New Footage Friday: SLIM J~! AZRAEL~BRYAN~! KOFI~! BIFF~! LEE~! JAGGED EDGE~!

NWA Anarchy (Hate Junkies (Dany Only & Stryknyn)/ Azrael/Slim J/Mikael Judas/Nemesis) vs. NWA Elite (Jagged Edge/Bro Newsome/Se7en/John Johnson/Shawn Tempers/Jacoby Boykins) NWA Anarchy 6/30/12 - GREAT

MD: You have to love how many stories they pack into a match like this, each and every time we see one of these big multimans. This one was all action the whole way through but never felt like meaningless noise. Slim J and Azrael working together at the start; the build to Jagged Edge vs Judas (and the payoff in a way that made people want more); Nemesis getting quickly rolled up after wanting to be in there for a chunk of the match (which would theoretically pay off at the end); the John Johnson goofiness which they closed off quickly and with satisfaction; Stryknyn's eye being vulnerable; and having it end with a big finishing stretch between Slim J and Tempers where they were able to set up and payoff the cobra clutch in a clever way for a great false finish before having the turns and setting things up for the future. Everyone did well in there, with the monsters protected and nothing seeming out of place. There wasn't that sense of guys eating pins too easily that you often get in elimination tags too. Mostly everything here was earned. I will say that it didn't quite have the sense of chaotic danger around the ropes with hands swiping that you see in some of the multi-man tags I like the best, but really that just let them focus more on whatever story beat they were telling with the wrestlers in the ring. The crowd was hot for the start of this and it's obvious why given the amount of care and thought put into each and every one of these big matches.

PAS: It is really hard to have a match with this many people in it, and give everyone a moment to shine, and have no unearned pins. I mean you got a pretty good sense of everyone in the match, even the guys who weren't in it long. Loved the Jagged Edge vs. Mikal Judas showdown, really teased a big showdown, got a taste of it, and left folks wanting to a buy a ticket to pay it off. Jagged Edge's chokelsam was probably the move of the match he sent Stryknyn into the cheap seats. Slim J gets the big finishing run with Tempers and it was pretty great, I imagine they had a hell of a title match at some point in this. The finish was booking heavy, but these always are, and I do think a heel Urban Assault Squad is a cool idea., and this was leading up to the great War Games later in the year.

Biff Busick vs. Trevor Lee XWA 1/17/15

MD: This was from January 2015 in RI, so not on as big a stage as their Evolve match a few days before. Lee was 21 at this point but he already had so much of it down. The crowd was absolutely game and really eager to see Biff kill someone. Lee gave them the all too rare for mid-2010s indy wrestling stalling to start and it worked huge. My favorite bit of it was a fan on the outside shouting "I thought you were supposed to be good" and Lee shouting back "I am good!" He cycled that right into a picture perfect eyepoke on a handshake attempt and an opportunistic throw to the outside. All great set up to clearly make the crowd against him and for Biff and to rile them up for some violence. They got that in spades with the crowd brawling as they went all around the place, really keeping things moving including a great visual where Biff got his leg caught on a chair off a whip and bumped huge, and then a bunch of nasty revenge shots using the terrain as a weapon. He even let a kid get a shot in on Lee. Eventually it had to get back in the ring and they moved into more of the back and forth you'd expect with a few big suplexes and shots and collisions. Again, I liked Lee's timing a lot here and his body language, overly following through in a believable way when he was about to run into something for a transition. Biff's stuff all looked unsurprisingly great (though I wish he wouldn't do stuff like the running blockbuster, but I get why he did) with the fans into everything. I haven't seen a Lee match in a long time and this made me want to see how he was doing now as Grimes in NXT.

PAS: This was a really well executed indy wrestling match, which hit on all of it's individual points really well, without ever moving fully into special territory. Still I can imagine the crowd was really happy to see this match live, and I dug watching it 6 years letter. Busick is a guy with tremendous explosion and execution, really tremendous at a fiery babyface comeback. Lee really put in the work early to make the crowd dislike him which made that comeback work. Loved the flip powerslam counter by Lee, it came out of nowhere, looked awesome and was a great moment to cut Busick's momentum reloading it for one more big comeback. This would be a fun feud to bring back in NXT, or if both guys end up someplace else.   

Daniel Bryan vs. Kofi Kingston WWE 9/2/19

MD: What a difference a decade-plus makes. This was an entirely different crowd, up for everything, but pretty annoying, down to the CM Punk chant in the middle (though at least that got booed down). It was a sort of crowd Kofi and Bryan were used to by this point, however, and they worked well to it. If you said this was a top 5 Kofi career singles match, I'd believe you, though Bryan drove most of the action and big moments. They worked the first half straight, babyface vs babyface, with just a bit of tension on whether Bryan would turn on him, and it was good, athletic stuff with kip ups and tapitias into surfboards and hesitant handshakes and both guys rallying the crowd and what have you. It felt a little like a mid-2000s indy affair to be honest. Midway through the match, Kofi following some major clowning of Bryan by taking a big bump out and Bryan feigned concern before turning on him with a hard whip into the post. He amped up the aggression after that but didn't really heel it up enough to get the crowd to turn on him, which sort of put a cap on how good the match would ultimately be. The battling over the yes lock towards the end was really good though, especially how Bryan finally got it on Kofi (which is something they probably used in their PPV matches too but I barely remember those); Kofi jumping into it from the top was a great visual. Finish was a bit too big on Kofi escaping Bryan's big stuff without one more rotation of Bryan dodging something of Kofi's but in general it was excellent house show fare that would have been better still if they led the crowd instead of following it.

