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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DEAN~!!! 2 Day 4: Slim J vs. The Beast Mortos

DEAN~!!! 2 5/24/25

Slim J vs. The Beast Mortos

MD: Probably the match I was most looking forward to on paper. It was one of those things that you didn't even know how badly you wanted until you saw the graphic for it. Look, I like Ciberneticos as much as the next guy but sometimes, you want wrestling distilled to its purest form as a starting point and then and only then built up and embellished with every enhancement imaginable. Contrast so often makes the world go round and that's what we had here, a monster of a base vs the most underrated babyface of all time. 

Let's talk babyface Slim J. It's easy to get lost in all the move innovations and clever ways to do things. You could stop and say "Hey, this is a half generation later Nova" and make all the jokes that go along with that. But that's not Slim J. Wrestling is symbolic. A move is nothing but a tool, a piece of diction, vocabulary. It's everything else: the selling, the overall body language, the timing, the placement, that makes up the syntax, that makes wrestling live and breathe and separates it from a video game simulation or simple acrobatics. It's the heart and the soul of pro wrestling, and that's where Slim J shines. That he's able to then marry it with all of that interesting vocabulary: entry points into moves, clever variations, the inventions that others have taken as their own for decades now, that's the best of both worlds, and he's one of the very best of both worlds. He uses his size and resolve and determination to draw sympathy and then makes the most of every opening with a souped up shotgun blast that still somehow seem organic and plausible within the narrative realities of pro wrestling. He draws you in and then stretches your suspension of disbelief instead of disrupting it. It's really a hell of a thing.

And this Mortos is by far my favorite version of him. Yes, he can do amazing, spectacular things, flips and dives and everything else, but so can so many others. It's more impressive in some ways due to his wideness, his mass, his imposing frame, but it's best done sparingly. He is best when he is the center of gravity that others must revolve around and must escape. I want to see him hitting those brutal looking strikes. I want him to catch people as they charge at him. I want people to have to solve the puzzle of how to stagger him, how to push him back, how to get him down. And then yeah, as an exclamation point, I do want him to do one or two extraordinary things, but that's the cherry on top, not the meal itself. 

They got the balance just right here. Slim J would chip away at Mortos only to get caught and stomped on and tossed about and hit with the nastiest strikes in the corner or the center of the ring. Then he'd use all of his ingenuity to create an opening only to get caught again. There was a sense of inevitability here but it was the journey that mattered, not the destination, and even then, he was clever enough and persistent enough and canny enough to just maybe, maybe give people some real hope. But hope just isn't enough when you're up against a wild man bull that can catch you in midair and obliterate you at a moment's notice. The only possible destination in that case is a final one. Hell of a journey though.  

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DEAN~!!!

ACTION presents DEAN~!!! 4/4/24

MD: A year ago today, we lost DEAN. Eleven months later Phil, Eric, and Matt Griffin (being Jacey North Matt, not me Matt) did something amazing. In true DVDVR fashion, Eric has a road report in the works. Were I to give you a report, it would be why I wasn't there and would involve in-law family wedding drama, conciliatory water parks with the kids, and a bunch of other excuses. I missed being there, being part of that atmosphere, meeting a bunch of people who I respect and admire (and Johnny Sorrow too; I would have liked to meet Johnny). That said, it means I can come in with a slightly different perspective here, and hey, there's also this: DEAN the human was so important to me in expanding how someone could think about wrestling and Phil and Eric are my "people" in everything we do creatively, but because I watched from home (in part in the DVDVR discord, yes, but a lot on my own), I got to watch it with Dylan Hales in my ear, and there was no one I conspired with more closely between 2010 and 2015 about wrestling than Dylan, so while I couldn't be there with you guys, you were all with me as I watched.    

