though. It‘s weird how chain matches that start with something that resembles chain-assisted shootstyle before devolving into a series of drawn out nearfalls over tugging on the chain can work so well, but here we are. The grappling feels really intense with neither guy being willing to give an inch as that might mean he‘d have to spend a few minutes in a painful chain-assisted facelock. South was feeling it here, working a bit like a quasi-Finlay working over Franzs body parts with chain assisted moves and giving him a beating. Franz is of course someone who will sell really well for a guy working like Johnny South here. One thing I am fascinated by is that even after watching Franz in a few chain matches, is that he always does something to mix it up. You watch him and start to notice his spots that he has, and then he will catch you off guard by doing something different. It‘s the mark of a great formula worker that his signature match doesn‘t get old. This was pretty lean at about 20 minutes and since it ended with an interference spot before Franz challenges a young PCO in his Zubaz pants to another Piratenkampf. Weird to have a grudge match set up another grudge match but I‘m not complaining and this was an unexpected nice late career moment for Johnny South.

MD: Super minimalist affair. South spent the first half really leaning on Van Buyten, using the chain to enhance his rudimentary holds and strikes onto a limb. He'd wrap the chain around an arm or leg and just hammer or knee the chain. Van Buyten would have little comebacks whenever he could create distance but he couldn't follow up as South would just goozle him again. He was credible and imposing but not exactly dynamic. He could pretty much get away with just dropping knees on a bleeding Van Buyten. With these matches, a wrestler can get the crowd manipulation equivalent of a hope spot by pulling someone off the pole but that it doesn't mean you can follow up, so it's a nice little narrative tool. As the match went on, Van Buyten's hope spots added in more offense until he finally fully came back with chain assisted punches and was able to go for the pole. It wasn't the most triumphant Van Buyten comeback I've ever seen but the gradual nature of it made it all a bit more nuanced than usual. The back third of the match was all about Van Buyten fighting for victory on the top rope, hanging on to the pole, and it was full of compelling visuals and the crowd being really into it, with a great final flourish that the camera only half caught, but all felt a bit one-sided and maybe even unearned relative to how the first half of the match went.


Franz Van Buyten vs. Wild Carl Wallace Hamburg 9/29/91

SR: Carl Wallace, a young PCO, was another Canadian worker staying in Europe to learn the business. I‘ve seen him have some fun interactions on the (otherwise pretty awful) New Catch show that aired on Eurosport, but I had no idea he stayed in Hamburg let alone that he fought Franz in a Piratenkampf. This had an unusual amount of the face being in control in the opening, I assume to kill time as Wallace wasn‘t super versed in what to do with this gimmick. We do get Franz twisting up Wallaces leg a bit and putting on a chain assisted Fuchi leg stretch. It‘s weird that a chain match opening with grappling and holds works well, but it makes sense when you think about it. Getting your leg worked over sucks, getting your leg worked over with a chain seems downright torturous. PCO quickly finds his groove though as he steps the rope onto Van Buytens throat and then continues to work over him with chain punches while his partner Crawford was outside yelling at Van Buyten in French and cheering PCO on to tug harder when it came to grabbing the flag. Van Buyten looked convincingly beaten to a pulp after eating some elbows and leg drops from PCO before starting his trademark great comeback. Once again there was a nifty spot that involved someone getting launched off the top rope that got a big pop, and because PCO was young and eager he took a big flip bump for his troubles. The ending was more extended than the South match with van Buyten smashing Wallace in the face repeatedly with forearms before PCO misstimes a bodyslam and lands on his own head which feels like the most shocking finish any of these Piratenkampfs had so far. I have no idea how a ca. 1991 PCO would fare in a regular match this long, but in with this stipulation and Van Buyten as the opponent there are no limits.

PAS: You can definitely tell that PCO is greener then goose shit in this match, but the Piratekamf formula can integrate that pretty seamlessly. You don't need to be super experienced to wrap a chain around someones mouth, and that is always going to look awesome. PCO is of course one of the great physical freaks in wrestling and he demonstrates that by hitting a huge flip bump off the top rope, and taking an Oro bump on a bodyslam. Some of his punches and elbows could have used work, but we had the great Van Buyten comeback and some really cool fights over the flag.

MD: This one, just a week later from the last, was a lot more dynamic and a lot more complete. It had an early period where Van Buyten was clearly in control, utilizing holds enhanced by the chain but with a tangible sense of struggle. WCW (PCO in his early-mid 20s) took over with a hairpull and a lot of chain-assisted punches and choking. Very credible if very simple offense. He already had a great physical presence in tossing his body into blows. Van Buyten excels at creating a triumphant moment of comeback, and later in the match, he absolutely created one here by running across the ring and diving away while WCW was going for the flag, causing WCW to take a physics-defying flip bump off the top. From there it was a back and forth slugfest, with Van Buyten selling the weight of the match, especially when going for the flag, before spiking WCW on his head to allow for the finish. While WCW brought a lot of physical tools and enthusiasm to the table, you do get the sense that Van Buyten could do this match with just about anyone in the world.


Shank vs. Terry Knight NWA Wildside 10/21/00

MD: It's a little bit tricky going from Germany to this, if only because the Piratekampf rules of using the pole are just better than the four corner touching. The weirdest moment in this was when Knight did the same sort of leap away from the corner as Van Buyten did in the PCO match, but instead of it being a huge moment, it was just a momentary cut-off on a babyface and Shank was right back in it a moment later. The transition to the outside where Knight pulled him out was utilized better, but again, it didn't stick. I generally liked Knight here. I thought he did some interesting things with the chain, like wrapping it around his own knee, even if maybe he wrestled this a little too evenly. It was very back and forth, which it really didn't have to be given the arrest finish (which is one of those things they used repeatedly, I think, and probably sounded like a good idea on paper, but...). Specific moments were okay here, but nothing stuck. Whereas with the Van Buyten matches, everything sticks.

ER: This starts with a custom Shank sonnet written on a half roll of toilet paper all about how he was going to have Terry Knight's ass, how he bought him for two cigarettes and a roach clip, and we are immediately reminded of Shank: Babyface. The match itself has moments, but overall doesn't really work. It's too long, and the tapping turnbuckles kind of structure doesn't work with a babyface like Shank. The best parts of this are both guys punching with their fists wrapped in chain (Shank has those kind of mostly good punches that you know means the other guy is paying the price the better they look), and Knight even wraps his knee in chain for a kneelift! I also love Shank matches where he gets in over his head on offense, tries things he probably shouldn't be trying, like a wild guillotine legdrop. But Shank is a wildcard and shouldn't be put in matches with silly rules, so the visual of Shank trying to smack turnbuckles in succession makes him look silly. And even sillier, they had Knight carry him around the ring while hitting buckles and had Shank hit them after, and the visual of another man just carrying Shank around like a baby is a position they never should have put him in. Shank can't be just carried by some oversized Mitch Ryder! The arrest finish was a fun idea on paper, and I think would have worked great if Shank had just completely massacred Knight, really needed to look like he was murdering him with that chain. Instead the worked a completely competitive match with Knight being just as dominant as Shank, so most of this sadly didn't work for me.

PAS: I am the high voter on this match. Shank is one of my favorite characters in wrestling ever. A giant muscled up tatted guy who worked a babyface prison rapist gimmick. The poem written on a roll of toilet paper where he lovingly describes sodomizing Knight is a true moment in time. He isn't really a polished wrestler, but has an almost early Goldberg feel to a lot of his offense, it doesn't look controlled, but really looks spectacular and really looks like it hurts. That top rope leg drop was incredible and super violent. I thought there were a lot of nifty moments in this, like Shank wrapping his leg around the chain to block Knight from reaching the buckle, and Knight wrapping Shank's broken arm around the ringpost with the chain. I agree the finish was dumb, but I really enjoyed everything before that.

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2018 Ongoing MOTY List: PARK vs. PCO

75. LA Park vs. PCO MLW 10/4 (Aired 10/26/18) - GREAT

ER: I saw reports saying these two "under delivered" and I guess...I would have no idea what actual match people would have been expecting to see out of two 50 year olds, to then view the match as underwhelming. This had everything I expected and more, a compact hard hitting match relying on the charisma and craziness of both men. Both guys slam with hard shoulderblocks, Park eats some big shots including a stiff kick to the stomach, PCO hits his old guy moonsault and a big dive that crashes Park into the guardrail and sends the guardrail crashing into fans. That right there would have left me satisfied with the match. But we get the expected Park belt whipping, a big Park dive to give PCO his own chance to crash into the guardrail, and a great spot where Park catches a PCO kick and smashes him with a headbutt, then a lariat. I don't think I've seen Park use a headbutt that often, and it looked awesome here. They work Park's missed bump in the corner nicely, with Park doing his great upside down turnbuckle bump, allowing PCO to go back on control and hit a powerbomb and running knee strike. But as Park rolls to the apron, PCO - and this is part of why I have no idea what any actual reasonable person could have expected from this match - crashes and burns as he whiffs on a cannonball off the top, banking off the edge of the apron. Crazy bump for anyone to take, definitely a bump that shouldn't be taken by a 50 year old. Park's spear is a good finish, because Park has a fantastic spear. This delivered what I wanted it to deliver.

