AIW Absolution 7/21/17

Dominic Garrini v. The Duke

PAS: This was kind of an odd match. Duke is a heel manager who looks like a Illinois High School Defensive Line coach. You would think Garrinni would just squash him, but it was a really competitive match with Duke kicking out of a piledriver, throwing back suplexes, escaping submissions ect. Duke is a big dude, but it is weird to have a manager take 60% of a match with suplexes and not eye pokes. If you were watching the match in a vacuum the work was pretty good, and Garrinni is always worth checking out, still the booking was goofus.

Frankie Flynn v. PB Smooth

PAS: I had seen both of these guys in CWF before but they both looked better here, working with people you are familiar with can be really helpful. Smooth is listed at 7 feet tall and is probably legit 6'9 or so. He had really nice power moves including some nice bodyslams and a great chokeslam. Flynn works over the knee and does a nice job working it over, and Smooth does a nice consistent job selling it. Finish has the ref distracted while Flynn's crew attacks Smooth, while everyone is confused Flynn clips Smooth's knee with the rookie trophy and puts his feet on the ropes for the win. I enjoyed this, basic match, but well done and I would enjoy seeing either guy against Cain Justice in CWF-MA for the RGL belt.

Britt Baker v. Swoggle

PAS: This was a comedy fans bring the weapons match between a midget and a woman with a lot of mishigas, lots of run ins including Dick Justice doing a flip flop and fly and Space Monkey doing a Orihara moonsault. Swoggle took some semi-nasty garbage bumps including going but first into carpet tacks and getting barbed wire up his nose. I was semi amused by Swoggle taking a bump into Lucky Charms like they were thumbtacks. The finish had Adam Cole run in under a mask and clean out the heels so Baker could get the win. I am not a Cole guy, but he seems like a pretty big star to book for a surprise run in on a comedy match.

Eddie Kingston v. Tom Lawlor

PAS: I am always very happy to see a big time Eddie Kingston singles match. Kingston isn't going to grapple with you, so this had less jujitsu rolling then the other Lawlor matches I have watched, but they replaced with grappling with Kingston chops and backfist to the face. This was these guys doing an All Japan main event and Kingston's selling put it at a higher level then most matches of this style.  Every shot was impactful and every suplex was compressing. Lawlor has really good looking suplexes and is willing to take an asskicking. Lawlor does his neck snap move and Kingston sells it like it gave him nerve damage. Even the suplex no sell section had Kingston fighting through adrenaline and both guys collapse on their face. Finish was pretty great with Lawlor turning a Tazmission into a nasty ground and pound into a guillotine. Loved Kingston fighting from the ground until he ate one too many elbows and slumped unconscious.

ER: These two matched up great, and I think they used the right percentage of each man's strength. Kingston is a furious striker who often gets into fights with better strikers, and still brings it even as you can see his life meter draining the whole match. Lawlor comes out looking like Chuck Liddell and messes around by immediately flopping to his back. Kingston is game and I loved this front to back. Kingston tries his luck with some go behinds, lands some shots, and the longer the match goes - as Phil says - Kingston makes this mean so much more with his elite selling. Watching him go for a strike and become aware of numbness in his arm, or watching him take a strap down only to stumble down to a knee, things like that are part of what I love about pro wrestling. Suplex trading is almost always an instant fart noise in a match for me these days, but I love how these two handled it. Lawlor's first two Germans were absolute beasts. I don't know if he was planning this but I love that he played to the camera side with them, showing us the full side angle of the suplex. It really allowed us to see every step of it. Kingston is not a small guy and seeing the lift and the the throw and the landing was awesome.  Both guys throw full strength and I thought it was a big moment once Kingston got up and threw Lawlor. None of this felt like fighting spirit, it felt like typical Kingston not knowing when to quit. Kingston is a guy who quits when his body quits. He's still able to fire off some backfists, and that fist is always his ace in the hole, but you can't hit that backfist when you're on your back getting elbowed in the face. Lawlor locks in a tight standing guillotine and you can see Kingston fighting forward, trying to back Lawlor up, but smartly tapping. Awesome performance from both, killer style clash.