PAS: The Mania match between these two is an all timer, and it was fun to see how they ran it back on tour. I liked all of the early feeling out sections on the mat, and Bryan turning more vicious. You don't really think of Bryan as an all-time puncher, but he really lays it in here, with those almost Bret Hart overhand loopers. Kofi was fine, he hit his stuff mostly, got height on his dives and didn't get outclassed. Of course this is Brynn's match. He looked great as the wounded ex champ who is plotting to get back on the top of the mountain, only to fall victim to a great looking spinning kick to the face. 

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New Footage Friday: TANK! SE7EN! WAR GAMES! CORINO! TEDDY HART! BRAZO DE PLATA! CASAS! HEADHUNTERS!!

Brazo de Plata/El Dandy/Negro Casas vs. Head Hunter I/Head Hunter II/Mocho Cota CMLL 8/12/94

ER: This was one of those matches I knew I was going to write up the second I saw the listing. How could I not watch a match with the Headhunters opposite Super Porky? Oh sure I guess it also had Negro Casas, El Dandy, and some guy named Mocho Cota (who we definitely don't dive into every new match we come across), but this was always going to be about some legendary fatness for me. I wanted to see bodies smoosh together, and smooshing was what I got. Porky was a beast in this, really putting some strain on his shoulder by hitting at least a dozen western lariats on both Headhunters. My shoulder was killing me just watching him run his arm into these unmoving human boulders. I loved how relentless Porky was throughout, just running into these beasts with lariats, spectacularly sending them over the top to the floor a couple of times. I loved all the build up to the Headhunters getting knocked to the floor, with Porky getting bigger and bigger heads of steam, Casas helping him on one of them, and then a big triumphant moment in the tercera where he not only finally bodyslammed a Headhunter (something he tried a couple times in the primera to no avail), hit a big backdrop (I wish I knew the difference between Headhunter A and B, because the bigger one was taking some real huge bumps here), smashed one over the top to the floor with a lariat by himself, then leveled him with a tope en reversa off the apron. Porky even had the most impactful big splash of the match, which I was not expecting considering how much larger the Headhunters are.

Casas and Cota mostly stuck to each other, cheapshotting each other the whole time, Cota taking his spectacular quick exits to the floor (one of the finest wrestlers ever at quickly bumping from the ring to the floor) and culminating with Casas faking a nut shot while the skinny furball flips out in protest. The Headhunters were awesome, twin towers who made it count every time they left their feet. They built to back bumps well, letting Porky and Dandy knock them down with lariats, but always needing 4 or 5 to finally do the job. I loved their Doomsday Device to win the primera, a heavy ass clothesline/crossbody that looked like it flattened Dandy. We got an incredible spot where a Headhunter went up to the top for a ring punishing splash, but Casas started shaking the ropes until the Headhunter took this amazing bump onto the ropes, down to the apron and thudding on the floor below. I wish he hadn't just appeared on the apron again 20 seconds later, because the bump looked like something that would have taken him out of action the rest of the match. But whatever, this was everything I wanted, some of my all time favorite luchadors and some all time favorite fatsos. Of course you want to see this.

MD: What a line-up! I love the Cota vs Casas feud even if the final match doesn't quite live up to what you want it to be. True of the greatest characters in lucha history, maybe wrestling history. This has them with quite the cast of supporting players. Porky! Dandy! The Headhunters. All four lucha mainstays 100% know how to maximize who and what they are and who and what they have in the Headhunters. I love how Dandy and Casas use Porky a a weapon. It's so fun seeing them as partners in general. I love how Porky builds recoil into all of his spots against the Headhunters. There's such vile intent and attitude in everything Cota does. All of the press slams and power moves here by Porky and the Headhunters really hit too, including those surrounding the finishes, especially that in the tercera where everyone's so distracted by the big spot, including the refs and the cameramen that Casas is able to fake a foul and lie his way to victory. They still had a number of weeks to milk before the apuestas match here and this was a great way to do it.

PAS: Total murderers row of entertaining guys. Headhunters were really at their insane peak in 1994, and break out some crazy agile stuff for two blobs. One of the Headhunters climbs to the top and gets shaken off and takes a crazy bump on the top rope and to the floor, and they hit this incredible powerbomb top rope STO combo which should be stolen by every big guy tag team. Porky is so much fun against other big guys, he has to be the biggest chubster on the block and has a bunch of fun ways to attempt, fail and succeed to reign supreme. I loved his apron dive, it looked like the kind of thing an 8 year old kid would try on his bed. Cota is a scheming cretin and he and Casas are always magic together.