PAS: I think this could have used blood, and maybe a slightly quicker pace, but otherwise this was pretty rad. There are a lot of dives in wrestling now, but these are two guys who now how to make a dive look like it hurts. The PCO dive to the apron is a psychotic bump for a 180 pound 25 year old, much less a 300 pound 51 year old, and that PARK plancha which followed it up looked like it broke PCO's neck. PCO is a guy who sometimes suffers in between the big spots, but PARK is a guy who is great at filling space. Fun stuff well worth checking out if MLW fell through the cracks for you.


2018 MOTY MASTER LIST

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WWF Raw 2/9/98: A Good Episode of Wrestling TV

I threw on this episode of Raw because I wanted to see the cruiser tag, but I found myself captivated by what looked like a top to bottom rock solid pro wrestling card. Every match looked fun on paper, figured I would dive back into my teens.

Jeff Jarrett/Barry Windham vs. Legion of Doom WWF Raw 2/9/98

ER: How did I not remember the killer fast working cutthroat big bumping tag team of Jeff Jarrett and Barry Windham? I very much remember the bad NWA reboot, but forgot we got actual cool tag teams with them, where Jarrett looked flat out the best he ever looked (work wise, look wise, everything). This is a flat out 1985 NWA tag match taking place on 1998 WWF TV, and it's great. Windham and Jarrett were an awesome team that didn't get enough of a chance, and this whole tag played like a stiff old guy brawl. LOD and Windham are all 38 and up, which was old for this era WWF. But Hawk worked stiff the whole match, dropping Windham with a heavy Thesz press and punching him right in the ear, and later throwing chops to Jarrett that looked like backhands right across Jarrett's face. Windham bumped around for LOD but also gave right back, hitting a couple great lariats and his best punch of the match right on the floor while close to some fans. The crowd was lit up for LOD the whole match. Neither Hawk or Animal were working any complicated power spots here, but they were working quick and throwing themselves into punches and shoulderblocks. Hawk took a really nasty bump for the finish, charging into the ringpost and falling to the floor. The crowd was already into LOD, just two big dudes in face paint running into people would have been enough, but Hawk is out here taking bumps like this. Cornette comes out and we get a hard racket shot, and Bradshaw runs out and looks as pissed and dangerous as peak Stan Hansen. this was great TV tag wrestling.

Pierre vs. Henry Godwinn

ER: A slow burning hoss battle and a rare singles match appearance from 1998 Pierre, who takes several crazy bumps. Both guys hit hard, really swinging limbs into each other, and Pierre kicks things up a notch with a bonkers no hands tope that falls a little short, so the big man just does a gigantic belly flop to the floor. Godwinn takes a nice spill to the floor, too, but here's Pierre taking a big lariat over the top to the floor, missing a huge in ring cannonball, and getting super height on a backdrop. They kept a real pace here, really filling the minutes with a lot more movement than I expected from two tag guys. This was a big man's match where the misses were just important as the hits, and both landed heavy.

Pantera/Brian Christopher vs. Taka Michinoku/Aguila

ER: This show is an easy 3 for 3 so far. This match got 6 big minutes and everyone here made the most of those minutes. Pantera gets catapulted over the top and gets big air before crashing hard, and then Christopher gets backdropped to the floor, with Pantera taking a somersault bump into him after getting dropkicked off the apron. Aguila hits a killer corkscrew plancha, Taka hits one of his breathtaking no hands springboard planchas; this was a hot freaking match and the crowd was reacting well. Christopher had a long heel control segment on Aguila that was real good, and I forgot how strong the reactions were for Aguila. There's a great moment where Christopher narrowly ducks a high arcing, 2/3 across the ring Aguila moonsault press, and Aguila grazes vertically over the top of him and lands belly first on the mat. The finish was a great Memphis finish, with Christopher digging in under his balls to pull out a fake weapon, and Pantera shoving the crotch weapon into the nose of his mask. Pantera leaps off the middle buckle right into Taka, and Taka bumps as if he just got hit in the face with a sock of nickels. High end WWF cruiser match for the time. Pantera had this incredible 6 match run in 1998, bounced, then came back for more a year later. I'd love to know who was asking about Pantera every year.  

Ken Shamrock/Chainz vs. The Rock/Faarooq

ER: I really liked Chainz here, he of arguably the dumbest WWF wrestling name of 1998. But he hit with big clubbing hands to the side of Rock's ear, took a nice Nation beatdown, and took a big bump over the top and into the guardrail. Faarooq had a nice powerslam and took Shamrock's sillier MMA strikes (he still hadn't figured out punches, but his kicks were thrown nicely), and Shamrock hits a really cool standing rana. Rock stooged around nicely and took advantage of cheating with such confidence, he was really operating at peak heel power already. House show Rock was probably amazing during this period. The match ends with a DQ when Rock absolutely obliterates Shamrock's brain cells with a chairshot. Good lord. Rock swings a chair right into the flat of the forehead and this was a 19 fucking 98 chairshot indeed.

Steve Blackman vs. Recon

ER: This ruled. Blackman does a bunch of karate blocks and chops and a big armdrag, and suddenly the Truth Commission's (genuinely great, almost John Carpenter influenced) music starts up and Jackal gets lowered from the ceiling speaking over the house mic from a podium. He cuts this wild Jim Jones promo about how the WWF fears him, and Blackman and Recon bizarrely have a match like they have no idea it's going on. They don't stop once to look over at Jackal's sermon, just continue having a very normal (and very fun) match. It's so weird!! Blackman comes off as a more interesting worker than Shamrock at this point (though he has no crowd connection whatsoever. He steadfastly refuses to acknowledge anybody other than his opponent), and here he's awesomely and robotically going through every single move he knows, landing weird elbow drops, high spinkicks, a fast sunset flip, and finishing with a cool rings of Saturn variation. The whole presentation of this was strange in a great way.

Goldust vs. Thrasher

ER: This is the late 90s, and so Goldust is dressed as Marilyn Manson (and really is wearing almost the exact same gear Charly Manson would later use), and we have to hear JR obnoxiously call him "Marilyn Manson Dust" the entire match. I hated how he said it every time. Mare-uhh-lenn MAN-sun Dust. We don't get too many Thrasher singles matches, and this is a unique match up, and a Goldust singles match is almost always going to work even if it's Goldust working with a stupid wig. They do oddly get mixed up on who is supposed to be the heel, with Mosh choking Goldust from the floor and Goldust getting a babyface comeback right after. But this match had Goldust throwing several great punches, Thrasher hitting a cool springboard back elbow, a nice Goldust hotshot on the barricade, the kind of stuff I wanted to see.

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Monday AIW - Ain't Nothing But a Gangster Party 4/20/18

43. Eddie Kingston vs. PCO

PAS: Another fun stop on the PCO indy tour. Kingston is a great opponent for PCO because he is going to bring the structure and selling to a match focused around a crazy old man being nuts. Kingston is great at selling frustration early as PCO outfoxes him, and when they start to lay in shots they really lay them in. This is basically like a Big Japan tubby guys slugfest, with Kingston adding in great selling to the fun of watching big guys hit each other. I liked how both guys mixed up their shots, with Kingston laying in the slaps and PCO hitting some nasty thrust punches to the ribs. I loved the PCO moonsault, really pretty and lands with a thud. I liked Kingston sneaking in a couple of big suplexes and a backfist to put him down. The match didn't need a bunch of near falls, and I dug it ending on a kill shot.

ER: I thought this was great, 12 minutes of two big guys pasting each other with nothing but hard shots. I thought this was one of the tightest of the PCO return matches, kept snug and reigned in, focusing way more on beating your opponent down instead of setting up stunt spots. PCO is a tough as nails 90s WWF guy, so Kingston appropriately where a 90s WWF jobber singlet and matches up absolutely perfectly. Every strike exchange worked for me big time, with big chops from both guys, PCO hitting nasty running elbows, Kingston throwing digestion disrupting kneelifts, and a fantastic moment where PCO ran wild on the ropes before hitting the hardest lariat he possibly could. These guys established they were going to kick each other's asses, and this was all ass kicking for the duration. The big moves were all spaced out nicely, and King's suplexes all looked finisher worthy - big heavy back suplexes and a huge German that sends PCO all the way over - while the PCO dives we build to at the end looked huge. PCO sends Kingston into the aisle with a big tope, then flattens him with a big tope con hilo and moonsault. They fit so much into the runtime, and Kingston was fantastic playing off PCO, thought all the stuff around his backfist was awesome, and he would pepper in "non moves" things like throwing a table in frustration early in the match. This looked like a perfect pairing on paper, and delivered in full.

