Death Valley Days: Road Report

ACTION Wrestling Death Valley Days: Road Report 2/28/26

MD: Usual disclaimer to start. This is Segunda Caida, of course. But I don't personally have a hand in these shows. It's all Phil, Eric, Matt G, and JR. I get no privileged info. Up until now at least, I don't suggest that they try to book Marco Corleone. While I'm proud of these guys for putting their money where their mouth is, my mouth is here. I wouldn't say what you're about to read is fully unbiased, but it does have a level of distance at least. That said, they're doing great. But they already have a Matt, and he could hit an Iconoclasm on me.  

It's also been great seeing so many people write about the show in general. Engage with pro wrestling, write about it, talk about your experiences. That's the spirit that drove DVDVR and this place and the internet needs more of it once again.

Ok, on with the show.

Darian Bengston vs Ryan Mooney

MD: Kicking things off and setting the tone, this was for the ACTION title, one of the two title matches on the card. Bengston is free-flowing, technical, engaging, dynamic, entertaining. He's constant motion, shifting from one hold and position to the next. 

It was up to Mooney to stop him cold as many ways as possible then. Sometimes that meant throwing himself headlong at Bengston, foot first off the ropes and with a body block from off the top. Sometimes it meant throwing Bengston all around the ring with tricked out offense. And yeah, sometimes, especially when things got particularly hairy and Bengston inched closer to the Makabe Lock, that meant biting. 

As things escalated, tricks that worked earlier in the match failed later on, like a hitter who had seen a pitcher a couple of times late in a game, and that was true first and foremost for the biting. Bengston was able to redirect Mooney's hand right into his own mouth, lock the legs, and flip over for the Makabe Lock. This was solid, smart, straightforward. Both men were stylized in their approaches but the match itself was grounded and easily accessible compared to what was to come.

Angus Legstrong vs Oldman Youngboy

MD: I made the choice to write about this all at once, because it, even more than the DEAN shows, is a single card and should be looked at as such. In some ways, this match is here to prep everyone for the BattlARTS match to come, but it's also to pull people out of their comfort zone. Bengston vs Mooney was very much in their comfort zone, something well executed and familiar.

This though? 

This probably took a lot of the crowd for a ride into Parts Unknown. Legstrong looks like a mostly bald Cliff Clavin, if he had the strongest legs in the world, which he immediately showed off. Youngboy returned the favor with a super impressive bridge. 

And then they were off to the races. Gritty grappling where nothing was given and everything was opportunistic. In theory, it was a bit like a CWF undercard match where Eddie Graham sent a couple of guys out to shoot. 

Back on their feet, neither getting a decided advantage (though Legstrong was able to get Youngboy to go for a rope break), they each utilized more of a professional wrestling flourish. Youngboy faked high and picked a leg with a roll; later on he'd hit a beautiful takedown scissoring Legstrong (ironically enough) with his legs. Legstrong, on the other hand, was able to get Youngboy in a vulnerable position and just paintbrushed him.

Maybe, just maybe, Oldboy was winning on points, but none of that mattered after Legstrong hit the first real bomb of the match, a literal one. Oldboy, on instinct, managed a kickout on the folding press, but Legstrong did his best SENKA impression and bullied Oldboy over for the pin. 

This was two men plying their trade, showing off their skill, presenting a vision of what pro wrestling can and should be that's very different than most of what we've gotten this century and it was very welcome to see.

Isaiah Broner vs Jake Shepherd

MD: Exactly what it should have been (which is something you can say about every match on the card, really). Two behemoths going at it. Jake Shepherd possesses real Jerry Blackwell energy in the best way. There's just something about how he moves. They just threw shots at each other to start and Broner got the better of him. Shepherd had this way of shaking his leg as he stumbled backwards. When you're a super heavyweight, every movement matters. It draws the eyes, it tugs at the imagination. By stumbling back like that, it put over Broner's shot in a massive way. 

Then he crashed right through him (which is no small feat). They ended up on the floor and Broner started to get the best of him again, but there was Shepherd out of nowhere with an unlikely kick. He had an answer. And then he punctuated it with an absolutely brutal splash on the floor. Much of the rest of the match was Broner trying to heft Shepherd up for what the commentators thought might be a Death Valley Driver. Eventually, after catching him on the ropes, he did get him up, and then he planted him with the craziest F5 you'll ever see. I could have watched these two throw massive shots at each other all night, but clearly in a clash this titanic, something had to give. Broner's always worth watching, no question; we knew that. But Shepherd is such a perfect DVDVR guy.