Steve Corino vs. Teddy Hart PWX 9/13/06

MD: The sort of match that launched a hundred indies. I'm pretty sure this was the PXW debut show, and it's certainly the feud they tried to carry forward. That, and the facts that Jack Victory and Ruckus were both out as seconds and that the original ref was chummy with Corino, meant you were going to end up with a lot of BS and no clean finish. What we got was good, and even some of the BS worked towards the narrative, a step up over what a lot of people would offered. There had been heated promos setting all of this up so they were ready to go from the bell. Hart pushed Corino. Corino slapped Hart. Hart bled from the mouth and shot bloody mist at Corino which was an insane visual. There was a visceral sense that despite that, Corino had goaded Hart off his game early on (though even pissed, he'd still do a backflip for no reason because that's how Teddy Hart expressed his emotions). He hit an amazing corner clothesline/punch and a dropkick through the ropes, but the latter didn't quite slam Corino into the guardrail and he was able to capitalize by pulling Hart off the apron. What followed was some high quality bullying control work and cut offs by Corino, right up until a too early ref bump. The BS that followed had a few too many moments of everyone waiting around for a dive but otherwise served quite effectively as Hart's transition into a comeback. After that came a bunch of pulling out of refs and a dubious submission (to a seated crossface style cobra clutch which is one of those things someone should steal), before Hart threw a temper tantrum and they set up more matches to come. The violence, blood, dives, and clever bits of structure in the midst of it all, probably led this to be pretty satisfying to the people watching, despite the BS surrounding it. And they were able to plug the website for the real result. Obviously, that only got PXW so far, but hey, this accomplished what it set out to do. 

PAS: I thought this was excellent. I really enjoy Teddy Hart spectacles (too bad he seems to be a monstrous person), and this had all of the horseshit and weirdness you would expect from Teddy at his Teddiest. The opening slap by Corino was super nasty and I assume the mouth full of blood was a work somehow, but damn was that whole section nasty. There were definitely moments that felt uncooperative, both guys were throwing back elbows like they were trying to crack cheekbones. I also loved Corino pulling out the fork and stabbing Hart with it, obvious shades of the Homicide feud and this may be the only time I have ever wanted a match to be a three-way dance. I could have done without the 500th iteration of the Montreal Screwjob in the finish, but this was a great start to what should have been a wild feud, if this fed didn't go under.

Team UNWA (Adam Jacobs/Tank/Adam Roberts/Will Owens) vs The Devil's Rejects (Shaun Tempers/Patrick Bentley/Se7en/Rufus Black) UNWA 12/11/10 - GREAT

PAS: Yet another Devil's Reject's War Games shows up on the internet. This one isn't tip top tier Reject's War Games, but these matches have super high floors. Tank is normally a Reject, but was on the face team for this match and just hits the ring stabbing everyone. I really liked his couple of big man face off's with Rufus Black and Se7en and he really added some flavor to a face team which was otherwise a bit samey. The big spots weren't as big as they are in other War Games matches, but I am here for the asskicking and stabbing and we had that in spades.  

MD: Phil and Eric have seen a few more indy War Games than I have, but it's really hard to get it too wrong. Heels get the advantage. Babyfaces start off strong and fiery. Then it alternates with logical transitions until it breaks into the big spots at the end. That's exactly what happens here and mostly everything worked how it was supposed to. I had questioned why Tank wasn't batting cleanup for the faces, but The fans were totally into Owens who did exactly what he ought to. The heels were able take over with weapons as much as anything else, which worked for me. There was good use of the cage right at the beginning (and the only other big spot being a Canadian Destroyer once the heels got the first advantage which honestly felt more like an insult than anything else) and then it didn't really come back into play until the end when people leaped off of it. The big dive was really to clear the center of the ring for the finish, which is a great use of it. Then the post match was everything you want from an indy, just a triumph that respected the stipulation instead of trying to screw the fans and milk out more. Good stuff.

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Monday War Games: EWE - The Illuminati vs. Devil's Rejects

The Illuminati (Brandon Collins/Jason Collins/Johnny Viper/Se7en) vs. The Devil's Rejects (Andrew Alexander/Patrick Bentley/Tank/Rufus Black) Empire Wrestling Entertainment 8/3/13 - FUN

PAS: This was a lower end Devil's Rejects Wargames, but they are always well worth watching. The opening 10 minutes or so with Patrick Bentley and the Collins Brothers was pretty bad it was all superkicky juniors wrestling, I really don't want to see Canadian destroyers in my Wargames matches. It got a lot better when Tank and Rufus Black came in, they are exactly the kind of stabby psychos which makes this match fun. The four Illuminati doesn't come out originally and instead Se7en jumps Alexander on the outside before he can join the match. Se7en is really good at seeming scary and monsterous and I dug the finish with Seven squeezing Dan Wilson's bloody head until Alexander surrendered for him. Our buddy Dan is not afraid to spray the fruit punch in these War Games matches and it is appreciated. Hated the start, but liked the finish, so overall OK.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE WARGAMES

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New Footage Friday: WARGAMES!! Fuchi! Chavo! Finlay! Brad!