MJF vs. Louis Lyndon

PAS: This was a pretty entertaining short match. The kind of thing which would get a thumbs up if it appeared on an episode of the Pro. MJF toned down his horseshit a bit and actually worked a wrestling match. I liked all of the arm work by both guys, although MJF didn't seem to be able to bump fully for Lyndon's fancy stuff( awkward landing on a reverse rana). I liked the finish with MJF taking advantage of the no rules stip by kicking Lyndon in the nuts and slapping on an armbar.

KTB vs. Tim Donst

PAS: Pretty fun big man match with Donst using the no-DQ rules to do some nasty spots with the ropes. I really liked when he when he tied KTB up into the ropes and bounced off them to spring KTB ribs first onto a chair. He also hit a nasty suplex into the corner and finished by wrapping him up in the ropes to make him tap. It never really kicked into third gear despite the punishment both guys took, which seems to be the pattern with Donst matches, although I did enjoy it.

Space Monkey vs. Gary Jay vs. Danhausen vs. Facade

PAS: As a rule I don't like multi man matches it is hard to hit every complex thing and it is difficult to build a match with lots of guys. They tend to stay at the same level without dips and peaks. I normally DO like AIW multi man matches, as it seems like a fed which frequently can overcome those problems. This one had more of the bad than the good though. Space Monkey comedy spots were probably the highlight of this match, and I really liked the bump Danhausen took on the banana peel. The concept of doing the Jacobs/Whitmer spike battle with a spike and banana is amusing, but still a match with comedy spots as a highlight - if it isn't a Brazos match - is going to be tough sledding for me.

PB Smooth vs. Eddy Only

PAS: This didn't jump out at me on paper, but was really enjoyable. Smooth is legitimately gigantic and has great potential, and having him work basically a handicap match against the entire Production really made him stand out. Only goes above and beyond to make him look great too, he gets posted and bleeds a gusher, takes huge bumps on all of PB's chokeslams and bombs, makes him really look like a force. Loved the spot where Smooth countered a tope by leaping up and catching him mid move and hanging him on the top rope. Frankie Flynn, Danhausen, Derek Director and Magnum CK all come into to get pinballed, and they finish by overwhelming him and smashing him with a ring rope hook. Smooth does get Shelton holed a bit, as Papa Shango comes out to Voodoo curse the production. Magnum CK really goes over the top in an entertaining way selling the black goop, what a pro that guy was.

ER: This one actually DID jump out on paper for me. I like mismatches and this sounded like a good one. When I was a kid and my dad let me rent a wrestling tape when we were at the video store renting Air America or some shit, I would always look for the Coliseum Videos with the weirdest matches. I wasn't angling for who could possibly be a "good" match, because my concept of what made a match good was wildly different at age 10. If I saw something like Doink vs. Giant Gonzalez on a tape, I was definitely getting that tape. And this match felt like a killer Coliseum Video exclusive. I'd get that tape going "There's no way Doink could last 1 minute against Gonzalez!" Well, sure, in a fair fight. This match had the exact kind of bells and whistles and I loved it. Eddy worked overtime here - as did all of the Production, really doing their part to set up cool moments for Smooth - and the match starts with Eddy getting caught on a sneak attack dive, getting lawndarted into the ringpost, and coming up bloody as hell. Hell yeah. Derek Director gets pump kicked in the chest, Magnum CK takes a somersault Arn bump and eats a back elbow, and we get bananas spots like Smooth palming Eddy's bloody head like a basketball and chokeslamming him, or getting him even higher on a traditional chokeslam, or - and this was the best spot of the match - leaping from the floor as Eddy was running towards the ropes, essentially dunking Eddy's neck right over the top rope. When the hell else has anybody done THAT?! Finish is Eddy absolutely crushing Smooth with a ring hook, totally bitchin finish for a No DQ match. Papa Shango's appearance clearly makes the Coliseum Video connection complete! This thing was like 5 minutes and they were the exact 5 minutes I wanted.

Cheech/Colin Delaney/Josh Prohibition/Jollyville Fuck Its vs. No Consequences (AJ Gray/Tre Lamar/Chase Oliver/Gary "The King" Baller/Joshua Bishop)

PAS: No Consequences had one of my favorite matches of 2017 their 10 man against a veteran squad at Absolution, and this is a similar style. This is a no rules show, and it starts with the Fuck It's coming from the back and jumping No Consequences and it is basically a stiff brawl on the outside interspersed with some crazy dives. T-Money who is a big dude opens up the diving with a nutso superman plancha, and it just gets crazier. Cheech flies into the audience, and then gets the back of his head busted open when he misses a ring apron DDT. Chase Oliver hits a couple of crazy dives, Joshua Bishop gets pounced into a contraption of carpet tacks, and the vet team ends up destroying AJ Gray with a money maker on a chair and then a Russ Myer cannonball through a table. Gray did a great convulsion sell during this, which really put over the brutality. This whole show had a very ECW vibe, and this was that kind of craziness at its best.

ER: This doesn't quite reach the heights of their 2017 masterpiece, but there is so much damn greatness throughout that it doesn't matter a bit. This was a wild 10 man brawl, with insane dives happening every minute, hard punches, mean double teams, the kind of insanity you'd want from these nuts. Literally everything with Jollyville was perfection. Russ is a guy who may presently be my favorite wrestler to watch. He commits to everything, makes every punch count, doesn't skimp on kicks, and when the finish calls for an elbowdrop through a table this man is going to to fly in with that elbow like a satellite crashing to earth. T-Money is built solidly as hell, and hits like a freight train. His dive here is incredible, as he clears the top rope no hands style but stays horizontal. That's dangerous as hell as your body naturally wants to just torpedo you face first into the ground, but he keeps it level and crashes through everyone. They're my team, ride or die. There's some danger on some of the dives: Baller hangs on too long on a flip dive and almost brains himself on the apron, AJ Gray does an amazing tornillo but the catchers aren't quite there, but dives ARE dangerous so there's gonna be some danger! Oliver hits a bonkers moonsault to the floor and crushes Russ's esophagus with a cool chest breaker that saw him vault off the bottom rope, Delaney plants Lamar with a sick DDT on the apron (Cheech does the same and ends up getting a nasty cut on his head), Lamar hits an evil baseball slide dropkick through the ropes, Gray gets an awesome fired up babyface moment before his doom and throws a ton of great rapid fire punches to everyone that looked like he was trying to punch through their forehead. This one was a little more disjointed than their classic, a little messy, but these guys wear messy really well.

Mathew Justice vs. Ethan Page

PAS: This was sort of the Tommy Dreamer match for this ECW show. Lots of brawling in the crowd, and shots with water bottles and beer cans. Justice and Page both throw their bodies around a bunch in this match, landing weird on chairs and the floor, but I am not sure what it all means at the end. The match starts with Page insulting a fan on the mic and ends with a Dr. Dan run in, and this match is one of my only problems with AIW which is the punishment that guys take in matches that don't mean much. Really violent show, but too many matches built around punishing bumps minimizes each bump.

Weird World vs. Philly Marino Experience vs. Young Studs vs. #Duke Money

PAS: This was a comedy garbage match with some guys bleeding like pigs and taking huge bumps for what was basically for yuks. It's starts out with PME and Duke Money having a tag match, but a couple of minutes in the Studs come from the back and start brawling, and then a couple minutes after that Natural Born Killaz starts playing and Weird World comes out dressed like the Gangstas with a shopping cart full of weapons. It is pretty crazy throughout, with Eric Ryan legdropping a shopping cart, guys getting mauled with cheese graters and thumbtacks. It certainly had energy, and the spectacle of it made it memorable, but one after another with big violent spectacles, tends to burn me out.

Tracy Williams/Dominic Garrini vs. Nick Gage/Tom Lawlor

PAS: This was worked as a No DQ brawl like the rest of the show, but they distinguished themselves by really laying it in. Lawlor especially was just pasting people, huge superman punches, big kicks, as he was trying to take out Garrini who broke his arm earlier in the year. The coolest stuff in the match was when they mixed some shootstyle into the brawling, including Williams sinking in a tight choke, Garrini countering a Lawlor superman punch with a flying triangle, and Lawlor removing his armpad and beating Garrini bloody with his cast (Garrini did a pretty obvious blade job, which was a problem in his awesome Mania weekend match too, big Garrini fan but he has to work on his close up magic.) Gage hung well in that atmosphere, as he came off as a Tank Abbot style MMA brawler. I thought the stuff with the thumbtacks and tables was unnecessary, in a vacuum it was fine but on a show where nearly every match had props, they would have been better off just having a wild stiff Murakami brawl. Still dug this a bunch. 


ER: Another AIW show, another Kingston match on our 2018 Ongoing MOTY List, and it genuinely feels like every single AIW show is treated like a big deal. They're the best.