Alex Kane vs Colby Corino

MD: When I say "my people", I do mean a lot of this crowd too and that made it the perfect crowd for this specific match, one that knew how to act, how to buy in, how to give in, how to be wry but not ironic, clever but still earnest, just like the match itself. The wrestlers committed. The crowd committed. The match committed. It's probably sacrilege on a card with the back half that this one has to even consider this as potentially my favorite match of the night, but maybe it was!

Colby came in exhausted (six matches in six days). He had a size disadvantage. The match was always one suplex away from being over. So he embraced the headlock. It was a way to control distance, to control leverage, to frustrate Kane, to make Kane exert himself because Colby couldn't. It was wry, like I said, but it also made sense within the context of the match. Even at the beginning, there were multiple differentials for Colby to overcome and the headlock was a means for him to chip away at them. That's important. The headlock was never an end unto itself. It was the means to even the odds.

As the match went on, it went from being a way to contain Kane to a way to open him up for escalating offense. It went from being a survival mechanism to the entry point for all of Colby's title hopes and dreams. It opened up the bulldog, or an air raid crash, or the front DDT that he was likely going for to maybe finish things off. The problem with such a close contact strategy, however, is that all it took was one mistake, one wrong breath, one chance for Kane to plant his feet, and it was up and over, metaphorically and literally. Colby did valiantly for a man at the end of his rope, but that rope was just long enough for him to hang himself. Honestly in contention for my favorite match of the night (It's up there with Slim J vs Adam Priest as the most "Matt D" match on the card), as wild as that sounds.

O’Shay Edwards/Amboss (Laurance Roman/Robert Dreissker) vs The Good Hand (Kevin Ryan/Suge D/Tyler Stevens)

MD: I think that in some ways this match had the most to work against on the card. For the traveling crowd, there was probably less familiarity with the wrestlers here. It had a sort of similar theme to the "flippy guys vs strong guys" six-man later on the card but couldn't lean too hard into that without taking away from the match higher on the card. What it did have going for it was the ability to lean into the set units here to play with all of the tools you'd get in a southern or mPro style tag.

The Good Hand played their part perfectly, just annoying, arrogant, scuzzy heels, but maybe not carrying with them the sort of madcap delusion that the Sucklings were about to bring to the ring in the next match. These were three guys who were more than the sum of their parts both in style and in substance. They controlled the ring, cut off Roman, threw out a bunch of quick offense and double and triple teams. And then, when it was time, they got their comeuppance, only to take back over with something slick or underhanded or opportunistic. Basically, they used all the tricks of the trade, both in how they presented themselves and in how a match like this could be structured, to overcome some of the disadvantages they were facing. And the babyfaces were the straight men, constantly trying to work their way back into the match and then, when it came time, raining down justice and punishment. Like I said on the night, if you embrace wrestling, it will embrace you, and that's exactly what they did here.

Violence is Forever (Kevin Ku/Dominic Garrini) vs The Ugly Sucklings (Rob Killjoy/White Mike)

MD: I loved how tight and compact this was. That allowed for the Sucklings to do their pre-match promo, which made a lot of sense actually It was driven not just by ego and mania (though there was that as well) but by the relatable idea that if they had a good showing against a top team, they'd get more bookings and put food on the table. Scuzzy but relatable, a fine line to walk. Then, they went right into heat. That worked because ViF even just coming out as the surprise team with the Road Warriors pop... that was the shine. There was a sense of glorious inevitability here in the best way. The Sucklings were organized and effective and persistent but doom was heading their way from the moment Zombie hit, maybe even from the moment they signed an open challenge.

So this went right to the ambush-dirven heat then into the comeback and the finishing stretch and it was all just a wonderful celebratory bonus from guys with big presence. For people not at all familiar with the indy scene, obviously guys like Priest and Connolly stood out but I heard from a few people who only had a working knowledge that they immediately wanted to track down more Sucklings footage, so the mission from the pre-match promo was accomplished. Overall, this match set up a sort of party atmosphere to prepare people's appetites for the chaos and violence to come.   