MD: There's a real Black Saturday feel this week with the unofficial (because when can WWE ever be transparent about anything? What other industry acts like this?) notice of the end of the Hidden Gem releases. It's rough and we're left on the hook for all those potential 83 Georgia Omni shows or more full Crockett Cups or 90s Dark Matches or maybe, just maybe the 91 WCW Omni shows, etc. That's not going to stop us though. The community is strong. New or rare stuff keeps popping up: lucha, 90s and 00s indies, 80s and 90s Japan TV and handhelds, a treasure trove of German footage, and we know there's always the possibility, any week, of new PR or old French Catch. We have a backlog. We have veins to tap. We are here for you. These posts are up by Saturday morning most weeks. They almost always have links to matches that you almost certainly have not seen. We'll tell you if they're worth watching and we almost always pick matches that are. We're not going anywhere. Follow along, post your thoughts, tell a friend who might be lamenting the neutering of the Network footage. We'll keep going until the well dries up and there's plenty of water to go around for now.


Masa Fuchi vs. Chavo Guerrero AJPW 8/19/83

ER: This starts with a dynamite 3 minute real time package, Fuchi already waiting in the ring with gorgeous swooped hair and a blue track jacket unzipped below his sternum. Fuchi looked like a super cool high school P.E. coach, or an average cool southern California pharmacist. He waits stoically in the ring while Chavo lightly jogs out, mariachi jacket and pants, yellow bandana holding down hair almost as cool as Fuchi's, shotgun shells crossing his chest. And the match itself was cool and tough, about 70% of it on the mat and building to some heavy thuds at the finish. The mat work was snug and linear, nothing flashy, but nice headlock takeovers and headscissors escapes, boots scraped against faces to defend single legs, and cool things like Chavo losing a surfboard on the roll over so just opting for punching Fuchi in the neck a couple times. We get my favorite camera angle on the pescado, filmed across the ring so that when Chavo makes perfect connection the two of them just get swallowed up beyond the other side of the ring. The count out finish was one of the more clever count outs, with Chavo getting back on the apron after the pescado, but Chavo being on the apron gives Fuchi the leverage to drop him down to the floor with a back suplex.

MD: This had everything you'd want from a 1983 AJPW Juniors match. They really took it to the mat early with sharp, sweeping counters and nothing that felt given or even fed. That spiraled into a heel/face dynamic as Chavo went for the cheapshots first. Fuchi fired back angrily. They escalated into some bigger bombs, and it all ended with a dive and a fairly novel yet still definitive count out finish, with Chavo putting the icing on top by trying another cheapshot only to get run off. Just about ten minutes bell-to-bell.

PAS: Pretty basic match with a couple of cool flourishes. Loved those overhand smashes by Chavo, just thudding nasty looking shots. I always enjoy Fuchi grinding a guy down on the match and he really has some punishing moments. The finish was really great with Chavo hitting an alltime great Pescado, only to get snatched off the ring apron with a backdrop suplex on the floor for the count out. Shortish match, and it wasn't an all time great match for either guy, but it is fun sometimes to see the minor works too.

Fit Finlay vs. Brad Armstrong CWA 12/3/95

MD: We have a lot of Finlay to watch in this German footage, and that's the best problem in the world to have. For this week we had to decide between two or three different matches of his. This one felt really novel and was highlighted further by a really nice twitter post he made a few years ago talking about how great Brad was as a wrestler and a human being. This is about 40 minutes worth of video with entrances, a flag ceremony, and music during the round breaks. We get a bunch of rounds, five or so, and lots and lots of meaty, meaningful, illuminating wrestling, but it does cut off before the end.

The face/heel structure is not what you'd expect here. This is probably the most significant heel Brad footage we have, I think, especially unmasked Brad. As good as he was as a meat and potatoes babyface, you always hear from wrestlers that his personality was larger than life and how it didn't transfer into the ring. Just because of who he was and his position within his family, he wasn't going to have the sort of chances to be a heel that Brian or Steve might have, but you get the sense he would have shined a lot brighter in that role and could have easily been a guy on the US title level, despite not being the biggest guy. Here, he realized the way the crowd was leaning early on and he went mean and pissy and didn't look back. He was quick to hit cheapshots, to rile the crowd, to argue with the ref, to have his second (Kauroff?) pull open the ropes so Finlay could bump through, and to feed for Fit.

Finlay was a badass babyface here, the sort of guy who would take a cheapshot, fire back, and then just dare the heel to come after him. He had a real, unmistakable connection to the crowd, one that he managed without pandering and without much changing who he was. At times, it actually hurt the match a little. There were moments where they could have prolonged his revenge on Brad thanks to the round breaks to get a higher payoff. and he stormed out of the ring to give him a beating instead. On the other hand, Finlay actively hulking up towards the end of the footage was both surreal and thoroughly satisfying. You'd expect that out of the way he continuously dismantled Brad's arm with the world's meanest armbar, sure, but not with an outright hulk up.