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2018 Ongoing MOTY List: PCO vs. Homicide

96. PCO vs. Homicide MLW 7/19 (Aired 9/7/18)

ER: I think it's a smart move to have PCO's singles match debut not be a squash match. Instead MLW brings in Homicide for a one shot (well they also had him in their big battle royal that same day) and have these two beat the shit out of each other. Homicide works this match like he was the same size as PCO and brings the stiff work to back it up. PCO has no problem taking stupid bumps and working stiff, so clearly this is going to be a fantastic pairing. This is worked at a great pace (the best matches of the PCO revival have been the ones where his opponent pushes the pace) and it's nothing but the two crashing against each other a bunch of times. Hard shoulderblocks, clotheslines to necks, big yakuza kicks, kicks to the body, shots to the face, all of it metal as hell. PCO takes an exploder into the corner at a nasty angle, hits a great dive that smashes Homicide into the barricade, and we get a bunch of convincing nearfalls down the stretch. PCO takes the hardest shots Homicide has to offer, even taking the full force of a killer leaping Homicide knee from the middle rope. Homicide eats some big PCO chokeslams, and PCO just crushes him with his moonsault and a big splash, it was all great. This is my favorite PCO performance of the PCO comeback matches so far.

PAS: Homicide is really great at working at pace, this wasn't Corino or Teddy Hart level Homicide, but it was a quality example of what he brings to a match. We haven't has been as excited about the PCO run as other folks, but he is a unique presence, and his tope, moonsault, frog splash combo was great looking. I also loved the finish with both guys wailing away at each other, only for Homicide to run right into a great looking forearm which dimmed his lights. I still think the WALTER match is the best thing PCO has done this year, but this was quality stuff.


2018 MOTY MASTER LIST

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2018 Ongoing MOTY List: PCO vs. Walter 2

107. WALTER vs. PCO IWS 7/14

PAS: This was the rematch from the big Spring Break match which was PCO's breakout, and WALTER continues to be his best opponent.  We have had a big sample size of PCO matches at this point, enough to judge what he does best, and I think he is much more effective working from below, as an underdog taking a beating. He is a good bumper and willing to take a beating, and his offense works better in spurts then with a long control section (he had the worst Darby Allin match I have seen all year, and that seemed promising on paper.) IWS is Montreal based, so this was a homecoming, and the crowd was totally into PCO, with WALTER working straight heel. The chops in this were the main course, and WALTER just pulverized PCO's chest, PCO fired some nice ones too, but WALTER was on another level, WALTER also landed some unsafe chair shots and hit his John Woo dropkick which sent PCO flying into a chair with the back of his head. I don't love the Destro car battery hulk up, although it worked better here then in the Darby match, and I really dug his second hulk up where he just started punching chairs out of the air. Fun stuff, and I hope their Iowa match ends up showing up somehow.

ER: Babyface underdog PCO is really fun and it's great to see him on his home turf wrecking his body in super painful ways. Nothing garners sympathy like going against a man who, had he been a robot on Futurama, would likely be called Chopper. There can be yawning holes in PCO matches the longer they go, with extended prop set up, awkward moments of getting into position, and a now skippable Destro moment, but it helps when the parts of the match that aren't that are just two big guys clubbing each other. WALTER is really punishing here with his big chops and boots to the face, and I especially flipped for his running dropkick that sent PCO flying middle of spine first into the front of a seated chair, crushing it. WALTER murders him with a couple powerbombs, one through a table, but PCO fighting back was good fun. He gets reenergized, fires back with a ton of chops, hits his crazy guy tope, and starts punching thrown chairs out of the air (thrown by WALTER) before catching one, tossing it back, and punching WALTER right through it. PCO ends up winning with a huge moonsault while WALTER was buried under a half dozen chairs, and while I think the bloom is just about off the rose with him (for me), I can still get behind this kind of crazy, in the same way it was amusing seeing 50+ year old Terry Funk decide to do moonsaults.


2018 MOTY MASTER LIST

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MLW Worth Watching: Yehi! Holliday! Hart Foundation! Stud Stable! PCO! King!

Fred Yehi vs. Richard Holliday  MLW Fusion #21 7/19 (Aired 9/7/18)

ER: This works as both a cool showcase for Yehi, and a nice introduction to Holliday, of whom I know nothing about. Yehi doesn't squash him but never feels in trouble, and Holliday has a nice undeserved smugness to him, like a guy who would make sense teaming with MJF but taking all the pinfalls; a good entitled stooge. Yehi blocks a lot of his shots in fun ways, hits a hard shoulderblock, stomps his hand, does a couple leg sweeps that nobody else does, the kind of stuff you want to see Yehi doing. Holliday bumped around and acted perplexed by all of it, but still nicely worked in a couple pieces of offense; I really liked Yehi grabbing him with the trapped arm kicks to the chest and pushing him off, put Holliday blazing back off the ropes with an elbow. Holliday showed his egotistical charisma while clearly on the losing end, and I love a big mouthed jobber. Yehi grabs that Koji Clutch and Holliday starts tapping the second Yehi starts throwing shots. Nice touch.

The New Hart Foundation vs. The Stud Stable  MLW Fusion #23 9/6 (Aired 9/21/18)

ER: I would have liked to see this twice as long, but what we got was as good as I hoped it would be. Teddy Hart has been so great everywhere he's turned up this year, that right hand is just lighting everyone up. Pillman is green as hell but a good lackey for Davey Boy and Teddy, and I dug them basically using him as a way to distract Parrow, basically throwing him to the wolves so they can get in their licks. Parrow took a nice Nestea plunge bump off the apron into the Blondes and Hart hit a huge moonsault off the top onto all of them on the floor. Both Blondes take big suplexes well for big dudes (and Patrick takes a brutal Saito suplex from Davey) and they both throw out some nice offense. I'll pretty much be completely in the boat (is that a phrase? I don't know what the fuck I'm doing) for any tag team that does a tandem elbow drop, that kind where both guys are dropping elbows one after the other. It always looks great, and it looks ever greater when it's two guys (like the Blondes) with great elbow drops. We get a kind of goofus finish with Parrow wanting the pinfall all for himself, but Pillman breaks it up and Parrow gets pinned like right after. Blondes were each up on the top rope when Parrow opted to go for the pin, and I really wanted to see what the heck they were going to do. But afterwards they give Parrow a beatdown, and I kinda just want them to start getting actual tag matches. We've already wasted time feuding them with the already broken up Team TBD, now they're starting up something with Parrow, but they still don't feel established. Just give these guys a run already.

PCO vs. Brody King  MLW Fusion #23 9/6 (Aired 9/21/18)

ER: Phil pointed out that one of the keys to successful PCO matches is to keep the pace fast, and the more we see of him we realize another key is keeping things short. There's a set amount of material, and that material is fantastic at 10 minutes or under. Brody King is kind of similar, so you give these two 5 minutes to lace into each other and pull out some crazy nonsense? Then that's absolutely going to be something worth taking time out of your day to see. These are two big dudes who have no problem sending shivers to the jaw, and taking man size spills that aren't typical of guys their size. The whole match was filled with hard elbows, big clotheslines, headbutts, and hard knees. That alone would have been enough to make this good, but PCO breaks out a huge and impressive dive early, King drops him with a brainbuster, launches him into the buckles with a backdrop, misses a rolling senton that lands him on his head, PCO hits a big powerbomb and running knee; the match is just packed with cool stuff and hard shots. King pie faces the ref when he gets in the way of two adults beating each other's ass, and we get an awesome postmatch melee with other officials running out to separate, and PCO hits a flat out GREAT moonsault off the top to the floor, crashing through everybody. This is exactly what this match should have been.

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Scenic City Invitational 2018 Night 2 8/4/18

Darius Lockhart vs. 2 Cold Scorpio

PAS: Really glad we got to see Scorp wrestle twice in this tourney, and he and Darius make a fun paring. It must be thrilling for young African American wrestlers like Gray and Darius to work with a total legend. Darius came straight with the stiff shots early including really laying into Scorpio in the ropes with nasty uppercuts. Scorp hit some big time elbows and a nice bodyscissors to take Lockhart to the floor. Finish was cool with Lockhart stopping to jaw with the fans and getting caught with a kappo kick, and then Scorp goes up and lands the diss that don't miss with both legs landing right on Lockhart's chest.