Gypsy Joe Rules Match: Coven of the Goat (Jaden Newman/Tank) vs 1 Called Manders/"Filthy" Tom Lawlor

MD: This was the match where, on live viewing, I realized I couldn't just turn a write-up out for the show and that I needed some time to process. I'm still struggling a bit with this one. One thing will stick with me, and I mean forever stick with me, like Owen kicking Bret's leg out of his leg or whatever other super iconic wrestling moment is seared into my brain: That's the sequence of Lawlor getting Newman onto a chair and running around the entire ringside area to attack him while Tank and Manders were simultaneously sharing a beer right by the DEAN chair. The contrast was just this serene moment of pro wrestling wonder. It devolved quickly into Tank spraying Manders and Lawlor smashing Tank and Manders getting the revenge spray and of course then revisited it a few minutes later with the headbutt war. What am I going to say critically about this? It was madness and chaos and action with some stuff that was smartly put together but that didn't feel put together at all, that just felt wild and spontaneous and that, along with, you know, punches (and this had a few good ones) is what I could use so much more of in wrestling today. You weren't going to see the strings here, just the flailing limbs and crazy abandon. (EDIT one year later: I was later informed that nothing was put together and it all felt wild and insane because it was wild and insane; any coherency was my pro wrestling watching addled brain magic eying and the natural logic of pressing iron up against iron and watching the sparks fly).

3 Flippy Guys (Bobby Flaco/Brayden Toon/Rico Gonzalez) vs 3 Strong Motherf*ckers (Danny Demanto/Hoodfoot/Isaiah Broner)

MD: Hey, the WAR six man. This was fun. You didn't really get to see Rico do too much. In fact, most of the match was everyone just beating on Flaco, which is kind of what you want in a match like this really, just flipping guys bumping big and getting crushed. Brayden didn't do a ton (really this was mainly Bob getting destroyed) but everything he did looked great. Finish worked ok because the Strong folk were obviously goofing around and taking their opponents lightly; sometimes you live by the door, sometimes you die by it. This was a nice mix of levity and roadkill to give everyone a breather given what was to come.

Dr. Cerebro vs Gringo Loco

MD: This could have absolutely just been a "traveling match" sort of exhibition and it wasn't at all. It was a weird and surreal inversion full of a sort of emotion that isn't neat or clean or crisp. This match wasn't a straight line. It felt a little like a therapy session unveiling in real time through the back drop of gritty, gripping, beautiful lucha libre. It just wasn't a redo of 2010. Gringo Loco has evolved and in some ways, in this match, Cerebro devolved. He sure as hell wasn't wearing his mask against the Gringos VIP. Moreover, even though Gringo worked rudo, he was a pretty clear babyface for a lot of this. That happens! Usually it happens with a guy like Casas or Satanico up against an unfortunately reviled tecnico or an even more deplorable rudo, but it happens. Here it was because Gringo had something of the homefield advantage and because both of them had a chip on their shoulder.

While I loved some of the early matwork (Cerebro scooting around into an amazing contorting bit of torture was likely the hold of the night), and of course the Cerebro dive that almost took out Marty's wife in the third row was electric, it was that underlying snag of emotion that really put this over the top. Gringo's paid his dues, has traveled the world, has been on TV in big arenas and has wrestled in the dingiest, dirtiest venues imaginable; he's grown into a true base god, and yet Cerebro, maybe empowered in all the wrong ways by the mask he was donning once again, refused to forgive the sins of the past. When Gringo wanted a shake, Cerebro made like a matador. When Gringo escalated things, Cerebro was all to happy to call and raise. He raised all the way to bringing in a chair and tearing apart Gringo's shoulder. Watching it, you can't help but wonder if it was because instead of finding a 25 year old that would likely bend under the pressure, he found a man pushing forty who had no give in him at all. Maybe it was because even though he had traveled north and presented himself in all of his glory, the crowd still leaned towards Gringo instead.