Kasey Owens vs Adrian Alanis

MD: Character should always drive action, but that's especially true when you're deviating from conventional narratives. This was heel vs heel, but it was completely driven by who these two were.

That meant Owens came out, turnbuckle in hand, causing a fit and demanding the ref to check Alanis. That let him slip the brass knuckles into the turnbuckle himself, presumably to use later. 

Once the action started however, it was more akin to goofus and gallant, if both were heels. Alanis had one poised piece of offense after another, posing in between. Owens, on the other hand had cheapshots and finger pulling. 

After Alanis nearly got the win with a Flosion and Owens finally hooked in the Chicken Wing, things completely devolved into one of the best and rarest forms of wrestling there is, a dirty rotten scoundrels scenario. A crutch ended up in the ring, then one chair after the other. Owens tried to use the turnbuckle. The ref was yelling at them. They were yelling at the ref. They were yelling at each other. Then they both went for the Eddy Guerrero chair fakeout at the same time and only came to when it was obvious the ref was going to throw the match. It was fun stuff and completely different than anything else on the card and most things you'll see on any card all year. 

Alanis felt a little more out of his element though, which allowed Owens to get the better of him. Instead of getting to use the knucks, he ensured that Alanis went head first into the turnbuckle. I'm not 100% sure about the actual physics of that, but the pro wrestling physics (which tend to be more moral than anything else) were spot on, and the slovenly trickster of yore beat the slicker athlete on this night.  

Slim J vs Tim Bosby

MD: Slim J looked like the most professional professional wrestler in the world here. This was sharp as you'd expect, one of the most imaginative, versatile babyfaces of the century, with some of the best, smartest instincts, against a dynamo of a athletic base with bomb after bomb after bomb for offense. 

Slim tried to pry off an arm early, and he'd have some success with that technique, but there was always the sense that Bosby was just too big and too much for it to slow him down enough. Even then, were it not for Hales getting involved, maybe it would have been. But Dylan did get in the way and that let Bosby start in on the back. 

Some of his offense looked like it broke Slim in half. Despite that, Slim would climb up and around, bound over, hit from every angle as he was want to do, but he couldn't turn the tide. A match like this, while being as pro wrestling as it possibly can be, also has a bit of that sports feel. Bosby had the ball and was driving on net again and again but no matter the pressure, Slim J didn't break. And once he got ball possession, he ran with it. 

Even then, it seemed like it all came to naught as Bosby finally planted him with an F5, something they had conditioned the crowd to be a match-ender earlier in the night in the Broner match. It led to a huge kickout here. Finally, after a couple of finishing stretch counters, Bosby hit a spinecrunching German and it looked like that might be it. It just wasn't that sort of night though. It was, instead, the sort of night where Slim leaned as hard as anyone possibly could into being an arch-babyface, hulked up, ripped the shirt, nailed Dylan off the apron, and wholly immune to even the idea of negative consequence of that distracted action, took Bosby up, over, and around for the pin. And for at least a few minutes, all was right in the world. 

You know what? Sometimes we need that. Sometimes we need pro wrestling to be that. Why the hell not here and now?

Toby Klein vs Nathan Mowery

MD: Variety is the spice of life, and if you ask these guys, blood is a viable spice. This would be the death match portion of the show. The great thing about using a VCR as a ranged weapon, like Klein did to start this before Mowery could even make it to the ring, is that then you can use the tape from the VHS itself as a garotte. It's economical when you think about it.

This was about as straightforward as could be. Two maniacs (said affectionately) jabbing jagged objects ranging from antlers to a handsaw into each other's forehead and then peppering the bloody remnants with punches. Occasionally you'd get a DDT. More likely you'd get a chair, or a door, or a light tube. 

If there was the overarching theme to the night, it was wrestlers giving it their all, not in the A for Effort sort of way, but instead in that these characters, these unique, twisted, brilliant, wonderful entities, were pressing up against each other in this overwhelming cacophony of violence, technique, and grit that would drown out all the petty, meager worries of the day. And that was completely at play here. These two were, in this moment, the very most of their class, of their type, and they battled each other with all the trappings of their chosen style. It just so happens that Mowry had the Reverend at his side and the means to set his elbow on fire. Past that? Could have gone either way.