ER: There must be things that I don't know because it's weird to me that Scorpio isn't signed somewhere, either as a worker or as a trainer. He feels like a guy who should have been far more involved in the wrestling business over the last decade. This was really fun, Lockhart showed big stones by bringing the strikes to Scorp, knowing he was going to get leveled in return. Lockhart had some nice uppercuts and a spectacular diving clothesline that really made me sit up. I've seen Lockhart a bunch and don't remember him throwing something like that. Lockhart also impressed the hell out of me with his hammerlock cradle DDT; Scorpio has a lot of size on him and it looked really cool seeing him lift him up and over. Scorp still hits his spinning sidekick with tremendous force, and I've always loved his bodyscissors takedown to the floor. It's a real nice physics move that makes a ton of logical sense, and it's odd we don't see it used more (outside of Mysterio it's not really something I recall people doing). He can also still make skinning the cat look effortless, and Lockhart took a nice sprawling bump to the floor and then ate a nice baseball slide. Scorpio had a bunch of things I liked here, a nice kneedrop, and a mean chinlock where he was digging into Lockhart's face with his elbow. Scorpio's Drop the Bomb is certainly a finisher of all finishers, always getting super height on the moonsault and it looked like he did the most spectacular Bombs Away in history. Scrape Lockhart off the mat, boys.

Nick Gage vs. Corey Hollis

PAS: Gage maybe the most over guy in this whole show. He bumps Hollis all over the arena, including throwing him down the bleacher stairs. Hollis get virtually no offense, until the ref takes a hammer from Gage allowing Hollis to kick him low and roll him up. Fun showcase for Gage's offense and Hollis bumping, but not a particularly competitive match. Something that works better for a live crowd, then on tape.

ER: It didn't really bother me that Hollis had basically no offense in this one. He didn't have much offense in the Cross match either, relying mostly on stomps and some strikes. It kind of gave me a sleazy Stevie Richards vibe, a guy with minimal offense but a lot of energy and personality who will bump like mad. Stevie was able to craft a bunch of really fun 5-7 minute matches around stuff like back rakes and rubbing his boot eyelets across a guy's face. So I can get into a Hollis match where he gets his ass kicked around a high school and then wins with a hard kick to the balls and a snug small package. Hollis takes a bunch of great spills around the gym, flying through tows of chairs, brawling up the tall bleachers and falling down every seat, getting smacked by someone's cane, a fun beating. I thought Hollis made all of this work great, and really liked the finish, and especially him sprinting back through the curtain immediately following the 3 count.

Jake Parnell vs. Gary Jay

PAS: This is a big feud in the St. Louis area and they really went after each other. They really laced into each other with shots and it stood out in a tourney that was already pretty stiff. It had more of a ragged fight feel, then just trading shots and staring at each other in between. I especially enjoyed their open hand Ronnie Garvin chops, a really underused chop overall. I like Parnell's double stomps and how he used them both as offense and as a way to get laid out. That finish was class, with Parnell hitting the huge stomp to the floor, Jay barely beating the count, Parnell going for the finishing blow and getting dropped in midair by the KO elbow. Love how they have set that move up in this tourney, and this was even a cooler use of it, then in the Cain match.

ER: This felt like a much better version of what Stallion/Lynch was going for the night before. Rehearsed segments don't bother me if there's a little rawness to them, and not someone zoning out so he can concentrate on hitting the 3 in the 1 and a 2 and 3. These guys just kept socking each other and refreshingly didn't pause for any fighting spirit silliness or double fist pump yelling when rising from the mat. The big turning point for me was when Jay was laid out in the chairs, and Parnell started clapping and running around the ring. "Here it comes," I thought, "Here's were they get overly cute. I hope Jay just meets him halfway and levels him." Well, what they did was even better, even crazier, and hooked me in for the stretch. Parnell comes running in, all the way around the ring, and Jay gives him a huge backdrop right into the rows of chairs. Take my money, guys. Jay absolutely levels Parnell with a couple elbows in this one, total jawbreaking shots, and I thought all the striking, all the chops, played really well and came off vicious. There was no "catch my leg and spin me so I can hit an enziguiri that bounces you in the ropes so you can hit a rolling elbow and then we breathe heavy while clapping happens", none of that, just two dudes putting a pin on the map. Parnell nicely plants seeds for that double stomp of his early in the match, missing one off the apron, foreshadowing his late match stomps. Shout outs to the camera crew as I really loved the visual of him climbing to the top to hit one more to the floor, as we cut to a great wide shot of the venue and see the crowd start to rise as Parnell climbs up. Jay's KO punch was expertly set up in the night 1 Cain Justice match, but it still surprised me to see him hit it here. I thought he was finished. I like that in two matches they've now established it as a confident KO shot, and as a desperate half court buzzer beater.

AJ Gray vs. Fred Yehi

ER: Another fun match, that although it had a couple indy spots that I didn't like, I absolutely liked how they treated those specific spots within the match. The spots came during the home stretch of the match, and started with Yehi giving Gray a spider German suplex from the top rope, and saw Gray stagger back to his feet. At first I bristled, as you instinctively see a guy just popping up from a German and running back into action. But Gray was flipped over and landed more on his knees than anything, so really took no more of a bump than if he had missed a standing moonsault or something a bit higher, so seeing him stagger to his feet and run back and dropkick Yehi (still hung upside down in the ropes) made sense. I didn't love his RVD/Scoot Andrews-ish dropkick right after, with Yehi doing his best to occupy himself while hung upside down, and the kick didn't land great...but it totally worked for me because Yehi didn't treat the kick as if it landed great either, instead freeing himself and then teeing off on Gray. Both guys had nice moments in this (although Yehi is easily THEE GUY in this tourney so far), with Yehi hitting those bruising chops and sharp dropkicks, Gray taking a huge spill to the floor and throwing several really good punches in a couple different varieties (I like how he throws a Jeff Hardy whip style punch, but keeps a tighter fist during it). The finish was just brutal, with Yehi stomping Gray and locking on the Koji Clutch, losing it, and then taking it right out on Gray, stomping even more viciously, locking the Clutch back in, and beating him across the face with the meanest blows. Good call on ref stoppage, and considering I've seen plenty of bad stoppage finishes in the last 5-10 years of indy wrestling, it says a lot about the wrestlers involved that we got two good ones two nights in a row.

PAS: Yehi is pretty undeniable so far in 2018, it really feels like he was energized by parting ways with EVOLVE and WWN (and boy could they use him back, that roster is slim). I am not sold on Gray yet, he clearly has a lot of athleticism ( I loved him in that AIW 10 man from last year) but he doesn't seem able to full put it together in a singles match yet. I loved Yehi's viciousness, every time this match threatened to get dancey, Yehi would stomp or throw a big right hand and it would turn right back into a fist fight. The finishes in this tourney have been great and Yehi locking in that Koji clutch, landing huge stomps and crossfaces until the pass out was great stuff. What a killer.

Joey Lynch vs. PCO

ER: So they definitely captured the excitement of the room with this one, even if there were parts of it that kept me from wholly digging it. The craziness and the oppressively constant pace of this was definitely its strength as they started at high energy and kept trying to peak things, mostly successfully. My main gripes were that both guys seemed very married to sequences, so if something didn't hit or didn't look great, it was treated exactly the same as something that looked absolutely devastating. There was plenty of devastating stuff in this match, and it sadly felt much less devastating once every move was sold essentially the same. The energy was there in spades, and that goes a long way, and contributed in big ways to the moments that worked. PCO has no problem taking stupid stuff now that he's 50, just taking some of the absolute worst bumps of his career. He comes off a bit like a geek show attraction though, and there's an odd sympathy to seeing him get kicked in the face or take a rough spill on a gym floor. One night after I was throwing out praise for them doing a big tournament without any crazy apron spots, of course we get an apron spot crazy and dumb enough that I wouldn't be shocked if they ripped it from the Hell Storm/Crazy Crusher ladder match, with PCO eating a suplex from the top to the apron. Lynch hits that "run around the ring attack" spot that I loved getting reversed in the Jay/Parnell match, but of course Lynch is going to be the guy who does it. Both guys take bumps through chairs, Lynch took a really hard chokeslam bump through several of them (though it looked a little goofy as he leaped up for the chokeslam way before PCO had begun the move, so it looked like Lynch just leaping backwards into chairs while PCO stood nearby), but they transition from that right into hitting big moves in the ring, and somehow made a lot of big stuff come off same-y. We get a couple of big nearfalls from both men off of moonsaults that didn't connect. PCO overshoots, Lynch overshoots twice, fans are into it and Cecil Scott is selling his freaking ass off, but I thought it looked bad. However, I really really liked the finish. Lynch finds his distance after a couple moonsaults, and then just hits 5 more moonsaults on PCO, all connecting flush. That was a great visual, and there were amusing moments throughout the moonsault run where PCO kept doing Undertaker/Frankenstein's Monster sit-ups (although I wasn't a fan of Lynch's loose thigh slap superkicks to knock him back down), but the consecutive moonsaults as a finish worked for me.

