Matches from GCW If I Die First 2/5/22

Ninja Mack/Dante Leon vs. Jordan Oliver/Nick Wayne  

ER: I loved this. This tapped into a great 10 minute high spot opener tag that all my favorite American indies have produced. Ever since Jersey All Pro gifted us with this kind of wrestling, there's been some bad copycats and some inspired acolytes. This match was the latter. You watch these guys work bigger and more complicated stunt spots that build to multiple physics defying spots, and you begin to notice...Jordan Oliver has a peach fuzz beard...Nick Wayne has a puka shell necklace...Dante Leon looks like he deals E...there's an actual ninja...this basically IS 2001 Jersey All Pro. All four are guys with cool stuff to show off and a good idea about where to put it. Dante Leon looks like a weenie but throws the hardest elbows of the match, also whips himself into the mat on back bumps and arm wringers. Oliver has precise timing and knows how to build to and payoff big bumps: Early on he sees Ninja heading for the turnbuckles and heads him off at the pass, sending him flipping fast in a crash to the floor; later Ninja Mack stops him on his own trip to the top, and Oliver crashes to the floor 3/4 of the length of the ring away. Ninja Mack is pure uncut joy to watch, the most 2001 JAPW guy we've been gifted with, showing it's still possible to be an innovative flyer. Everybody here gets great showcase dives and they all rule, but Ninja breaks out a double handspring top con giro that was so fast I thought the video started glitching. He has strike combos that go directions you don't expect, and he takes bumps that land in ways you haven't seen. The finisher train looked great, everyone found increasingly stupid ways to get themselves cuttered, and Ninja Mack's finisher just shows that he's an Evolved Sasuke. Great mood-setter right here.  

PAS: Very fun stuff, just four kids with ideas, some of which are great, some of which maybe not so much. I have been watching a lot of GCW for my Ringer column, and they do this kind of spotfest a lot, and it is almost always worth watching. Ninja Mack is Blitzkrieg level crazy, as wildly athletic as anyone in wrestling ever. He is perfect in these kind of throw at that wall see what sticks matches, and has so many fun possible opponents. Can you imagine if Claudio works some GCW dates? A Low-Ki rematch? Chris Hero returning from podcasting to beat his ass? Wayne is a high school kid, and has already signed a AEW contract. I imagine he has quite a future, and already fits well in this kind of thing.

John Wayne Murdoch vs. ASF

ER: This is a great wrestling match story. ASF is the new guy local who wasn't booked on the show, who steps up above his weight when a storm prevented the travel of several real Murdoch opponent. That's a match set-up I really like and this delivered. Maybe ASF got to show off too much cool stuff, but for a new guy he does have a lot of cool stuff. He has a real knack for smacking his head into things painfully, flying headfirst into a propped up chair, later going forehead first on a Flatliner. When it's his time for crazy highspots, he hits a Homicide-like tope con giro through the ropes that sends he and Murdoch through several rows of chairs, and follows up with a big flip dive. There's some punishing in-ring stuff, like Murdoch putting ASF kidney first through a folding chair, or a swinging ASF DDT that looked like something that could have pinned JWM. Great plucky energy from ASF, and JWM played off it well. 

Gringo Loco vs. Psycho Clown 

ER: Gringo Loco has been a real asset as the traffic director and big base of the GCW lucha matches, and here he gets the chance to throw down and have a wild through-the-indoor-sports-complex lucha brawl with one of the biggest luchadors in the world. He gets that chance, and flies into it head first. This had blood, big dives, big falls, big weapon shots, and several dangerous bumps. Loco gets thrown through ringside chairs a bunch, and shows off how well he can catch a dive when Psycho hits a beautiful diagonal dive past the ringpost, Loco absorbing all of it and sending him flying back into more chairs. Loco rips Psycho's mask and gets the blood flowing, Psycho bashes Loco with a chair and gets his blood flowing, and pretty soon they're brawling to bigger and bigger spots. A couple of doors get involved, and I like how doors continue to get used as weapons after they've been exploded. Some wrestlers would attack opponents with pieces of broken table, but it seems far more common when a door gets broken, and I like that. They were good about punching each other to build to big moments, taking a tour through the sports center and showing off what a fun playground it is for this type of match. But even then I wouldn't have predicted a dive off the goal posts. They did a good job of punishing stunt set up. If either man took too long to set up a stunt spot it almost always backfired on them, and after Psycho sets up a door on some chairs, he catches that fire. Hats off to GCW's camera crew who captured Loco's journey as he balance beam walked out on support beam attaching the goal posts to the wall and then flew off the posts with a swanton. Psycho gets hits own plancha off the top of the staircase, and I love how amped Clown always gets after one of his big dives or falls. The fight back in the ring was strong (my favorite was Loko nailing a full extension superkick, only for Psycho to shake it off and run at him with a bull rush headbutt that staggered Loco back into the ropes), and the Spanish Fly finish looked deadly. 