Jamesen Shook vs Tank

MD: Speaking of characters (but then I could start literally every one of these matches like that; that's the strength of this card!)... Shook and Tank. 

For a guy with just a few years under his belt, Shook is markedly good at commanding a room. He's very entertaining, especially when he's taking stuff. He wrestled this match big even in a small room, and you need to wrestle big to stand out against Tank. 

Tank's got the mass, but he's a center of gravity not because of what he is but because of who he is. It's because of the timing, the gravitas, some of the best punches you could possibly see in 2026 (or 2016 or...), and the wisdom to know how to twist the act just a little depending on his opponent, like here with the eyepoke. Meanwhile, Shook was living up to his name, arms flailing at every shot.

Even so, there's over a thirty year age gap between these two, and you got the sense that Tank wanted to win this one through crook as much as hook, just to show that he was canny, that he was the master of whatever game you put in front of him. Thus the feigned knee injury. If he had just plowed through, maybe he could have won this thing, likely he could have, but he wanted to win it on his terms and that gave Shook exactly what he needed to get a roll up and slip away with his title for yet another day.

Karl Greco-Malenko vs Matt Mako

MD: So Greco-Malenko could be Timothy Olyphant's stunt double on Justified, and I mean that in the very best way. He doesn't need to be though, because he's already Karl Greco-Malenko, and that's more than enough.

Back during the DEAN~!!! 1 review here, I noted my own difficulties in writing about shoot style given that it tends to be so free-flowing and full of primarily intrinsic storytelling. I've watched a lot of Newborn UWF since then, and I've more or less come up with a framework to see me through.

You're looking for the contrasts. They say styles make fights, but it's really a combination of character, physical attributes, and preferences (you can call that styles, I guess). If you can map out all three through the action, you've got things managed.

Here, Mako was younger, stronger, faster. He wanted that armbar. Was he starstruck a bit? Hard to say. Greco-Malenko was savvy with plenty to prove. They both had hunger but it maybe manifested differently, and it's in that difference, as much as all the skill and technique between them, that a fight like this shines.

The sum of it felt fairly equal to me. Mako looked for his opportunities, was quicker to grapple, was more the aggressor. Greco-Malenko had answers for mostly everything; sometimes that was firing off palmstrikes, both when in a hold and not. Sometimes it was a clever reversal. There was one time where he avoided a rope break by spinning out into a leglock. That was the sort of escape that would have gotten a huge pop in Japan decades ago from educated fans who knew the skill needed to not just settle on grabbing the rope and the crowd here, to their credit, understood and reacted just as they should have. 

In the most whimsical part of the match (proof positive that just like when Tank went for the eyepoke or the double drop down chair spot between Alanis and Owens, humor can find its way into almost any situation if the wrestlers are talented enough and allow their humanity to shine through), Greco-Malenko turned things around into a floating bodyscissors with his hands outstretched like he was king of the world. 

In the end, Mako came close, very close, to prying that arm off and getting what he wanted, using a fakeout punch to score a huge takedown, but maybe he wanted it too badly and Greco-Malenko was able to pull out one last counter into a heel hook and seize victory. It was a triumphant return in every way for Greco-Malenko with Mako looking all the better for pushing the old master as far as he did.

Mad Dog Connelly vs Slade

MD: Six minutes. Six minutes bell to bell, almost exactly. Maybe off by five seconds, maybe. 

That could be the review, right? I could stop there. That they packed this much violence, animosity, and mayhem into just six minutes. For a complete match with a beginning middle and end, it might be second for second, the most ... well, let me leave hyperbole aside. 

This was hot iron clashing with cold iron. Mad Dog Connelly is, and I say this with great fondness and at a great distance, a maniac. He channels the gaping wounds of the world into rage, seeking vengeance for all the wrongs done by man and done upon man. Slade on the other hand is a stone cold sociopath, the sort of man that would gleefully inflict those wrongs in the first place. There are universes of torment to be found in the eyes of Mad Dog Connelly. Within Slade's? Nothing, nothing at all. 

And here they were, in the middle of the ring, two dynamically opposing forces throwing fists, throwing heads, throwing each other. When they were done wailing on one another in the ring, they went to the floor. There they entered into an unholy pact to bloody one another with the crash of bone on bone alone. Goal achieved, Mad Dog drank in the fruits of their collective effort.