I wasn't as upset about the lack of a finish as I might have been otherwise because we did get so much action here and because you had a sense the direction everything was headed after that last comeback.

ER: Bruce Springsteen should go into the Pro Wrestling HOF just for the vast amount of wrestlers who have used Born in the USA as their entrance theme because they were the American wrestler in the match. And I thought the face/heel alignments were screwy as hell here, and didn't give me much sense at all of what heel Brad would look like. Outside of some moments in the first two rounds, most of this was Finlay clearly being the heel and being cheered anyway because he's Fit Finlay in Germany. But I really didn't care about face/heel dynamics because the work was simple, tough, and engaging the whole way through. We don't get a finish and there's a clip where I'm unsure how much we missed, but the runtime on this is long so we get a lot of bang for the buck. There were parts of this where I felt Brad was working more stiff than I've seen, but while Brad's work was obviously tight it was mostly Finlay selling like he was seeing stars every single time Brad dished out an elbow to the temple. Finlay is my favorite salesman in wrestling history, and every time he took a shot he would be stumbling, whipping his head back, holding his eye, feeling around for his opponent, falling into the ropes for support, everything he could do to make Armstrong look like a lethal weapon. Brad throws a snapmare the way they're supposed to be thrown and Finlay takes a snapmare bump the way someone is supposed to take a snapmare, and I love how it lead to Finlay finally refusing to go over, stopping Brad's forward momentum and dropping him with a jawbreaker.

Finlay is such a tremendous post bell asshole, just getting in every shot he can every time a round ended. I loved Finlay just pounding away at Brad on the floor, where you can here someone say "Don't do it, Finlay". Finlay takes a tremendous bump through the middle rope to the floor when Brad's second pulls the rope, and it's one of a zillion spots that Finlay clearly works out the physics on. There are tons of those spots in wrestling where a wrestler does Action A which leads to his opponent doing Action E, except most of the time we don't see anything that looks like attention being paid to B, C, or D. A guy hitting a tope but getting stopped with a chairshot will almost always look like a guy just running into a chair, because it's extremely difficult and dangerous to commit to a dive that is ending with you taking a chair to the face and falling painfully to the floor. Finlay is great enough to have a reason to run into the ropes, and then actually look like he was 100% committed to hitting that middle rope before it wasn't where it typically is. Finlay does all of the math on every one of his spots, making things that miss and WHY they miss just as important. Finlay got the most out of taking Brad's offense, and when he fights back it obviously delivers. Finlay throws a short left lariat that is so perfect that I wonder why Finlay didn't use a lariat as a finish. His armbar was fantastic even though Finlay isn't a guy I saw routinely work armbars, but the way he gleefully works to extend Brad's arm is fantastic, as is the way Brad sells it between rounds while I Was Made For Loving You jams over the PA. Some of Armstrong's best work in this match was done between rounds, like pleading to the ref for more time because of Finlay wrecking his arm after the bell. For all we know there's another 15 minutes of this match, but right here we got more total time with these two than all their other singles matches combined, and that's a special thing.

PAS: I would not have expected to see Brad Armstrong of all people step into a Finlay match and match Finlay shot for shot. Where the hell was violent asskicker Brad Armstrong for all of these years. Finlay of course is a master, his crazy bump to the floor was Jerry Estrada level insane, and I imagine a lot of the reason Brad Armstrong felt like Johnny Valentine was Finlay's selling. All of the armbar stuff was perfection, brutal violent bursar sack popping arm mangling, which Armstrong sells great. Cage match has this going to round 10, so we miss some real parts of the finish, but man alive what a treat to get what we get.


Devil's Rejects (Andrew Alexander/Tank/Rufus Black/Se7en) vs. Team Empire (Drew Delight/Rush/Ben Thrasher/Chunky Dragon) EWE 3/1/12

PAS: A music video for this match got uploaded on youtube a couple of days after it happened and I commented on the video asking them to release it in full. Seven plus years later it shows up!! Devil's Reject's Wargames are some of the coolest stuff that happened this century, and hardly anyone has seen them. This isn't at the level of the all time classics in 2006 and 2007 (and Tank was the only constant besides Rev. Dan Wilson) , but it wasn't a huge step below. The Alexander and Drew Delight opening five minutes is awesome, heated brawling, great punches and and some big cage bumps. Tank comes in and starts carving, and there is a nasty spot where Ben Thrasher gets the spike from him and drives it into his arm. Se7en is a huge guy and really good at menace, I am not sure why he never got a bigger role somewhere. The finish is crowd pleasing, although a bit lacking in drama. The babyfaces just take control, and Chunky Dragon lays into Alexander with knife edge chops and a pectoral claw until he gave up. Wargames is a great wrestling formula, all you kneed is some good brawlers willing to bleed, and that is what this delivered.