PAS: Phil wrote about this match over at The Ringer. 

Grim Reefer vs. Deranged vs. Alex Zayne vs. Atticus Cogar vs. Dark Sheik

ER: This was kind of messy with several bad landings and one that looked especially dangerous, but it also had a Grim Reefer performance that kept getting bigger and better, some wild dives, and a couple nice surprises. I was mainly excited for this because Deranged doesn't make tape that often and I try to go out of my way to support Special K alumni. Deranged still gets as much quick rotation on his spin kicks, will fly dangerously onto a dog pile powerbomb, will almost smash his face on the apron on a high moonsault to the floor, and will take a couple of gruesome bumps for great yarder offense. Grim was the star here, making a comedy smoking spot work tremendously by throwing perfect worked punches while taking huge drags from a joint. He had a couple of long arm strikes (including punching Deranged in the throat) and other nice strikes while everyone ran at him, Reefer hitting every beat of his timing without missing a puff. He even puts the joint out on Cogar's forehead! Reefer's bumping is also a cut above, getting absolutely spiked on a cutter and taking a Zayne knee strike flush to the head. Zayne can have a few too many steps to his work, but has a lot of ideas and some innovative stuff. I loved his nutso Diamond Dust tope and his big ripcord driver to Deranged. There was a dangerously messy tower spot where Deranged flipped over the top of everyone stacked on the turnbuckles, and Cogar almost died in three different ways. I think everyone got their vertebrae crunched at one point or another, with the worst being Sheik getting stung taking a Deranged cutter off Cogar's shoulders. Sheik barely moved the rest of the match and everyone worked around her, one of those sick things that can happen in a scramble. 

2022 MOTY MASTER LIST

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New Footage Friday: Brazos 25th Anniversary

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXMKL-Iy2Yk&feature=youtu.be

Escorpion Dorado Jr./Corazon De Dragon vs. Super Halcon Jr./Bestial

MD: It's been a while since I've seen undercard lucha, especially undercard indy lucha from 2001. Not a ton to say here. One-fall opening match. They didn't do anything big and most of what registered was carried by Bestial and Halcon's rudo antics. The crowd was into it, but more into booing them than cheering the tecnicos. Some things looked good. Some things looked sluggish. The only build to the finish was Halcon launching a cheapshot after a handshake and as a match, it probably could have used a bit more of a beatdown after that.


Super Nono/Super Kepler vs. Enrique Vertiz/El Cazador

MD: Ñoño had a big kid gimmick. He was definitely young but maybe not as young as luchawiki would have us believe (though hey, maybe). I thought he had the act down pretty well and the kids were into it to the point where they were chanting for him and not against the rudos. Cazador was a bit more into the match than Vertiz who was mostly bemused by everything (completely no-selling an outside-the-ring wedgie for instance). Kepler did not look smooth including some of the weirder stilted armdrags you'll see. If you had gotten the rudos from the first match and let them work with Ñoño, you might have had something here.


Pirata Morgan Jr. vs. Dash

MD: This was the first of a bunch of Luchas 2000 vs XLAW matches. Anyway, the first two minutes were pretty good. Morgan hit a Dropkick followed by a tope right to start and then had a string of fairly nice looking offense (press up facebuster, somersault senton, etc.). It got rougher after that. Dash looked like he was wrestling underwater and just seemed to lack the strength to get Morgan up at times (which could have been on Morgan too, I guess, though he showed plenty of effort elsewhere, like his flip bump on a clothesline). They were definitely not on the same page with some of the spots and holds. The run-in at the end was at least high energy.