Things boiled over. This wasn't six minutes due to curfew. This wasn't six minutes due to people wanting to go home. This wasn't six minutes due to another show starting on IWTV. This was six minutes because it couldn't possibly be seven. Something had to give, and after the gutwrench and after the choke slam, what gave was Slade's throat with the chain from the dog collar wrapped around it. Violent fiend that he may be, he's still only flesh and blood and bone and sinew after all. Of course, the bell wouldn't stop these two. Six minutes now, but the promise of more to come. I'd expect nothing less from such polar entities of wrath and spite.

MD: Which takes us to the end of the card. I leaned hard into the six minutes of Connelly vs Slade, but look too at the tight two hours that this show came in under. It had a little bit of everything, an ode to the sort of shows that were written about by those of the Death Valley Driver faithful two decades ago, and those that they obtained on tape. 

There was conventional wrestling, Slim J vs Bosby being a modern version of Tito Santana vs a Heenan Family member in its own way. There was like vs like, contrast vs contrast. A deathmatch, a shoot style classic, a hoss fight, title matches, an outright war. It ran the gamut, with the underlying unifying element being the competitiveness, the struggle, wrestlers giving it their all across different styles. 

And that's exactly what pro wrestling, in all of its variety and gripping wonder, is all about, right?

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Matches from Limitless Actin' Up 5/28/22

BEEF vs. Jake Something 

ER: Fun way to open up a show, just have the two biggest guys on the card block shoulderblocks and throw clubbing arms and elbows. I'm so used to seeing Beef play a brick wall, that I really liked how Something was the brick wall while Beef was the injured shark swimming constantly forward. There's a great spot where, after a couple shoulderblocks go nowhere, Beef tries a leapfrog and Something just runs right into him, knocking him flat back out of the air. Something goes after Beef's knee with a couple of straight kicks, and would use that hurt knee as a way to bully through some offense. He keeps playing brick wall, stopping Beef cold with a back elbow, and when Beef's head is hanging a bit too horizontal he gets caught with a mafia kick. Something choked out Beef in the ropes with his boot, choking him all the way out of the ring, extending his leg under Beef's chin until the big man plopped elbow first onto the floor. I liked Beef's big crossbody off the middle buckle, and the fight over Something's powerbomb was cool: Beef almost reversed it into an Alabama slam, but Something tipped the weight and kicked Beef's knee out to hit a cool messy sitout bomb. Beef had a cool missed low crossbody into the ropes, and a nice quick surprise piledriver for the win. They kept this under 10 minutes which let them keep a quick pace, all fun stuff. 

Rickey Shane Page vs. Rip Byson

ER: Man, RSP is a real pro and might seriously be in the discussion of best "hands" on the indies. He has great timing, personable charisma, plays comfortably to the crowd, and he takes action to all sides of the ring while blending that coherently into a match. He's a smart worker, and an entertaining one. He stalls on the floor to start, getting hit with a Byson suicide dive to get things rolling. I never totally bought Byson as RSP's equal and don't think he did anywhere close to enough to believably stop the big man, but he had a couple things I liked. There was a cool spot where he caught the much larger Page on a leapfrog and rotated into a powerslam, but most of this was him taking a bunch of cool RSP offense. Page does fun small things, like causing Byson to trip himself on an Irish whip by placing one of his feet behind the bottom rope before sending him. It's the rope running equivalent of tying someone's shoes together. Page throws several nice right hands, a big superplex, falcon arrow, a cool bridging vertical suplex, and his rope walk frog splash is one of the great moves in modern wrestling. Honestly it's crazy Page doesn't finish matches with that frog splash, as this one just flattened Byson. Time to start writing more about Rickey Shane Page on here. 

11. SLADE vs. Manders 

ER: Slade/Manders is the match that drew me to this card, and that's a match that will draw me to literally any card. Phil wrote about the match over at The Ringer, and I love just the idea of Slade being exposed to a broader audience. Compared to the end of the fight, this starts out downright genial, with "only" hard punches and elbows. It all goes south real quick when they brawl around the vets building and surprise a poor man exiting the bathroom, his guilt-wracked face revealing that he surely didn't wash his hands. I start to roll my eyes when Manders goes on a long walk to the other side of the room to take a big convoluted run at Slade, but this match understands what it is and it understands that Slade wouldn't stand for that brand of  impertinence. So, Manders takes a long run at Slade that deservedly ends with his face getting introduced to a chair, then gets introduced to a ringpost with a chair around his neck, then gets bashed on the top of his head with a chair. It's not long before Manders' face is covered in blood, and he has that show off run to blame. Also, he signed up to face a psycho. 