Regardless, he crossed a line that both men had crossed many times years before. It wasn't the end, however. The match restarted. Despite the damage to the shoulder, Gringo fought his way back. When the opportunity arose to cross that line himself, he took it. He couldn't transcend past it. Cerebro wouldn't be the bigger man but Gringo couldn't either, not after what had transpired. Cerebro ducked the chair, kicked it into Gringo's face, and honed in on the damaged shoulder for a submission. They wrestled a gripping match, one with a resolution in the record books, but you couldn't help feeling like nothing was truly resolved.

Krule vs “Warhorse” Jake Parnell

MD: On some level, on top of being a tribute to DEAN and on top of being something cooked up by the mad geniuses I write with here on Segunda Caida and powered by the ACTION engines, this whole show was a tribute to the Indies in general, to all eras and all regions. As such, this felt like it could have been the main event of a NWA New Jersey Coralluzzo show from the late 90s or an early 00s ECW successor promotion and I liked it along those lines. They worked hard. They hit hard. They flew hard. It had all the overworked bs you'd expect for the finish. As such, I almost think they did too much; maybe Parnell shouldn't have flipped out of a chokeslam attempt, maybe that dive shouldn't have been a flip, maybe some of the more complex Krule offense should have been straighter and to the point. They did a pretty good job keeping up with parts of the rest of the show but maybe they didn't need to. Maybe they should have leaned harder into the contrast instead. That's a lot to ask of them though, especially with the title on the line, and they did an admirable enough job all things considered.

Matt Makowski vs Arez

MD: I was going to call this a sprint and explain how instead of just spots it was layered with all that and more, but that's not what it actually is. It's a lucha lightning match and it's one of the best I've ever seen. It's cheating a little because it has the patina of a "different styles" fight but it's close enough to a lightning match in my eyes. A lot of it also speaks for itself, with Arez bounding around, hitting from every angle, and Makowski keeping up while trying to ground and stop him. For them to go that fast it for everything, no matter how unlikely, to still come off as plausible in this strange shared reality where Manders and Tank can sit in chairs headbutting each other as hard as possible takes incredible talent and commitment. I loved the transition where Makowski was able to jam the Casita and snap the arm. Arez wasn't exactly selling down the stretch but Makowski was so single minded in getting the cross arm-breaker in that you knew he felt like he was on to something and if he felt that way, you, as the audience, felt that way as well, even if Arez wasn't exactly putting out signals. Then it was all about working three moves ahead while dealing with the world's most unpredictable wrestler, to plant him in the center with the chaos theory cross-armbreaker. Thrilling stuff and a testament to knowing that they'd pack so much coolness into every second that they could let this go relatively short for the sake of the overall card but still feel fulfilling. Trust was the name of the game here, trust in the wrestlers, trust in the fans, trust in the mission

Slim J vs Adam Priest

MD: Yeah, ok, sorry to the first match, which I did thoroughly enjoy, but this is definitely my favorite match on the card. It couldn't be more down my alley. Two guys so good at doing the small things well hitting the fundamentals of what makes pro wrestling work perfectly and then adding just that added bit of creativity to put it over the top. Slim J's been positioned as a heel on TV for the last year or two but he's one of the best babyfaces of the 21st century and it was so great to see him on this stage, in front of this crowd, against this opponent, in this role. Talk about trust. They let this simmer and build so that when they hit bombs down the stretch they meant as much as possible.

Priest came in early with the trash talk and the early posturing and it was all about who would get the first shot in, and even more than that, who would be able to position the referee best to their advantage. Priest got Slim J into the corner behind him but couldn't follow up. Slim J, maybe a babyface here but a guy who knew every trick in the book and invented a good few of them, managed to snatch the ref's hand and use it (with just enough plausible deniability, of course) to smack Priest. Priest stalled just enough to rile the crowd without losing momentum. When he took over it wasn't just catching Slim on the way in with a knee, but then turning it into a neckbreaker over the second rope. It was never the easiest path but always a direct one with the extra little bit generally something additive that didn't distract from the key message.