Brazo De Platino/Super Brazo vs. El Pietir/Dolar

MD: Pretty satisfying mauling at times. Brazos were full on rudo but beloved, to the point that when they try to take a powder up the stairs, the fans inspire them to come back. Some perfectly fine 405 Live stuff combined with handshake goofing. Platino's clap slaps/punches were fun but would probably get old quick. Dolar had a presence and really ran into the corner on one whip late in the match. Perfectly acceptable fat indy guy. Platino and Super Brazo could do this stuff in their sleep but it's still a good, charismatic act.

MD: There was a bit with Gringo Loco and some young luchador where they did a lot in a short period of time and Gringo got clowned which was effective but not really much to write about. It felt like if they'd done a big indy show in 1998 Calgary and gave Teddy Hart a showcase or something.


El Brazo Jr./Brazo De Oro Jr./Brazo De Plata Jr. vs. Crazy Boy/Mike Segura/Genesis

MD: Totally different vibe to the show once we hit this point. The entrances are more elaborate. There's more of a buzz. The Brazos are out with football gear and ski masks to start, with weapons to bear. The XLaw guys cut a promo and then the violence begins. Amusingly, they cut away from a lawn dart iconoclasm onto a chair in the middle of the ring to focus on some floor brawling. That set the tone pretty well. They kept things moving here with a lot of creative weapon usage that didn't have overly elaborate set ups (except for the chair assisted moonsault in the dive train but that you can forgive, and the final table spot but at least that had a soundtrack). As with a lot of this show so far, especially with the XLAW vs Luchas 2000 stuff, the rudo/tecnico dynamic was a bit off. The crowd was behind the Brazos but the XLAW guys got the big comeback/momentum shift off the Brazos going to the well once too often with a whip into a chair in the corner. The crowd got behind them during the mauling that followed though. Like with any of this stuff, the craziest bump isn't always the most spectacular looking one. Crazy Boy took a clothesline over the top and hit a chair on the apron on the way out which just felt nuts. The one-on-one exchanges towards the end maybe went on a little too long and broke the tone of what had come before but there was nothing innately wrong with them. The wrestling was all good. It just felt out of place. By that point the genie had been long out of the bottle and they couldn't just go back to order after all the chaos; maybe if they had fall breaks, I guess. It was all very 2001 post-ECW Emulation with unprotected chair shots and violence on women so inconsequential that the camera didn't even follow it and some worked shoot stuff post-match (I guess?), but that can be good for you in small doses now and again.

PAS: This was fun without actually being particularly good. They wandered around and smashed each other with things, and sometimes the finish ended up being worth the set up, and sometimes it wasn't. The stuff that resembled traditional lucha brawling was the best, I really liked the bleeding and the dive train, and the ECW prop stuff didn't work as well. Segura is the biggest pro on the XLAW team, and his lucha stuff looked the best, Jr. Brazo's were fun, although it probably made sense for their careers to ditch the Jr. gimmicks and go with what they did.

Brazo De Oro/Brazo De Plata/Brazo De Platino vs. Villano III/IV/V

PAS: I love the idea of Hatfield vs. McCoys wrestling family feuds, Armstrongs vs. Fullers is really the only other one I can really remember which spanned generations like the Villanos and the Brazos. Imagine my glee when my boy Rob lets me know about a previously unseen Villanos vs. Brazos match. This is exactly what you want, expect and love about a match between these two families. Lots of blood pooling in forehead scars, great looking wild brawling, a couple of Super Porky miscommunication spots and all six guys looking like the dazed survivors of a tour bus crash. Porky is just iconic, I loved how he worked in the splash-his-partners comedy spots into non-comedic violent spots in a brawl, and the highlights of the match where him just standing and trading hard shots with Villano 3. A worthy addition to this iconic rivalry.

MD: This was shaping up to be a great, hate-filled, bloody brawl, and certainly there's a big history of those between these families but I'm not sure that was the right move to follow the last match, especially after the ceremony. I think this would have worked better if they started with more shtick and then built to the violence. There was plenty of room to transition that way. That's the problem with watching these things in context sometimes. That said, it was a really good brawl until the finish when La Dinastia Alvarado came in to battle in full force. Porky's physical timing was amazing as always. At the end of the first fall, he was masterful at trying to portray an attempt at stopping himself from jumping off the second rope after the Villanos switched up who he was going to land on. Too often guys in that situation would just jump. I was really into where it was heading with Villano III directing traffic but then everyone rushed the ring and that was that.

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