This gets real gritty, and my favorite visual was Slade pulling Manders jaws apart while Manders tries to get his thumbs into Slade's eyes. There's a quick and violent Manders comeback with a stiff back elbow, spike DDT (which Slade takes with a tucked head!) and a running powerslam through a door that crumples Slade. One thing I most love about Slade is that he doesn't always take offense like a trained wrestler. This is not an insult to him, quite the contrary. I love how he takes offense and can make things look even more dangerous than they really are. This man actually looked like he got DDT'd onto the top and back of his head, and his matches benefit from it. Manders beats Slade with his cowboy boot, but Slade laughs, flexes, and welcomes the boot. You see, Manders didn't know that Slade's step-dad used to beat him with a boot, right up until Slade did time for murdering his step-dad. Manders takes a couple of disgusting uranages through set-up chairs, the second bending both the chair backs and the back of Manders, and the finish is an awesome Slade finish. Slade puts handcuffs on himself for the sole purpose of getting leverage to choke the life out of Manders, letting the cuffs chain dig into Manders' throat while he pulls back on the chin with his hands. I swear, getting booked to fight Slade is like getting booked to fight Anton Chigurh. 

2022 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Matches from Beyond Wrestling Uncharted Territory 36 11/4/21

Masha Slamovich vs. Davienne

ER: This was a 6 minute pre-show showcase match, and it worked as advertised. I'm not sure I've ever watched a Masha Slamovich match before, and I'm sure that I've skipped past her matches on shows before. I assume I wrote her off due to her name sounding too Chikara Gimmick and never thought about it again. Now that I've seen her in a showcase match, I would like to seek out potential great matches, because I thought she came off great. This was 6 minutes, and this was a fairly breathless 6 minutes. Neither took a single breather and this was just wave after wave of some stiff shots and big kicks and a go go go pace. Davienne has nice selling, can get some nice force behind her clubbing shots, and went back to a flat boot yakuza kick that I liked. But Slamovich worked with a ton of intensity and really went for the kill on strikes. She had a solebutt that was like a young Naoki Sano, a couple of spinning heel kicks where she really used her heel as the blunt object and not just the side of her leg, and a lariat so much stronger than you'd expect from her frame. She packs a wallop and it made me want more Masha. Luckily she's wrestled practically as much as any human on the planet in 2021 so I have some options. 

37. Slade vs. Alec Price

PAS: Slade is pretty much a must watch wrestler for me at this point. I am not sure why he isn't booked in GCW or ICW-NHB as he is the most compelling guy to be doing that kind of new age ECW brawling. I hadn't heard of Price before, but thought he was great too. He has a real Harmony Korine vibe to him, a real scuzz who is great at making the crowd want to see him murdered. He takes a Wrestling Slade level beating, but actually is super vicious on offense too. Price gets mauled for a bit including getting lawn darted into the ringpost, but takes over by driving the top of a steel chair right into the top of Slade's kneecap and unleashes some sick looking leg work including one of the cooler dragon screws I have seen. The knee gives him an opening not to get steamrolled by Slade, and Price actually goes over by kneeing Slade hard in the balls and rolling him up in the ropes using the no DQ stip to steal one. Feels like a big rematch is coming, and Price is a new guy I am into.

ER: I agree, Slade is can't miss right now. He's the most NWA-Wildside vibe we've gotten out of a new wrestler in ages, a guy who feels more like a cult MMA star from UFC3 than a pro wrestler. It's testament to how good Alec Price was here that he managed to outshine Slade at times and come off credible against a guy I thought was going to tear him apart. Price looks like Jardi Frantz but wrestles more like Jimmy Jacobs or Brian Kendrick, which is a style I love. His pre-match mic work showed impressive timing and confidence, the kind of thing MJF wants to do every week but goes so long that it loses all momentum. Price made me a fan in just one minute, snatching the mic to say that this is his fed and he doesn't need to wrestle anyone in a No DQ match, delivering his demands with the right amount of venom and indignance. By the time Price clonked Slade with the mic I was sold, and when his strikes landed just as hard as Slade's I was through the roof. 