Ethan Page v. Shawn Schultz

PAS: This was a bullrope match, and a pretty well done one. Shultz is a southern guy who I remember enjoying in SAW. He has really nice downward punches, and for a guy billed as the master of the eye rake, he has a great eye rake. This could have used some blood, there were multiple times I assumed Page was about to blade, but he didn't, still Shultz had some really nasty choking with the rope. I also really enjoyed the crowd brawling, mostly fighting through the crowd rather then hair pulling and walking. Finish was slightly anti-climactic as Page just hit three uranages and dragged Shultz around to the corner, although overall the match exceeded expectations.

Chase Oliver/Garrison King/Joshua Bishop/Tre Lamar/AJ Gray  vs. Jollyville Fuck-Its (Russ Myers & T-Money)/Matt Justice/Young Studs (Bobby Beverly & Eric Ryan)

PAS: Man did I love this match. The concept is a group of AIW students challenged team of old school AIW guys. The first section of this match has the Old AIW laying a 75% Kurisu level beating on the rookies. Matt Justice nearly beheads Tre Lamar with a leg lariat, the Jollyville Fuck Its (who are a team I love and I need to seek out more of) have this great spot where T-Money puts Lamar in an airplane spin and Russ just punches him in the face on every spin. Garrison King has light up shoes an awesome secondary nickname (Garry "The King" Baller) and takes an absolute shellacking. After a really long one sided beating the rookies get a bit of an advantage with AJ Gray (who is sort of a ringer) and that leads into this awesome dive train, with Chase Oliver doing a Taka moonsault to the floor, Lamar hitting an insane looking Fosbury flop, Gray hitting a skytwister off the top and Justice Davey Boy Smith style powerslamming King off the top rope into a crowd on the floor. Finish run is pretty bonkers with everyone hitting big moves until the rookies get the big upset win. Batshit spotfest, with the old school team beatdown leading to a real structure that most of these kind of matches lack.

ER: This was the best. I had seen only a few of the guys in this match before, and a couple only because of one-off CWF appearances. The match is like a wrestling school horror story mixed with a prison drama, where 5 guys pay off the guards to look the other way while they lay a beating on the fresh fish. King draws the short straw and gets wasted by all of Old AIW. It never feels as unprofessional as Kurisu shoot KOing a rookie, but we get all sorts of slams and chops, the kind of slams that you know left some tingling fingers, and the kind of chops where they were being held prone and unable to defend. Matt Justice is a guy I'd never seen and came off as badass as Drew Galloway, just a big dude who can move as fast as anyone in the ring, and probably hit harder. His shotgun kick really was decapitating, and his chops to the chest and back played as the best chops in a match filled with sick chops, and his knee drop ranks among the best in wrestling. JFI are a killer team and their tag ins and doubles teams always brought the violence. T-Money came off like Sweet Brown Sugar in some of those violent 80s squashes, using impressive agility and stiff work. I can't believe the top rope didn't snap when he leapt over Myers and crashed full weight onto his opponent, and I loved him catching a Chase Oliver rana and powerbombing him into the buckles. Myers threw a bunch of nice punches, and that airplane spin with Myers throwing a punch to the ear every rotation was a riot! And for good measure he went and punched the rest of the New AIW in the head on the apron. Old AIW was clearly filled with glee at the beating they were delivering.

But the strength of the match was how genuinely and appropriately they sold New AIW's offense. This wasn't some Japanese match where the veterans puff out their chests and no sell every shot from the rookies, not even close. When Bobby Beverly got hit with a huge pop up double stomp to the chest it felt like a huge moment. And as Beverly lay on the mat we got a great shot of the beaten and tired New AIW standing on the apron, rooting him on, with King pulling himself up from the floor and slowly up each rope to root on his team. The dives really were a spectacular bunch of dives, with Lamar's super high leap Fosbury Flop being a standout, but that powerslam winning on craziness. Each dive was reckless and felt big, like New AIW had just taken their beating like men, and here we are STILL doing crazy shit. The spots in this were great, but there was real meat on these bones, the story an old and simple one, but one that almost always delivers. Every bit of this ruled.