Slim was always scrappy, always trying to fight back and his hope spots started small and close, an armbar or a chop back, but Priest cut him off definitely and then really added insult to injury as he grinded Slim down. It all built to the escape from the abdominal stretch where it seemed that Slim had come back, but Priest cut him off with a killer pile driver. That, in and of itself, set up the actual comeback as Slim reversed the second attempt at it on the apron. Even then, because the fans had just been fooled on a hope spot attempt, and because Slim was so good at staggering about in the ring selling his neck, the clotheslines he hit to really get back into it and launch the finishing stretch felt all the more striking and miraculous. Just amazing babyface work here.

That finishing stretch was the first time that they really launched bombs. Because they showed the restraint through the match, the big headdrops, which would have meant something just by their innate nature, ended up meaning all the more. Discipline creates opportunity, allows for the ability to build potential energy that can be turned kinetic. Then they paid it off with a finish that people probably didn't expect but that made the crowd happy. Just two architects building a castle of pro wrestling here.

Wasted Youth (Austin Luke/Marcus Mathers) vs Sinner & Saint (Judas Icarus/Travis Williams)

MD: This was as sprinty a juniors tag as you could get. Not entirely my thing but it had a place on a card that celebrated both the indies and DEAN. The first thing that comes to mind is hanging out on the DVDVR board the day that someone posted Brian XL/Divine Storm vs Red/SATs, probably in real media format, tiny file size, tiny video, and how all of us, the big guy included, reacted, like a whole new world opening up. Twenty+ years later, that wave has swept over all of wrestling a couple of times over, and it's led to a match like this. Icarus and Williams carried a lot of the middle of this with their more experienced and superior teamwork. They had a lot of clever tandem spots and sequences. I probably liked the Gory Running Punches the best though I would have liked to see a little more consequence to them. Mathers' connection to the crowd stood out more than anything else on the other side. This was breathless stuff. At times, the camera barely knew which way to focus next because things were going to come so quickly and explosively. This was candy before the steak to come but it was the expensive stuff and not some cheap knock off brand.

Dog Collar Match: Mad Dog Connelly vs Demus

MD: What am I am even going to say about this? How do you write about this? I thought about taking the coward's way out and just writing a paragraph about how Mad Dog Connelly has maybe the most amazing eyes that I've ever seen in pro wrestling, how you can track the entire match just focusing on them and in doing so, it's something different than you've ever experienced, how I'd never even thought about watching a wrestler's eyes a way to track emotion in this way because either the video quality isn't good enough or the quick cuts are too prevalent or whatever you're watching just doesn't rise to that level. How Connelly breaks a mold that you never even had reason to give a thought to before. I could go on about that but while totally accurate, it'd be both pretty weird and also a dodge. But seriously, rewatch this and just watch the guy's eyes. If you even can, because...

So let's try this instead. This match was a roller coaster ride. I hear you groaning. How dare I reduce this thing to some bullshit out of the can nonsense phrase. Just stop, ok? Stop and think. It wasn't like a roller coaster because it had ups and downs and it went fast. Nothing like that. Imagine actually being in a roller coaster. Imagine the first time maybe, when you were a kid, when you strained your neck to just be tall enough to hit the height marker and be allowed on. Imagine that it was one of those old wooden coasters, big and rickety, creaking, without some of the whirls and turns and technology and gimmicks of the last twenty years, just a looming monstrosity that might collapse at any moment because of one loose eighty year old screw. It's not the falling that gets you when you're on a coaster like that. It's not the speed. It's not even the anticipation as you're slowly going up. It's the fact that you're strapped in, you're helpless. If the thing fell apart, there'd be nothing you can do, nothing anyone could do to save you. You can't stop midway. You can't get off. No power in the world can stop it once it gets going. You're trapped.