This looked like a bratty college Freshman somehow holding his own against a hardened convict and that's a vibe we don't get enough in wrestling. He stood up to a Slade beating and fought back by crossing Slade up, throwing hard stomach kicks and insanely taking a fight to a very dangerous man. His leg work was really vicious, dropping Slade patella first on a chair and throwing a Maeda-level dragon screw. The chose their chair spots really well, making them stand out as uniquely violent. Slade getting dropped on his knee looked even more painful than Price taking a disgusting snap suplex across two chairs on the floor, and that's because they went out of their way to make everything look vicious. Price pulling out the win felt like a huge shock, and he's so great at being able to fully piss off every person he wrestles. The Slade/Dickinson/Price 3 way feud could yield some memorable beatings, and this just made me want more.  

Matt Makowski vs. Tracy Williams

PAS: Williams had been in ROH for the last couple of years and off my radar, but it was good to see him back and working a very Catch Point style match against Makowski, who may be the best of that next generation of Catch Point inspired guys. Lots of very cool grappling, as you would expect. Williams put on an Octopus hold and when Makowski got the break he rolled it into a Fuller leglock. There was also some nice violent arm work from Makowski. Really appreciated how Williams would adjust his body in submission holds to lessen their effect, for example Makowski put on a cloverleaf and Williams rolled onto his side so he couldn't fully crank the back. Finish had a slap fight which I thought didn't look great, although I liked Makowski sneaking in a thumb to the eye to stun Williams enough for Makowski to sink in a sick looking choke and give him a nap. 

ER: I really like these two and like a lot of what they did to each other, but a lot of it felt a but more time-filling than match-building to me. There was some strong shootstyle wrestling, with some cool grappling fakeouts and mistimed striking, and all of it looked good but never felt like it built to what it could have. Still, there was a lot to like about this, because a lot of it was them doing their very cool thing. Makowski has some of the best strike exchanges in modern wrestling, sneaking in kicks in cool ways and excelling at catching strikes. Williams is able to work a strong mirror to Makowski's heavier onslaught, and I even thought the slap fight worked really well. I thought it looked like some of the better UWFI standing battles and not something that kept to a turn based system. This was two guys throwing open hands to face and body and I thought looked good, with the Makowski thumb a great climax to it. The submission work looked good, the striking looked good, it just felt less than the execution.  

Trish Adora vs. Jordan Blade

PAS: This is a pair of the DMV's finest fighting for Adora's Pan Afrikan World Diaspora Championship. This is my first time seeing Adora, but I have been a fan of Blade from her PPW UWFI rules stuff. I really liked how this started, with hard aggressive simple mat wrestling. Blade is a powerlifting champion and does a really great job at making her grappling feel weighty. Adora is able to whip down Blade's arm and then really goes to work on that, forcing Blade to do some throws with only one arm which was super impressive. Sadly I think they lost the thread a bit near the second half of the match. It got very Garganoish, lots of faces of despair on two counts and talking to hands, and the finish run was a lot of 2 count nearfall stuff. Adora has a signature "Lariat Tubman", and she did a short arm version of it for the win, and it didn't land the way I want a finishing lariat to land. Still there were lots of this match I liked and both wrestlers feel like they have a lot of promise. 

2021 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Thanksgiving Slade!

Slade vs. Atticus Cogar Beyond Wrestling 7/21/21

PAS: So is Slade the new Necro? It is a slightly different vibe, but he has that wild brawling sense of real menace and willingness to take uncalled for bumps in weird ways. Atticus Cogar is pretty much a create a wrestler goth death match guy, but he is there willing to take a beating and do gross stuff. Slade throws some of his crowbar elbows, drives Cogar spine first into the legs of a chair and gets an air raid crash off of a stage through the bottom of a stood up metal garbage can, which was literally shocking. I liked how the Beyond announcers just stopped talking mid match because of what they were witnessing. I think Slade's best matches are still to come, but he is a really compelling guy to watch.

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Matches from Beyond Wrestling Project Dolphin 6/3/21

Matt Makowski vs. Logan Easton LaRoux

PAS: LaRoux is a guy I saw live a couple of times in DC back in the day, and is really good at being hateable but is also a slick wrestler. He does the 2021 version of Mocking Karate by dickishly dropping into guard, only to have Makowski do a somersault into mount and reverse monkey flip him into an armbar. LaRoux was able to attack the knee with some low dropkicks and a knee bar, and the match became LaRoux attempting to tear the knee up before Makowski could catch him in a crazy submission. Great selling by Makowski and really nasty limb work by LaRoux, until Makowski catches him in a Razor's Edge throw into an armbar for a tap. Great little match, and Makowski keeps coming up with holy shit spots.