MD: Very good War Games. I liked the idea of Alexander cutting a promo to begin. It set the mood and was a good use of having the first guy in. It feels like the sort of thing CM Punk might do to make a sanitized WWE War Games work better. Honestly, Alexander was the highlight in this whole thing for me. I'm not sure how I'd feel about him in a normal match but he was a great receptacle for Delight's great punches, stooged and bumped around the ring, even late into the match, and then served as the big end center point where he lasted long enough to gain sympathy but finally surrendered in the face of little enough escalation (but an absolute sense of hopelessness) that you didn't feel TOO bad for him. They handled the momentum shifts well, balancing the new faces coming in and the fatigue/numbers game. I think this would have been better with a second ring as nothing really stood out once everyone was in. I was of two minds on some of the last quarter. They worked one big set piece with the figure-fours and the bat and while it was a little silly for a War Games match, it stood out and was memorable. It was hard to keep track of the brawling in the single ring and no single final transition stood out, but I kind of like how the babyfaces just slowly won the brawling war of attrition.

ER: I don't have a ton to add (though it feels like when I type that I then end up writing two full paragraphs), only that this felt like a genuine article WarGames, and that goes a long way in making me love a WarGames. This was not as great as earlier Devil's Rejects WarGames, but that is an insanely unfair comparison. If these were just 8 guys we'd never heard of and not a stable involved in two classic WarGames, this match would come off even better. Having watched the WWE WarGames within the month and now this one, though? There's no argument which way is better. I came away super impressed with Andrew Alexander, a great front to back WarGames performance that mostly required him to take a beating and be a wobbly kneed clown for Empire, and he did it magnificently. Drew Delight was throwing these great hamfists at his head, big round closed fists that were thrown with no style, just swung right at Alexander's forehead. The order of participants was staggered well, Tank coming in 2nd as a big wrecking ball was great, and even better because he was a wrecking ball with a spike. Tank threw a couple shots with the spike that made me jump, and I love how the inclusion of a spike has been so important to WarGames: You know that bringing a spike into WarGames will mean that your team will be eating a tong of spike, and I dig when a WarGames starts getting deeply into that torture. Everyone filled their roles nicely, bunch of big guys punching and bleeding a ton - and really what more is there? - and I loved Chunky Dragon as the final man. I've never heard of Chunky Dragon, and I assume I'll never see another Chunky Dragon match, but he was such a good fired up babyface tearing into the ring. He had real Michael McAllister energy to him, dug his big crossbody, loved all his hard chops. The finish doesn't necessarily peak anything, but I liked the burn at the end, of Alexander being held prone and trying to hold out as long as possible while getting punched and chopped, and finally accepting that nobody was coming to his rescue. When you hear your local indy is running a WarGames match, this is the level of quality you hope for.

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2017 Ongoing MOTY List: ANARCHY WARGAMES

15. Team Elite (Gunner Miller/Kevin Blue/Billy Buck/Chris Spectra) v. Jeremiah’s Battalion (Gladiator Jeremiah/Cyrus the Destroyer/Se7en/Azrael) Anarchy Wrestling 6/24

PAS: The first recent vintage Wargames match I have reviewed since I started my C+A Wargames and it lives up to the name. This has been building for a while since Billy Buck turned on Slim J, turning him into Gladiator Jeremiah. Buck then joined Team TAG and Jeff G. Bailey. Jeremiah then began recruiting monsters to take with him into war. Before the match they announced that Iceberg was in the hospital meaning the Battalion was one man short. Buck and Jeremiah start out and Jeremiah mauls him, bloodying him up and chucking from cage side to cage side. Heels get the advantage and Jeremiah takes some big bumps into the cage. At one point Cyrus, who is 350 if he is an ounce, gets hurled into the cage and breaks the whole thing, For the rest of the match the cage looks like it is going to collapse, which doesn't stop nutso Jeremiah from doing a dive off the top. Really enjoyed Spectra who came in with nunchucks and actually had some fun offense with them as weapons. Se7en also really hurled people around when he came in, he has such force in everything he does. The final Battalion member to come in was the returning Azreal who comes in lowered from the ceiling with druids holding torches. It was a pretty dope entrance, especially for an indy show. My only real complaint in the match is Azreal being the one to submit, a hacksaw in the mouth is a fine way to end a match, but having a guy have this big entrance only to be the loser seems like weird booking. Still great violent performances by everyone in this match, and one of the better Cornelia Wargames I have seen.