Mia Yim vs. Shayna Baszler

PAS: These ladies had a very good match in the Mae Young Classic, that was more of a sprint, this was more a slow building title match, I am a bit torn to which I liked more. Shayna was great here, taking apart Yim's leg, low kicks to the thigh, nasty ankle joint manipulations, methodical and nasty, like if Ole studied ju-jitsu. Loved how the legwork came into play in the finish with Yim unable to fully lift Shayna for the package piledriver (which had beaten Shayna in their previous AIW matchup) she only got a close two count. When she goes for a second piledriver, Baszler slinks out hits an awesome gutwrench, and transitions into a brutal looking ankle lock for the tap. I am not sold on Yim's offense, but she did a great job selling and this was a really nifty match.

ER: I like how these two match up so it wasn't much of a shock that I enjoyed this. I loved Baszler going after Yim's leg the whole match, and thought Yim sold it nicely. After Yim misses an axe kick Baszler takes her down by grabbing her plant leg and we don't really look back. Baszler starts twisting at Yim's leg, kneeling on the inside of her knee, standing on her knee, stomping at her ankle, and I loved Yim trying to butt scoot away. Things peak when Yim attempts a cannonball in the corner, and Baszler leaps out of the corner with a knee. The knee looked flat out devastating, timed perfectly. It looked so damn good it was almost a shame that they had more match in them. But we still got cool moments the rest of the way, and I dug the shifting momentum gutwrench, thought Yim had a nice high knee of her own, always like that short clutch piledriver, super fun match.

Alex Daniels v. Joey Janela

PAS: Pretty fun Absolute title defense. Shortish spotfest sprint which is what Daniels does best. I haven't been following this fed, but out of context Gregory Iron as a heel is really weird. It just doesn't feel right to be cheering Janela beating the shit out of a guy with Cerebral Palsy. Iron takes a whooping too, big bumps and some nasty kicks to the face. I don't get why Daniels uses that brutal looking brainbuster throw into the corner as a set up move, but at least it lead right into a second slam and a two count here. Liked the finish, earlier in the match Iron rang the bell when Janela had Daniels in the crossface, here Janela puts the crossface on both of them until Daniels passes out. Nifty match which didn't wear out it's welcome.

Crazy Pain (Gringo Loko/Steve Pain) v. DJ Z/Laredo Kid v. NES (Facade/Flip Kendrick) vs. To Infinity and  Beyond (Cheech/Colin Delaney)

PAS: This reminded me of one of those IWRG school v. school ciberneticos, bunch of nuts just trying every insane move they can dream up. Delany does a baseball slide to the floor while german suplexing the guy in the ring, Facade does a rope walk Canadian destroyer, Flip hits a Code red into the turnbuckles, and on and on. Love Steve Pain, he is one of the best rudo bases in the world and he just flies with every rana and armdrag. Match really falls apart unfortunately as Flip does a 630 to the floor and cracks his skull either on the ringapron or floor. Everyone understandably freezes and they never really get their rhythm back. Finish has Loko faking another heart attack, and it is tough to do a worked injury angle moments after a real injury. This was apparently a rematch of an earlier match, and it did really make me want to check that one out.

Josh Prohibition v. Louis Lyndon v. Tim Donst v. Tracy Williams

PAS: I really enjoyed the opening sections of this match, which were mostly spirited crowd brawling. Lyndon was nuts, armdragging Williams into a row of chairs and hitting a rana off the merch table. I also enjoyed the Prohibition v. Donst brawling with Prohibition dumping an entire garbage can full of wet garbage on Donst's head, there was a moment where the moist garbage water cascades down his legs that was a disturbing as any death match bump. The match unfortunately really falls apart when everyone gets back into the ring Donst brings in a bunch of plunder and just kind of stands around for a bit until he is attack. Prohibition handcuffs him and they do this bad section where everyone is about to hit him but gets cut off (this included Williams preparing to chair shot Donst and then for some reason placing the chair against his own cheek to get dropkicked, painfully bad looking). There is then a long set up of chairs and fight on the top rope between Prohibition and Donst while I assume Lyndon and Williams went and got dinner or something. Just a mess. Post match Nick Gage comes out as a surprise to challenge Donst, and Nick Gage is always an awesome surprise.