ER: This was a really cool style clash, with Makowski getting his knee worked over while still finding cool ways to roll LaRoux into submissions. The beginning action was a real trip, with Makowski hitting a standing moonsault into guard and then monkey flipping him straight into the air while catching an armbar on the way down. Makowski has really fast strikes, maybe the quickest and most impactful leg kicks in pro wrestling, and LaRoux had the exact right amount of leaning into some of the kicks and narrowly leaning out of a couple deadly high kicks. I liked his work on Makowski's knee (I think I'll always love anyone who does a single leg DDT) and Makowski had some really impressive selling. He was good at subtly paying service to the leg work, shaking out his leg and not putting weight on it during exchanges, realistic stuff that he kept up through the finish, wobbling out of the corner while carrying LaRoux in a Razor's Edge. There were several cool sequences (loved a Makowski O'Connor roll that LaRoux reversed by kicking out Makowski's knee) and the finishing leglock (thrown into it by the Razor's Edge) was disgusting. 

Slade vs. Max Caster

ER: Here's a really odd Submission Match that really caught my attention and mostly kept it. Slade is a very new guy who is already very over with the live crowd, and of course I was going to watch him because they are billing him as a Riker's Island convict who is not trained to wrestle. He looks like a cross between 70s Sid Haig and Paul Ellering and wrestles like a guy who is not very trained. And that stands out as pretty interesting right now. He doesn't seem to know how to bump but he has a crazy eyed charisma that obviously connects with people. Caster is an AEW TV regular who is basically Xavier (not early 2000s Xavier, but NEW Xavier when he worked much slower and didn't take crazy bumps), and he is tasked with working a submission match against a guy who is either not very trained or is very good at playing into the Not Trained part of his gimmick (I like it either way). It's a great premise, and their only misstep is that they insanely work a 15 minute match. SHANK isn't going out there working 15 minute matches man. You get an untrained convict from Riker's, who has an incredible farmer's tan and a good presence, you do NOT need to be the 2nd longest match on the show. 

This could have been great with 1/3 of the time cut, this could have been great with *2/3* of the time cut, but I'm still way down with Slade. He wrestles like early Taz, complete with walking around in between throws to effectively cover when he's not sure what move to do next. Slade has nasty body shots and made his worked strikes look really good. They brawl on the floor and Slade takes forever setting up a door spot but the payoff is great, with Slade getting shoved off by Caster's boy (who we could have done without the rest of the match but get a lot more interference) and taking a bump off the stage through a table like someone who has no idea how to bump through a table. He goes through knee, wrist, and shoulder first and it looked sick. That actually leads to the few submissions of the match as Caster goes after Slade's knee and Slade keeps fighting him off like a threatened cobra. Slade comes off like a real threat and I loved him fighting back. Still, inexplicable to go 15 minutes in this situation, and even with that padded time this was a cool match. 

PAS: I agree with this going a bit long and I don't think a submission match really works into Slade's strengths, but man he has some strengths. He has these incredibly sharp elbows that really look like he is taking someones head off, like I am not sure if that first back elbow was a work or he just loosened Caster's teeth for real, but my goodness. He hit a totally gross elbow to the back of the head as well.  Caster was OK, he did a nice job of looking terrified of Slade which is what you need in this match. Not a MOTY list match, but I have a new guy, and it is always fun to have a new guy.

Chris Dickinson vs. Brogan Finlay

PAS: Finlay is the 18 year old son of Fit Finlay and this was his 8th match. He was clearly still getting his sea legs, but had some nice moments. I especially liked him splaying Dickinson's fingers and jamming them into the top rope, and he also hit a nice Finlay roll. Dickinson is a guy who is great, but I don't really think he figured out this match. You really should work it like Tenryu, but he seemed to go back and forth between killing the kid and pulling his stuff. There was an especially long and bad New Japan elbow section which really took me out of it all. The finish seemed completely blown, with Dickinson hitting a Death Valley driver and the ref signaling that Finlay kicked out when he clearly didn't. Dickinson then DVD's the ref and counts his own pin on Finlay who is still lying there. I am not sure if he was supposed to kick out and got knocked silly or they ran an angle which didn't make sense, but it went over like a burp in a synagogue. If they ran this back in six months, with some more seasoning for Brogan, I imagine it will be good. 

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