That's what it feels like to watch this match. The second you hit play, it's like you're watching one of those videos from a Japanese horror movie. You're trapped. You can't shut it off. You can't look away. You can't even breathe. You can't even stop to think. You just have to watch one act of brutality seamlessly flow into the next. It's a river made of blood and you're adrift on it. I can't talk about specific moments of this. I can't break apart some sort of structure or go on about transitions. I've seen this two, three times. I remember the chain whip by Connelly to start. I remember people going into chairs. I remember biting and the smearing of blood. I remember the attempt at a hangman's choke and Dylan proclaiming it was that selfsame blood making things too slippery to hold it. Maybe there was a flying body press of some sort? Connelly choked him out to win. That's what I remember. I literally just watched this. Five minutes ago! It's all a violent blur. It's not a match. It's an experience. It's a sensation. You stare at the screen and your heart tries to leave your chest as you're buffeted by the violent, visceral gale. And like a roller coaster, the second you get off, you just want to get back on and go again. Look, I got nothing. Just strap back in and watch the thing again, ok?

Daniel Makabe vs Timothy Thatcher

MD: Full disclosure. This is an important match to cover well and I think I know what I want to say, even if it opens me up to be a little vulnerable. It's sort of the absolute worst time to highlight personal inadequcies, but here we are. Be kind. Maybe in part because I've got that most recent viewing of Connelly/Demus rattling around in my head, I don't know exactly how to start it. Let's go with this. Late in the match, Dylan likens this to Battlarts, and of course part of the inspiration here was Ishikawa vs Ikeda; Makabe wore his heart on his sleeve there if you get what I mean. So while this had its hybrid elements, much like Battlarts did, I think you could fairly safely classify this as shoot style. Shoot style, to me, is impenetrable in a good way, because I don't entirely get how they do it (Here's the vulnerable part). I watch so much wrestling. I write about so much wrestling. I think so hard (too hard, I know) about structure and narratives and patterns and comparative mythology and symbolism and whatever else is at play. And shoot style done well takes me back to being ten years old in the Boston Garden watching Bret Hart wrestle the Barbarian and just trying to wrap my head around how they could possibly know what to do next. And I've never gone out of my way to change that. I get so much enjoyment out of wrestling in so many ways, but only with shoot style is there still that hint of magic and wonder.

As I understand it, shoot style is a game of opportunities and openings, of mastering technique so well that all the physical possibilities to counter and progress the match are open to you in any moment. A little bit of give leads to a lot of take and the process repeats itself. Whether you're watching Fujiwara and Super Tiger or Volk Han, a lot of the storytelling is entirely implicit, driven by physical advantages and chance and consequence in the moment and over time. The drive for realism leaves certain basic, contrived narrative possibilities out of reach, but when done as well as it can be done, it can pull you in as much as any other form of pro wrestling. That was absolutely at play here, with every touch representing struggle and every contortion, simple or outlandish, feeling earned instead of given. What took this to another level was the genius at play. Yes, the storytelling was by necessity implicit, but underpinning and giving it color it was the weight of all of their previous encounters, the impending Sword of Damocles that hangs over Makabe's head, the expectation of what this match could be and what we all knew it was not (that being Ishikawa vs Ikeda), the well of emotion of the night and what people had just witnessed. 

Genius really is the only word for the alchemy of all of these things coming together, in small ways and in big. That could be Thatcher refusing the initial handshake or his look of glee as he was bending Makabe's wrist. It could be Makabe making the first inroads on the taped-up knee and Thatcher escalating to strikes out of desperation in response and then Makabe working at the upper body in order to open up the lower body to stay on it. Or it could have just been both of them stomping out each other's arm in frustration at the European Uppercuts they were throwing at each other. History creates the personality. The personality defines the character. The character decides how opportunities are capitalized on, and somehow, out of all of it, you end up with the richest, most compelling wrestling match imaginable. When it came to wrestling (and music, and a few other things), DEAN was like a cool older cousin to me, half a generation older, having gotten there first but selflessly willing to share. To him, everything was about sensation in the moment. To me, it's about thought after the fact. A match like this lets me meet the memory of my friend midway, and I'm very grateful for that.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (And Friends) 2/20 - 2/26