PAS: I thought this was unquestionably great, easily one of the PCO performance on the comeback trail (I would only put the WALTER match above it.) PCO is at his best when he is IWA-Japan Terry Funk, an old lunatic taking crazy bumps, delivering beatings and making weird faces. That apron bump was insane stuff, as was all of Lynch's bumps into chairs. I thought Lynch's tope to open the match set the tone nicely, and actually looked good (there have been some dicey topes in this tourney, I am looking at you Gary Jay) These kind of stunt brawls always work better as crazy sprints, and they kept this one moving, it felt like one of the great Necro Butcher brawls in the mid 2000s, although a step below the truly transcendent ones. I actually liked that PCO's moonsault didn't hit clean, he landed his head right into Lynch's stomach, I don't want Chris Daniels execution from a fifty year old French Canadian cyborg. I thought the multiple moonsaults was a very cool finish, although I do wish the superkicks hit cleaner. I get why this was such a hit live, and although I liked Yehi vs. Warner better, I think this was the match of night 2.

Marko Stunt vs. Shaggy vs. Matt Lynch vs. Ike Cross vs. AC Mack vs. Cyrus the Destroyer

ER: This was about as much fun as you could reasonably expect from a scramble; everybody got to showcase what they could do, and I came away really impressed with Cross, Mack, and Cyrus. Cyrus was the big beast at the center, throwing hard strikes and being involved in a bunch of cool spots. He amusingly no sells a AC Mack dive, takes an unexpected rana from cousin Shaggy (nice rana too) and later catches a second rana and plants him with an apron powerbomb, misses a big boy crossbody, gets plastered by a cool in ring dive from Cross, goes over hard on an assisted German, a real good big-man-in-a-scramble performance. Mack was someone I'd never seen before but now I want to see a lot. A good heel in a match like this always makes these things better, and he knew right when to stooge and right when to be mean, so it was fitting he got the opportunistic win. I really liked how he carried himself, seems like he would play well in singles. Cross impresses again, just like his eye opening performance on night one, here he breaks out more new tricks. I love the way he disposed of Cyrus, this crazy shoulderblock dive that took both men from in ring to wildly tumbling to the floor. The guy is such a freak athlete he even wound up landing on his feet after a tope con hilo. I also thought he was good stalling on the floor while waiting for Marko Stunt's big Cyrus-assisted moonsault. It's pretty easy to see why Stunt broke out this weekend, he's super small, fun-sized, but makes the most of his moments. He hit a cool sunset flip after leaping over a Cross spear, was real good about quickly getting into position for his shots (he had a super fast smooth kip up that looked especially good), hit a nice springboard dropkick to help German suplex Cyrus, and a couple times he rolled guys into cool looking knee lifts. Multimans like this seem impossible to mess up, but they end up working less often than not working. You end up with guys lying around too long, people not knowing how to busy themselves until their turn to hit stuff, guys getting in each other's way, etc. There was none of that here, just good action.

PAS: I could have done without the Marko and Shaggy comedy section and the beyond played out tower of doom spot (although Cyrus turned the power bomb part of that move into an impressive show of strength), but outside of that this was a blast. I thought everyone looked pretty good, with Cyrus especially doing a great job as king kong swatting down planes. Cross impressed me again, his diving tackles into a prone Cyrus would be 15 yards in the NFL and ended up being one of the coolest spots of the entire tourney. If I was running WWN I would sign him and push him to the top of the fed, let him work his way up to the skill level of the other guys like Riddle did. Marko is fun, I am not sure if he is better at what he does then Cool J or Weird Body, but he definitely has a lot of charisma and great timing.

Cain Justice/Mance Warner vs. The Carnies

ER: Pretty disappointing. There were portions of this that felt like the Carnies just working on material at home in front of their friends, and maybe that's what this is. There was an over-reliance on double team cooperative tandem stuff, and a lot of it felt like one of those old ECW Eliminators showcases, where they just kind of moved their opponents into position as if they were lifeless crash test dummies. We went through a few Carnies set pieces, had a couple dumb looking RVD missed chairshot spots, where both Carnies had to slowly miss chairshots and then hold them in front of their face, while Mance stupidly headbutts the chair and Cain kicks a chair with his bare feet. None of it looked good. Then just a few minutes into a short match we get a silly teeth-gritted "We're in a WAR" tandem strike exchange, with both teams running back and forth in stereo. Some of the strikes looked good, but the set ups all looked so phony that it just didn't work. So naturally we end with a needlessly dangerous spot for a rushed match like this, with Warner getting recklessly piledriven off the apron through a table. Totally felt like it happened in a different match, way out of place and unnecessary. Afterward we get one of those bad indy show of respects, with open hand outstretched for a respect handshake while the other hand is holding the body because of the war that just happened. Warner accepted, Cain thankfully said nuts to this and walked away.

PAS: There was some stuff in this I liked, I thought Cain was pretty good, and the stuff with his knee felt like it belonged in a different, better match. Especially nasty was when he got the chair kicked right down into his patella. Mance throwing the chair right at Nick Iggy and Cain spinning right into the crossarmbreaker was a super cool spot too. I agree that the Carnies wanted to show off all of their Nova and Frankie Kazarian tag offense, and a lot of that was really dumb, but I think this had enough cool Cain stuff and Kerry Awful clotheslines for me to mildly recommend it.

Corey Hollis vs. Fred Yehi vs. Joey Lynch vs. Gary Jay

ER: Kind of an end of tournament letdown for me. It felt like something put together and worked like a Joey Lynch match, who obviously went on to win in the match. Lynch was probably my least favorite guy in the tournament, so there were going to be parts of it that didn't work for me. I thought Yehi was the MVP of the tournament, and he was eliminated first here. He wasn't focused on much before elimination anyway, but I really liked his backpack Oklahoma Stampedes, those look vicious as hell and nobody else does them. Hollis stayed out of a lot of this too, which was kind of his shtick, running in to capitalize on the moves of others, running while getting chased, working more comical cocky southern heel. But it basically made this a Gary Jay vs. Joey Lynch match, which would have been my last pick of possible singles pairings out of these possibilities. Their stuff wasn't bad, but some of it wasn't my thing. There was a modern Malenko/Guerrero 2 count sequence that felt so weirdly and annoyingly out of place, but there were some real nice punches from Jay, a mean shot to the back of Lynch's head, a pretty wild spot where Jay only grazes Lynch on a dive, so Lynch grabs him and hits a hard Angle Slam on the floor. But there were some ugly patches, like Lynch hitting a wobbly twisting press to the floor that somehow none of the other three catch. Lynch fell hard and fast, right through everyone. So it was a little disheartening to just see him doing his thing after that. I know, he was going to win, but man it was a bad spill. He also just needs to ditch that moonsault. I don't think the two he used at the end looked good, they were overshot and didn't look nearly as painful as other stuff in the match. Plus, there was some badly thought out spot earlier where he broke up a pin with a moonsault but due to positioning he ended up almost breaking Yehi and Hollis' arms. This guy seems to be doing a 1998 Billy Kidman "bad landing for everyone involved" highflying tribute. I also really didn't need several Canadian Destroyers. Lynch doesn't hit them very well and they just felt really out of place in the tournament to me. I did really like the big Hollis ball kick on Lynch. After it happened I immediately wanted that to become the culmination of the weekend. We've already seen Hollis effectively moving up that ladder by targeting balls, and if the tournament had ended up being a showcase for the virtues of ball kicking. Hollis working his way successfully through a tournament just by kicking balls would have been legendary. They went a different way though, and at the end of the day I just really, really needed more ball selling from Lynch. Man treats getting kicked in the balls with no gravitas? That's not a man I can relate to. I can remember each individual time in my life that I've taken one to the balls. It hasn't happened often, but everyone reading this has a memory of taking an unexpected shot. I wanted more.

PAS: I came away from this match wanting to see a Corey Hollis vs. Fred Yehi singles match, and that was a matchup we hardly saw. I liked Lynch OK in the PCO match, but this was not his best stuff, the Canadian Destroyer into a Moonsault stuff is pretty bad looking, for a guy with King of Moonsault on his trunks, he over shoots it a ton. I actually liked him breaking up the Koji clutch with a moonsault, that looked like it hurt, which I never mind. I get why Lynch won, he is the local guy who finally climbed the mountain, but it wasn't for me.

PAS: I liked Night 2 fine, it didn't have the peaks of night one, but both Jay vs. Parnell and PCO and Lynch make our 2018 Ongoing MOTY list. I do want to give props to the guys who ran these shows, everything moved quickly, nothing wore out its welcome and the finishes were pretty flawless.

ER: Yes, despite not liking Night 2 as much as Night 1, I still love the presentation and timing on these shows. Two nights edited to a tight 4 hours (plus a brisk Futures show that I still plan on writing), with hardly any of the matches feeling "same-y". That's the kind of stuff that will keep me coming back to a fed/group. This tournament made me think that Yehi might be the best in the world, and made me want to seek out any Mack/Cross action I can find. I also don't think we mentioned the commentary crew as much as we should have. I thought Cecil Scott and Dragon Dan Wilson did a fantastic job throughout, truly captured the excitement of the whole weekend. Maybe I'll make my way to TN in one year's time...