PAS: Overall this was a really great show, three matches that make our MOTY list, two really high, and only the main event was actively bad. I wish AIW was a little easier to get, but I think I will be sending some more dough to SMV.

ER: Any time a show lands 3 matches on our Ongoing MOTY List, you know it's quality. I came away really impressed by some people I had never watched before, and that's always quality wrestle watching.

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Matches from AIW Bloodsport 9/9/16

1. Shawn Schultz vs. Tim Donst vs. Eric Ryan vs. Facade

ER: I haven't seen three of these guys before, and it's obviously been several years since I've seen Donst. Donst used to have his amateur wrestling body and gimmick, but now he's been clearly inspired by Kevin Owens' WWE success and Ethan Page's continuing Evolve push, so has modeled his look more after them. I came away from this really impressed by Eric Ryan, and also Facade. Facade looked like a guy playing a club promoter in the movie Strange Days. But he ties togther his indy offense nicely and adds nice thump to his transition strikes, feels much more like a late 90s OMEGA guy like Shannon Moore, than your current breed of similar indy workers who have flash but all their tie-together stuff looks garbage. Ryan was killer, moved really fast and took big bumps, hit some nice power offense. Best spot was him going for a suicide dive early, and his opponent just moves, and Ryan literally just does a suicide dive into the guardrail. Whole match was built around Donst in the crowd not wanting to wrestle, so you knew he was going to come in and win. But this was worth it just for the Ryan/Facade parts.

2. Eddie Kingston vs. Dan Severn

ER: Neat little 4 minute match, cool enough that had it happened on a 1998 episode of Shotgun would still be talked up today as a syndicated gem. Dan Severn is almost 60 and has hardly aged in 18 years, so it may as well have happened on Shotgun. They do a bit of tough matwork, Severn getting a double while Kingston works underneath for a kimura. Next time Severn shoots in for a double Kingston is waiting with a low knee, and Kingston acts surprised that it actually worked! Severn goes down from the knee and Kingston punces with muay thai knees, Severn blocks a backfist in a cool way, and that puts him in grappling range and Severn tosses Kingston a couple times with some cool unorthodox throws, then chokes him out. This came off like a cool Dave Taylor/Jerry Flynn WCWSN match, which makes it a win in my book.

3. Colin Delaney/Cheech vs. Russ Myers/T-Money vs. Steve Pain/Gringo Loco

ER: AIW is really good at throwing together these multi man spot tags, but it helps when you have someone like Steve Pain in there running things. This probably would have been better if we dropped Myers/Money from the equation, but there were enough moments that they added to that their inclusion was fine. Steve Pain, though - especially in matches like this - is just a bank full of money. He has all sorts of awesome convoluted offense, big slams and trippy powerbomb combinations, he's good at hand holding through other guy's cool spots, bumps big on a hiptoss to the floor, and will run face first into a back elbow. Loco has slowed down a little since his IWRG peak but he brings professionalism to a spotfest like this, so while maybe he should cut down on the complicated dives that have barely been clearing the apron, he's still an excellent hand in there to tie things together. Cheech and Delaney are fun together, dug their stereo dives and their silly Rube Goldberg style assisted rana. For their part Myers brought some amusing comedy, I did laugh at his terrible kip up spots, and his wild moonsault off of Pain's shoulders threatened to kill everyone. Money brought a slick dive over the top rope and a big pounce. Really love these kind of matches and I really need to start seeking out all Steve Pain matches.

