Slim J Has Picket Signs For His Wicked Rhymes

Slim J vs. Yahya PWX 1/19/19 - GREAT

PAS: This was a first round tournament match. Yahya is a big tubby black guy, who is green but super agile, and this was Slim leading him through a fun singles match. Yahya really got showcased, he has a great dropkick and really runs the ropes with speed. Slim was content to let him shine, but Slim did hit a great headscissors and some really cool matwork, including a cool section where Slim puts on a surfboard, and Yahya powers his way to the ropes. There were some moments of awkwardness from Yahya and I didn't love the finish, which kept this off of a MOTY list for me, but it was a good example of J leading a youngster through a match.

ER: Nice simple match with a somewhat unnecesary finish that just looked like an accident since they ended up finishing up anyway a couple moves later. Yah is a guy we've seen in CWF before and he clearly has potential, even landing his match with Movie Myk on our MOTY List the other year. This felt a little like a step back from that, but I liked a lot of the visuals of the smaller Slim scrambling and ducking around the big man. Yah's dropkick is really a marvel, looking as good as Slim's (of course any offense automatically looks better when Slim is bumping for it). Slim really has a Mysterio way about him where he makes a ring feel bigger, and really bounces around with impact. I love the distance he got when getting thrown by that big belly to belly, and love the way his body crumples on landing. And he's deceptively big, so he can lean into big lariats convincingly. His offense is always great and I LOVE his sneaky headscissors, he gets into it so smoothly and genuinely looks like he's throwing someone with his momentum, and I like how he went back to it for the finish and modified it into a cradle (that looked like it spiked Yah right on the top of his head). That whole non-kickout 2 count came off really weird, with the ref just stopping the count while Yah didn't appear to move an inch, and that kind of finish weirdly feels like it pops up enough that I'm never sure if it's a mistake or planned, but one thing is for certain: it always comes off badly. I like how these two match up, and I'm sure there's an even better match in them, but this was a fun start.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE SLIM J

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2017 Ongoing MOTY List: Skyler vs. Hollis Unsanctioned

56. John Skyler vs. Corey Hollis PWX 10/21/17

PAS: I got interested in this feud from reading a great article by Mike Mooneyham in the Post and Courier. This feud is the southern indy version of Gargano vs. Ciampa, long time tag partners have an ugly breakup and a vicious feud. This nicely mixed the more 2000s aspects of brawls (big showy bumps, weapons shots) and some really great 70's and 80's punching and bleeding. They start out by brawling all over the arena, both guys get slammed hard into concrete walls, and Hollis even gets his head stuck in a urinal. Skyler (who is the face in this feud) comes up bleeding badly, at points he even looks like IWA Cactus Jack. Hollis is pretty relentless on the cut, including pounding Skyler with a heavy chain wrapped around his fist. It is hard to do great looking punches with a chain like that, and Hollis really looked like he was waylaying him  Loved the false finish, they set up the table spot really well, with Hollis getting smacked by a ring bell and collapsing on the announcers table, and Skyler diving off the metal post and splashing both guys through the table. They do a whole stoppage with the announcers doing "Owen Voice" and everything. Security starts helping Hollis to the back but Skyler gets a second wind, jumps him, throws him into the ring and starts smashing his head into a chair. Unfortunately the finish brings this down a bit due to the run in by Brady Pierce and Gunner Miller and them triple teaming Skyler until Hollis pins him. I did like the visual of the heels ripping back the padding and exposing the wood beams under the ring although a 3 on 1 beatdown is an unsatisfying finish to a war. This was a balls out killer fight though, and got me excited to check out their I Quit match.

ER: This was definitely Gargano/Ciampa before Gargano/Ciampa, and this had a lot of what I've enjoyed about their big matches only we get blood, a more southern feel (especially during the early crowd brawling), and no Gargano faces! The crowd brawl was really good, making nice use of the venue and the camera was right there with cool shots. Hollis gets thrown far over the guardrail onto concrete, and Skyler climbs the guardrail to leap after him with a clothesline, and we get a cool shot of through Skyler's legs as Hollis climbs to his feet in the background. Both guys lay it in and we don't get any tired "walking and hair holding", just a couple guys kicking asses around an events center, faces slammed on merch table 8x10s as other wrestlers look on, hard strikes thrown, tough whips into brick walls (it's hard to make "getting thrown into a wall" read well, but these looked great), and of course a brawl into the bathroom. The bathroom stuff was great, and I'm happy we didn't get a commentary reproduction of Dusty shrieking about a lady in the men's room (which I'm sure was tempting as they scanned the faces of fans in the bathroom), with Hollis doing the lord's work by flying face first into a couple of toilets, including getting flushed in a urinal. The toilet stuff is disgusting, but I think also weirdly important to establish just how crazy these two are. Once you get thrown face first into a urinal that tells me "well these guys are down for any damn thing in this fight".

And, they really are. Trash cans and ladders and kendo sticks and chairs get involved, but they thankfully shy away from prop set up and instead focus on beating each other with all of those things. Trash can lids can come off flimsy and lame, so the workaround to that is hitting someone with the edge of a lid, slicing open their head in gruesome fashion. Hollis hits a slashing lid blow on Skyler and then works that cut, Skyler's boss Jack Burton tank top getting messed up beyond the damage even Burton himself sustained. They don't linger on these items for too long, there's no Tanaka/Awesome moments, weapons are picked up, used, discarded, but kept around for potential later use. Hollis introduces a chain and I think even the worst chain-wrapped-fist punch would look good, but Hollis hits him with a real blow. I thought the false finish was splendid, Skyler really flew threw that table to crush Hollis, and they just lie in the wreckage for minutes while being tended to. I loved security bringing Hollis to his feet, and really it may have been my favorite part of the match. Hollis' selling was perfection; as he was dragged to his feet and basically carried out, he looked like someone who accidentally took too much Ambien on a flight and had to be carried off by flight attendants and one of the pilots upon arrival. Skyler runs him down, throws him into the ring and goes wild, true babyface comeback. Alas, the finish let the wind out of the sails, even though I fully understand what it was setting up. Once it becomes clear that three guys are just going to beat down one, and nobody is likely coming out to help the one, it becomes more of an exercise in reaching the inevitable win. To get over the desire for a rematch, the 3 on 1 beatdown needs to almost be worse than the match-long beating that preceded it, and I don't think we got there. Country Jacked holding Skyler while Hollis punts Skyler in the balls was a great moment, but to really put it over I was wanting excess. I wanted Hollis to keep punting those balls, build that sympathy back up, make it something that transcends the played out "he hired these goons to help him" No DQ trope. The finish sets up the I Quit, and I'm excited to see the I Quit, but I thought this specific finish could have been worked into the match better.


2017 MOTY MASTER LIST

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