ER: 10 years on, another great WarGames from Anarchy. They really capture the violence like few can. How many Monsters Ball and other cage matches did TNA run, none of them ever approached the violence here. The opening 5 was great, Jeremiah is a total savage and Buck is a big guy who bumps bigger all around the ring and immediately bleeds; Blue comes in and throws some so-so shots, and Jeremiah absolutely devours him like a Tazmanian Devil cartoon. This guy is great. And then I fall in love with Cyrus the Destroyer, who looks like Buster Bloodvessel at his biggest. He takes an absurd bump into the cage, just getting launched upside down into it and scraping down the side of it. As you'd expect, we get some wild cage bumps, with Gunner upping the ante later by missing a spear into the cage with gusto. Chris Spectra is a guy I've never seen before and he had an awesome entry into the cage, coming in with nunchucks and catching a Jeremiah punch by wrapping it the chain. And as I'm talking about cool entrances we suddenly get druids coming out with very real torches, and Azreal getting lowered from the ceiling on a small plank (and good thing they kept the lights off as it had to be difficult to look cool while balancing on a tiny platform being lowered from the ceiling. Everybody in this tightens up strikes and kicks as if they were being filmed in HD and thought they needed to make it look good, which just adds to the feeling of constant violence. My only complaint is everyone needing to get to kind of the same place damage-wise all at once so Azreal could do his entrance, so you had people who had been in the match for less than 4 minutes selling death the same as the guys who had been in the whole time. But, the entrance was a cool visual so there's at least a decent tradeoff, and the match suitably ends on the nastiest thing in the match, a hacksaw rubbed across Azrael's mouth corners. Yuck. Another great indy cage match, and I'm excited to see more of these guys.


2017 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Anarchy Wrestling Hostile Environment 6/24/17

Chase Jordan v. Jeremy Foster

Really energetic opener. I liked Jordan as a goofy looking guy who would get vicious when taunted by the crowd. At one point he hit a diving punch to the back of Foster's head which was as violent as anything on this show. Foster is a hyper competent babyface who had some nice moments, including a great looking heel hook. Finish felt a little off, but this was a fine use of 8 minutes.

Ryan Vega v. AJ Gray

This was the climax of a feud which saw Vega stab Gray in the eye with a pen and piss on a referee. Vega has a nice scumbag look, although it is more Reddit troll then dangerous gutter punk. Match was a Gray showcase, as he was getting his revenge by hitting huge spots, he had a crazy Orihara moonsault and finished with a Phoenix splash where he kneed Vega in the ribs. Gray was fun (I remember liking him in CWF too) and this was another good match. 

Nightmare Kyle Matthews v. Anthony Henry

Another in a run of really entertaining Kyle Matthews matches, he has turned into one of my favorite guys in the world to watch. Henry is a guy I have seen a lot in EVOLVE and he was always a bit too go-go-go for my tastes, there was some of that here, but Matthews slowed him down some but still danced with him when it was time to dance. Really enjoyed Henry's arm work, after a Valet distraction he whipped him off the apron with the arm, and worked it for the rest of the match, including a cool bridged Fujiwara and a elbow lock with back control. I love how they have turned Matthews octopus into a killer hold, and both Henry's escape from the first attempt and the final finish were really well done. Looking forward to Matthews having a long fun run with this belt.

Lynch Mob (Joey Lynch/Matt Lynch) v. The Approved (Adrian Hawkins/ Bobby Moore)

This was a taped fist street fight for the tag team titles. I really dug this when The Approved and the Lynch Mob were punching each other in face, the Approved both have some really nice looking right hands, and the early part of this had a ton of energy. I liked how the Lynch Mob used dives, they were almost Sabuish in their recklesness. This fell apart a bit at the end, as both teams were setting up elaborate set pieces with chairs and it lost a lot of the energy it had earlier.

Tank v. Brad Cash

Here we had a Tapai death match along with lots of additional pokey weapons. This had some nice moments, Tank is a good brawler and the parts that resembled a brawl were good, still lots of this was geek show Mr. Pogo stuff. Lots of slow cutting by each guy, it was gross and bloody but not that compelling. I always prefer death matches to be built around stiffness and and bumps, the final bump by Cash was nasty as Tank choke slammed him on gusset plates, but this was mostly stabbing. Gory spectacle, but I am over gore for gore's sake

Rock C v. Jessica Leigh

I liked Rock C's reverse grapevine leg lock finisher, and she had one nice side suplex, but otherwise this was more a match for the live crowd, then anything you want to watch on tape.

Jacob Ashworth v. Stryknyn

Really fun heavyweight title slugfest. They start out early with some basic tight takedown and lock up wrestling, but like most face v. face matches, it really kicks in when they start throwing hands. Stryknyn hits a great looking barfight headbut and throws some really great straight rights, he also has some nice looking stomps. Ashworth doesn't have as crisp punches, but has great babyface fire, and some of the exchanges looked down right Lawlerian. I didn't love the moves section as much, lots of full nelson slams and B- spears, but I have to love any match based on great punches.