4. Louis Lyndon vs. Matt Riddle

PAS: Louis Lyndon is an original Beyond Wrestling dude who I always enjoy, he used to do a Bruce Leroy gimmick and now seems to be doing some sort of Captain Mike Rotundo shtick. I really liked the start of this with Lyndon throwing cool lucha armdrags and Riddle countering them with armbar attempts, it was a very cool mix of styles and got me amped for the match. Unfortunately it didn't really live up to its early promise, as Riddle did a lot of hack cheap shotting and they were off on a couple of spots. Finish was a ref distraction and a low blow. Wouldn't mind seeing them match up again, but this wasn't much.

ER: I thought this maintained more than Phil did, as the early awesome spots ran longer than the couple troublesome spots down the stretch. But I liked Lyndon more than I liked Riddle in this one, which surprised me. Riddle definitely facilitated some of Lyndon's more complicated things and went over easy on germans, but Riddle also has begun doing tons of complicated build up to weak looking finishes. There was a moment where he was doing some slick standing floatovers and I thought he was going to spin into an old Minoru Tanaka armbar but instead he ends with a stupid looking Pele kick that just rarely reads well. It's like the more confident he gets in a wrestling ring, the more stupid stuff he tries, and the more he gets further away from his actual cool MMA integration. I didn't really need to see him ever try his hand at KENTA style kick combos, but we're starting to get more of that and less of the wild bumps and less of that Fujiwara/Ishikawa "always dangerous" spirit lurking underneath. Phil is right that Lyndon started this out hot, and some of those armdrags made me flip. That one where he grabs Riddle's wrist and does a snap bridge, tossing Riddle over? Nuts. Lyndon had a bunch of cool stuff here, and although they got crossed up a couple times down the stretch I thought the cool outweighed the overly cooperative. I actually liked the finish with Lyndon pulling the ref in front of him to stop Riddle's attack, then punting him low. So overall I liked this more than Phil, but it's starting to look like the bloom is coming off the Riddle rose a bit, but hopefully it's just a case of the guy working more and more, therefore more less than stellar performances emerging with the larger sample.

5. Shayna Baszler vs. Heidi Lovelace

PAS: This was the main event of an MMA tinged show, and by far the best I have seen Baszler look in her short pro-wrestling career. She comes off a little like a female Don Frye, cocky asshole, sort of likable, but a total killer. She has this great taunt early in the match where she chains into submissions while counting them out, I could have tapped you with this, or this, or this. Her cockiness leads to a great near fall where she flips off Lovelace only to get her head kicked in. Heidi brought it, working super stiff, and finding cool ways to use ranas as piledrivers. Bayzler still will occasionally pull a shot too much, but she is developing a better sense of when to lay it in, and has great charisma. Finish was cool with Heidi going for a senton, which lands her right into Baszler's rear naked choke. Post match Jessyman Duke and Rhonda Rousey come out to help her celebrate, which was pretty neat.

ER: I really liked this and was really impressed with Lovelace. Baszler was impressive as well, especially for someone who's probably just 25 matches into her career; but Heidi had this all mapped out, paced things really great, fed some great spots to Shayna, and really knew how to build this. The counting off submissions spots was such a great dickhead spot, "Here's an armbar, here's a wristlock, kneebar, heel hook, now I'll let you up." Phil pointed out how she can still pull too many shots, and there were a couple that came off bad, but that's where I thought Heidi really excelled, as when Shayna would pull one Heidi would respond with one of her stiffer shots, almost waking up Shayna to a "oh yeah, I can hit harder!" and her response blows would always be bigger. Loved Heidi's headscissor that smashed Shayna's face into the guardrail, and that kneeling rana that did the same, into the mat. Also dug Baszler shit talking a skater kid in the front row, who looked like a tiny male Heidi, with a starter mustache. There were a couple times where they went out to fight right in front of him, and they would lay it in for a little close up magic. Heidi knocked the finish out of the park with her "getting choked out" facials. Her face was looking pale and her lips even looked blue, made me think Shayna was actually murdering her. Really cool match, and I really hope they match up again somewhere down the line.

ER: Really fun show (especially when you skip matches with Ethan Page, Michael Elgin and BJ Whitmer!), and Baszler/Lovelace was good enough that it landed on our 2016 Ongoing MOTY List. But I dug all the matches I watched.

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