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Scenic City Invitational 2018 Night 1 8/3/18

Curt Stallion vs. Joey Lynch

PAS: These are two of signature SCI guys, who haven't done a ton for me when I have seen them before. This was a solid US indy near fall, highspot match. Not a style I love, but it is a good type of match to start a show off with. I liked Stallion's in ring tope, stomps and top rope german suplex (although that move was so nasty that it was silly for Lynch to get the roll up after it hit. There were also too many variations of stuff for my taste, every regular move had a spin or ended on a knee. It had a nice pace though, and I never got bored, I imagine I will like other stuff much better.

ER: Yeah not my thing. That kind of get your shit in, GIF wrestling with improbable momentum shifts and a bad finish, with both men holding each other up with an embrace after it's all over. The more I see Lynch the more my thoughts are confirmed that he will have one match, exactly one match, and he will hit all of the dance step timing spots that he knows in that match. I liked a lot of Curt Stallion in this, thought he had some cool offense (that flying headbutt tope in the ring is a great spot) and is super smooth through potentially complicated sequences. But Lynch does little for me. Stallion felt like a guy with good ideas, stuck in a match with southern indy Kurt Angle. It's not like his stuff looks bad (although that thigh slap kneelift never gets quite high enough, and he overshot a moonsault that was supposed to be a dramatic moment of the match, and the fans kind of gave him credit for hitting it flush anyway), it's just that he has his stuff he's going to hit and he usually just opts to go to it. So Stallion will hit a nice DDT or big vertical suplex for a 2 count, and Lynch will just decide that he also wants to do a couple suplexes, so then stands up and does that. The Kurt Angle "my opponent is taking too much time selling" was strong. He also had that Kurt Angle "half ass the first part of this sequence to get to the good part", like when Angle would barely throw a clothesline that was supposed to miss because he was thinking about getting into position for the throw coming right after. Lynch does that a lot, barely hit one kick because he needs to be in position to spin around with another kick. He did hit a nice superkick down the stretch, and I loved how Stallion leaned cheek first into it, but man did I hate that finish. Stallion hits a big suplex off the top, Lynch takes it flush...then just rolls Stallion up with a crucifix. Man that's dumb. Stallion thought he had a good plan by hitting the biggest move of the match, but what he didn't realize is that big moves don't damage Lynch at all. Stallion should have scouted that.

Jake Parnell vs. Darius Lockhart

PAS: Darius is a guy I have liked a lot in CWF, and this is the first time I have seen Parnell. This was another solid opening round match. Lockhart opened the match flummoxing Parnell with WOS spots, including rolling Parnell up into a ball, and doing multiple somersaults to escape. Parnell took over with a double stomp off the apron to Lockhart's back and it proceeded into more of an indy juniors match. There were a couple of big shots I really liked, Parnell hit a really stiff crawling JYD headbutt and Darius landed a big straight right to Parnell's jaw, some of the other stuff didn't hit as cleanly. I liked some of Darius's wobbly leg selling too, especially right before the finish. Nice showing for both.

ER: I think this was a better version of the match before it, with really the only difference being the order of moves. I thought this one built much better and had a better finish (although that wouldn't have been difficult, just have the hurtiest looking move finish the match). I'd never seen Parnell and came away overall impressed. I liked this silly stooge elements like whiffing and hitting the match while trying to catch up to a somersaulting Lockhart, and liked his use of non-canon offense for a guy his size. He hits several hard splashes in a row, which isn't a move used a lot by non-fat guys (Cecil Scott says Parnell goes 195), but a splash in theory would hurt no matter the size of the guy doing it. It's still a body crashing onto a body. So I dug Parnell's aggressive falling splashes with a senton chaser. He also had a nice northern lights suplex, took a nasty hammerlock DDT, threw a great shotgun kick that ended with him kind of tied up in the ropes, went amusingly wobbly on a big stiff arm right cross from Lockhart, all nice stuff. Finish was indy fun and looked like a finish, with Lockhart getting absolutely dumped by a half nelson suplex (and then making the best of the planned spot, which needed him on his feet, and I thought Lockhart handled getting loopily to his feet well) and blitzed by an awesome burning lariat, finished off with a double stomp. This felt the right time, right pace, good match.

Corey Hollis vs. Ike Cross

PAS: This was really great. Hollis is a great sleazy veteran heel, kind of like a 2000s Tony Anthony, perfect guy to guide a green kid through a match Cross is a phenom, he is 6'3 or so, built like a NFL Free Safety, cut, and agile as shit. Match starts with a Cross explosion, he has this massive takedown, a great tope, and a crazy springboard spinning headbutt, he just launches off a springboard. Hollis takes over when he hurls Cross to the turrnbuckle and Cross flies out and lands on his head. We get some Hollis shit talking, and control, until Cross obliterates him with a spear. Cross misses a Superfly splash where he got more height then prime Snuka, and Hollis sneaks a low blow in for the win. Cross will be a big star somewhere, he seems about as can't miss an prospect as I can remember seeing. It almost felt like watching Sting for the first time.

ER: I was super excited to see Cross for the first time, and man oh man did he deliver. I don't ever remember being this excited by Sting. Phenom really does appear to be the best word to describe Cross, and I agree that he's as close to a can't miss wrestling prospect as you can get. Hollis was the absolute perfect opponent for him, the kind of guy who can stall and create space between all of Cross' best stuff, so the moves don't get all stacked up on themselves. Cross launches Hollis with one of the highest backdrops I've seen (really reaching that rarified Rick Rude/Todd Morton air), hits a super fast dive, hits a double leg that looked so strong that he probably could have ran around the building with him a couple times before slamming him, hits a springboard elbow that gets such height that it looked like he could have leapt across the entire ring. Hollis is great at slowing things down and expertly tosses Cross into the ringpost, and Cross takes an awesome painful bump into the post and then down to the floor, really made it look dangerous. Hollis knew how to play the match, focused on setting up big Cross spots, and made his own little things look good, like his pinpoint stomps. A dirtbag like him needs good looking stomps, those kind where he's holding the top rope while lacing into a guy's sternum. Finish was perfect for this match, as how do you stop a runaway train? You distract the ref and punch that train in the balls. Loved this.

Cyrus the Destroyer vs. PCO

PAS: Fun big boy battle, full of thumps and some pretty impressive agility by both guys. Cyrus's Eddie Guerrero flip senton which was totally nuts for a guy 400+ pounds, and PCO's moonsault looked awesome. I think the secret to an entertaining PCO match is the pace. If he works really slow you can see the seams, but if the pace is pushed it can be really entertaining. This was a quicker pace and was just as focused on big bombs as it was on highspots. Really what you wanted this match to be when it was signed.

ER: Not bad, but it kind of bums me out that I've been low vote on PCO since his comeback. I fully respect how he's reinvented himself and created this buzz, but I never seem to end up enjoying the matches as everyone else. This was fine, but if you had told the match was "big fat guy vs. old tough guy" without telling me the names, I'd be starting a 5 stars before the first guy made his entrance. Fat guys and old tough guys are my bread and butter, and I liked this, but didn't love it. PCO is kind of a stiff, doesn't always get into position for things very cleanly, sometimes just stands there with bulging eyes, but he also works plenty stiff and takes/does some crazy offense, so I clearly understand what the appeal is. I really liked Cyrus in last year's Anarchy WarGames, a big guy who has no problem taking a crazy bump, and I liked him here. And Phil is right about the pacing being important in a PCO match, he's someone who actually benefits from a go go go match, just keep moving him to the next set piece or explosion, and that's what they do here. I weirdly think the PCO thing I liked the most here was a kick he threw to a bent over Cyrus. Cyrus was in position to give a backdrop and PCO hit a great extra point kick right across Cyrus' chest and stomach, a really nice kick. I mean, a 50 year old cannonball and moonsault are obviously going to always look impressive, but there's something to be said about a kick that many wrestlers don't go all in on. Cyrus hit a bananas slingshot senton, and it sucks that with his size and that move, 20 years ago it probably would have at minimum got him Roadblock's spot on the WCW roster. Cyrus gets great welts and bruises on his forehead (from his nice headbutts? From stiff PCO shots?) and commits to missing a big IZU falling meteorite off the middle rope, all things I'm into. There were some things I thought didn't quite work, the two PCO chokeslam spots came off a little flat, but overall this was fine. PCO is seeming like someone who would come off better live than on tape. I'm optimistic though.

AJ Gray vs. 2 Cold Scorpio

PAS: Scorpio is basically wrestling's John Witherspoon at this point I expected him to ball up his fists and tell AJ Gray that "These is all you need to be a man.. You win some, you lose some... But you live to fight another day" I loved his Uncle at the cookout dance moves, and his real willingness to lay in bruising shots. He hit Gray with a jump kick that put a cleft in his chin. Gray seemed to hold back a bit at the beginning, but once he knew who he was in with, he let them go. There was some awkwardness in this match which kept it from being a real MOTY list contender, but it really felt like a battle and Scorpio still has a gorgeous moonsault and some real pepper in his blows.