Team Elite (Gunner Miller/Kevin Blue/Billy Buck/Chris Spectra) v. Jeremiah’s Battalion (Gladiator Jeremiah/Cyrus the Destroyer/Se7en/Azreal)

The first recent vintage Wargames match I have reviewed since I started my C+A Wargames and it lives up to the name. This has been building for a while since Billy Buck turned on Slim J, turning him into Gladiator Jeremiah. Buck then joined Team TAG and Jeff G. Bailey. Jeremiah then began recruiting monsters to take with him into war. Before the match they announced that Iceberg was in the hospital meaning the Battalion was one man short. Buck and Jeremiah start out and Jeremiah mauls him, bloodying him up and chucking from cage side to cage side. Heels get the advantage and Jeremiah takes some big bumps into the cage. At one point Cyrus, who is 350 if he is an ounce, gets hurled into the cage and breaks the whole thing, For the rest of the match the cage looks like it is going to collapse, which doesn't stop nutso Jeremiah from doing a dive off the top. Really enjoyed Spectra who came in with nunchucks and actually had some fun offense with them as weapons. Se7en also really hurled people around when he came in, he has such force in everything he does. The final Battalion member to come in was the returning Azreal who comes in lowered from the ceiling with druids holding torches. It was a pretty dope entrance, especially for an indy show. My only real complaint in the match is Azreal being the one to submit, a hacksaw in the mouth is a fine way to end a match, but having a guy have this big entrance only to be the loser seems like weird booking. Still great violent performances by everyone in this match, and one of the better Cornelia Wargames I have seen.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE WARGAMES

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2017 Anarchy Grab Bag

After digging into some classic NWA Anarchy for the Wednesday Morning Wargames, I got excited to check out some of their more recent stuff . They are releasing shows every couple of weeks over at Powerbomb.tv, I got some recommendations from a backwoods cult leader who shall remain nameless, and cherry picked from the first handful of 2017 shows. I am hoping to review their more current stuff as it gets released.

Hardcore Hell 3/25/17

Hate Junkies v. Tank/Iceberg

This was a four corners of hell match, with bags of weapons in each corner.  This was set up as a battle between dominant teams from different eras in Cornelia history. I really dug this when it was four giant guys having a fist fight, Stryknyn is the least intimidating looking of the four (Danny Only, Iceberg and Tank all look like hillbilly cannibals, Stryknyn looks like a chubby goth) but has great looking punches and kicks and can really bring the intensity. Only look great too he hits a running drive-by style boot with Icebergs head pinned to the ringpost that looks like it might squirt Berg's brains out.  Once the weapons came out I thought it veered into geek show territory, the stuff with skewers and sickle felt too much like a Lollapalooza carnival sideshow and less like a fight. Finish got intense again, Tank double stomped Only which looked like it flattened his intestines, the spear into the thumbtacks was super nasty too.

Team TAG v. Devil's Rejects/Odinson

Really fun example of a sneaky heel team getting thrown around by a team of babyface monsters. Odinson and Seven are especially impressive, both are legit huge (Seven is probably 6'8, Odinson is built like Brian Cage or young Brock) and really agile. Seven hits a standing elbow drop with dunk contest level height, and Odinson hit a drop kick that looked like Jim Brunzell. This was a fans strap match and you had lots of spots that allowed the fans to take shots at the heels. Tank comes out to distract Brad Cash which leads to TAG shooting a confetti cannon into Odinson's eyes for the pin. Not sure about that putting him down, it feels like a confetti cannon would be irritating but you might need a real cannon to knock down that beast.

Jacob Ashworth v. Gunner Miller

This was a classic wrestling story with Ashworth coming from being a fan in the stands, to working on the ring crew to finally getting a title shot against the dominant champion. This was worked very much like a mid 2000s WWE main event, lots of punch exchanges, suplexes and dramatic near falls. They did a nice job of timing the big nearfalls, Miller hits his CTE running headbutt which is his killshot move, but Ashworth bumps to the floor, Ashworth hits his finisher but the ref is down. Nice moment at the end of the match with Ashworth's family and the locker room emptying to celebrate his victory.



Writing on the Wall 5/13/17

The Nightmare Kyle Matthews v. Torque

Matthews has taken on the Nightmare gimmick to honor Ted Allen who trained him. I really enjoyed Matthews in this, he basically works like an 80s highflyer, you have to love a guy who wrestles like Tim Horner in 2017. Beautiful dropkick, great looking crossbody, good 80s matwork, and even finishes the match with an octopus hold. I really like how Matthews sold a kick to the ribs, he sold it like Torque had caught him wrong with a simple move and cracked a rib. Torque has a much more 2017 style and it works as a contrast, this may have gotten a bit 2 county at the end, but I enjoyed it. Definitly want to track down more Matthews.


Gunner Miller/Kevin Blue/Chris Spectra/Billy Buck v. Gladiator Jeremiah/Jacob Ashworth/The Hate Junkies

This is an 8-man tag which is combining a bunch of the big feuds in the fed. Gladiator Jeremiah is the former Slim J and he looks great here, he has put on a fair amount of muscle, and was working more like a Dynamite Kid style hard hitter, while still breaking out some cool highflying. This was the first time Miller and Jeremiah had matched up and it felt like a big deal. I enjoyed Team TAG in this more then I did in the six man, they did a nice job cutting off the ring and they had some cool contributions to the finisher run at the end, I liked Blue's weaponized school boy where he schoolboys someones head into the bottom turnbuckle.

This was a fun mix of what Anarchy is putting out in 2017, it got me very excited to start watching the shows regularly. There are building to WarGames and that should be awesome.

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