ER: I laughed at Phil's uncle at a cookout line, because I was watching Scorp dance and immediately thought of Sam doing the Detroit Hustle on Detroiters. This match had some problems, but they were mostly cosmetic. Gray doesn't really get up to deliver a rana, they flub a powerbomb reversal spot (but recover well enough), Scorp damn near Picasso's Gray with a Tumbleweed that falls short, Gray kind of awkwardly hold up on a frog splash, things like that. They were all over the match, but it's one of those things where if you had them go out another night and work the exact same match, all that stuff likely hits fine. So I don't get too hung up on cosmetic stuff like that, because I really dug the actual bones of the match. They worked a slower pace strikes match, with flying peppered in, which is a nice combo that most guys couldn't pull off. You need some heft to pull it off, and these two have heft. I love all of Scorpio's kicks (especially those no nonsense yakuza kicks), and this was a rare instance of me not shutting my brain off during a standing exchange. This captured the vibe of what I imagine most wrestlers are trying to capture when doing stand and trade, and the key to it is simple but difficult, because it just has to naturally happen. One guy drills another guy and it's probably the hardest shot of the match up to that point, and the other guy gets that "oh that's where this is, huh?" and drills him back. The back and forth has some meaning, some heft. The elbow strikes landed hard, the kicks and misses were great, and I thought for sure Scorp's moonsault was it (how far across the ring did he opt to set that up!?). Gray had an awesome sell on that short Tumbleweed, but, there's a great chance he was just feeling that numb heat that happens when someone flips halfway across the ring and nearly lops your ear off. Obviously I'm pissed we got robbed of Scorp vs. Cain (or Scorp vs. basically anybody), but wouldn't mind these two running it back.

Cain Justice vs. Gary Jay

PAS: This was a short sprint with a great flash KO finish, that still left me a little bummed. Jay is a guy who works a hard hitter gimmick, with some really stiff chops and Justice is a CWF boss and my favorite young wrestler in the world. Match starts fast with Cain Jumping Jay at the bell, and never lets up. Jay hits a trio of tope's in a row, before torching his chop hand on the ringpost, we have some arm and hand work by Justice interspersed with some shots by Jay. Match comes to an abrupt end when Cain goes for a move off the ropes and gets caught with a driving right hand to jaw, which led to a quick ref stoppage. It was a cool finish and I liked a tourney match having that kind of unpredictable finish, but I can't help but being disappointed that Cain was out of the tourney in four minutes. He was the guy I was looking forward to the most, and hoped he would get a mini run in the tourney, or at least a showcase match.

ER: Well color me a tad disappointed. Let me say that I really, really, really liked the finish. Also, I really, really, really didn't want to see this finish in this match, when it happened. That's tough to reconcile. I think the ending might have been the best part of the match, and yet I also didn't want it to happen. It wasn't the best I've seen either guy: Jay had a few of those thigh slap moments where the shot doesn't actually land, so you end up with a thigh slap on a high lariat or a missed big boot, and while Cain bumped great for both (big flip bump on the lariat and a great staggering slow drop on the boot), it felt a little bit too much behind the curtain. I also thought Cain went to the "take a move, bob back up with glazed eyes sell" wayyyyy to often. He was doing that after almost every move which started to come off more comical than "I just took a big move". Cain jumping him to start was great, I thought Cain was throwing some of his best shots, and I loved Jay hitting the post leading to Cain doing some hand work. Finish was great, but yeah, too many guys I wanted to see opposite Cain, when I'm not sure there would be other opportunities for those match-ups.

Mance Warner vs. Fred Yehi

PAS: Yehi has had a hell of a year, leaving WWN, where he was getting a bit stale, and having cool matches with a different variety of folks. Warner is a fun brawler, kind of works a little like a more athletic Roughhouse Fargo. He has some really fun expressive punches and takes big bumps. Yehi is one of the most innovative wrestlers in the world, in a really cool way, and there is this awesome spot where he jams Warner's arm into the hollow top of the ringpost and mangles it with punches and yanking it back and forth. Totally something I have never seen before and a contender for spot of the year. Whole match had a great energy to it, and I really enjoyed the finish run with Warner faking an eyepoke and hitting a DDT, and Yehi hitting a great folding powerbomb. My favorite match of night one.

ER: I think this is the best Yehi has looked in 2018, and Yehi is a guy who looks great almost every time I see him. He was ruthless here, finding all sorts of cool ways to torture clear local favorite Warner. Everything Yehi threw out looked fantastic, and I fully agree that him shoving Warner's arm into the ringpost to tee off on the arm was amazing. The shots to the arm would have looked vicious without the help from the ringpost, but the post really added something special to the visual. Yehi's low dropkicks hit with a ton of force, his chops looked among best of the night, he had this nasty diagonal strike to Warner's neck, all brutal stuff. Warner has a nice way of tapping into the energy of the crowd, he gets a good local reaction the same way Chet Sterling does. I actually liked how he still used the hand and arm a few times, and Cecil Scott was excellent at pointing out that he's still using it by instinct, but it's not as effective. And Yehi was always there with a stomp to remind him, and he does all these great mean things like stopping short on a snapmare so it's just him yanking Warner's neck forward. Maybe the best thing about the SCI tournament up to this point has been the finishes. We have gotten a night of logical finishes without anybody taking anything stupid on an apron, everyone avoiding excess while treating appropriately big moves as big moves. Yehi running him into the turnbuckles, then hitting a folding powerbomb is a great example of this. He didn't need to spike Warner into the mat, he hit a hard snap powerbomb and then expertly folded the legs over to make it near impossible to kick out of. Simple, effective. There were finishes that could have come off cheap in the wrong hands (Hollis winning with a low blow, Jay winning with a punch) but these finishes have all felt nicely tailored to the wrestlers advancing.

Kerry Awful vs. Nick Gage

PAS: This was built up as a legendary brawler from outside coming in and taking on the craziest guy in the local town. I liked big parts of this, with Awful taking some big bumps, including a suplex on the bleachers and it had some real energy with the crowd brawling. I liked Awful just putting Gage's arm on a chair and stomping on it. I do wish the shots had landed with some more steam. Necro Butcher brawls always had hard punches in between the bumps and stunts, I though Awful's shots had a lot of windup and not much follow though.

ER: The things we've both said about PCO probably being a guy who plays much better live can likely be said even more about Nick Gage. I match up pretty exactly with Phil on this one, as we get several great moments and a nice concise finish, but some of the meat and potatoes of the brawl portion felt lacking. He's totally right about Awful having great body movement and windup, but were lacking that weight, never feeling like they were landing with the expected thud that the delivery promised. He's kind of like an inverted Dirty Daddy. Daddy shots always look and sound like he's killing a guy, he has these great chops and elbows, but he doesn't have a lot of flash before the landing. Awful has all the movement down, but falls short on the landing. I'm someone who has watched more Jerry Lawler than I can remember, and while I'm still regularly amazed at how great he can make every punch look, after getting used to how precise the landing is on the punches you start noticing all the other things he's doing with his body to give his punches style. You could practice for a year to get your worked punches to come in fast and land soft, but there's so many other working parts: you need to figure out what your non-punching arm is doing, you need to figure out your footwork, you need to get your head movement down, you need to properly recoil your body after a punch lands, etc. Awful has all of the other things, but doesn't really have the connection of the strike. It's kind of like how hard Lance Storm tried to work his chairshots in ECW. He was a guy who never wanted to stiff someone and certainly didn't want to brain someone with a chair, so he worked on the windup and actual physical delivery of the chairshot, and then would hold up on the landing. It would get roundly booed by the deviants who wanted nothing more than full force shots to the frontal lobe, but I always saw and liked what he was going for. Awful takes a few really great bumps here, getting backdropped into the bleachers and eating a suplex through a couple of chairs, Gage gets run into the ringpost with a chair around his neck, gets his arm jammed into a chair and stomped on, all that stuff worked great. The brawling really didn't work for me. The finish was a heck of an exclamation point, with Gage just drilling him with a stuffed piledriver to put an instant end to things.

PAS: Fun first night, nothing mindblowing, but I liked how this show had a real variety of wrestlers, old crazy guys, monsters, mat workers. A lot of indy tournaments just have a list of pimped indy workers all doing 2.9 wrestling, this had a real appetizer sampler feel which I enjoyed.


ER: I had a great time with Night 1. They kept things simple and quick, and each of the guys involved stood out in their own way. That's pretty special. We've all sat through enough marathon 4 hour indy shows, and I think it's incredibly refreshing to see that both nights of SCI total 4 hours. It keeps things fresh and moving, keeps the crowd alert, and shows that guys can still do some absolutely crazy things without doing absolutely stupid things. A nice, welcoming and fun night of wrestling, with Cross/Hollis and Yehi/Warner being quality additions to our 2018 Ongoing MOTY List. Night 2 review coming soon.

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