AEW Dark 2/21

Slim J vs Matt Sydal

MD: A rare week where all we had was a great Danielson brawl and a Dustin promo, so let's check in on how Segunda Caida stalwart Slim J is doing at the Universal Tapings. The answer? He's doing pretty damn well. One of the fun things about this run is that we get to see him up against a bunch of guys that are brand new opponents for him. Sydal, despite wrestling for almost as long, had a completely different path to this episode of Dark. 

They made for solid dance partners in this one. Given their physical adroitness, their dexterity, balance, and flexibility (elements that all but define Sydal and that serve as aggravating and undeniable points of dissonance relative to his appearance and persona when it comes to a heel Slim J), they were able to not only take each other's most complex and tricked out stuff, but to push the needle just a little bit further. They matched up perfectly in the early feeling out segment, with Slim J providing Sydal two or three flowing counters before Sydal could finally gain an advantage. They went around that circle a few times, Slim J showing his frustration and aggravation by stalling out on the floor or rushing into yet another failed attempt. Ultimately, though, he had the numbers game on his side, that and a brazen shamelessness that let him all but embrace Bryce Remsburg so to enable interference. Just as Slim J had been able to help Sydal put a little extra torque into something as straightforward as a side slam, Sydal was able to base steady for the sailing reverse ddt off the top, but from the middle of the ropes instead. They'd go back and forth from there, Sydal getting comebacks and Slim J leaning on interference to take back over, ultimately leading to a finishing stretch where Sydal got turned inside out by the most complex wheelbarrow half-nelson twisting driver imaginable, but one that the two of them somehow made look absolutely believable, maybe more believable than Sydal's subsequent kickout. The Trustbusters lived by the interference and they died by it in the end. 

AEW's a weird place. Slim J is one of the better babyfaces we've ever seen, and crazier things have happened then him potentially blowing up in that role on Dynamite or Rampage in the years to come. But if all we get are these YouTube studio matches against other great journeymen he never encountered before, we're happy to have that too.

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Matches from Jimmy Lloyd's American Wasteland 2/17/22

2 Cold Scorpio vs. Slim J 

ER: This is a real dream match. The most impactful highflyer of all time and maybe the most underrated American wrestler of the last 20 years, finally locking it up. Slim J has been wrestling so long and still somehow isn't even knocking on 40's door, meanwhile Scorpio is still out here Jungle Boogying in his mid-50s. Scorpio is slower now and makes up for it by hitting as hard as ever, so this was about Slim trying to outquick him but still getting tagged and flattened. I love Scorpio as a big bully, and there was a lot of that here. He ran over Slim so hard with a clothesline, flipping him into next week and then flipping his own double legdrop right across Slim's torso. Scorp doesn't fly as much now, so instead he just lights up Slim with punches and vicious clinch knees to the body. Slim took all of Scorp's offense really well, and even paid attention to selling his own offense, like how he sold his own neck and top of his head after dazing 2 Cold with a jawbreaker. Slim's flying didn't hit with the crispness it normally does and I couldn't tell if it was Scorpio leaning out of the corkscrew moonsault and crossbody or if Slim was holding back, but Scorpio's selling throughout left a lot to be desired. There were several times where he just kind of stood in place waiting to take something. There were still other little things Scorp did that showed his cool instincts, like when he dropped a heavy leg and hooked Slim's legs when they reflexively popped up, and I cannot freaking believe that the man is still doing the Tumbleweed. That's pure insanity, and Slim is probably just as insane for taking it. 

Matthew Justice vs. PCO

ER: I wrote about Scorpio's match, so it only makes sense to write about another guy in his mid-50s who I watched on TV when I was 12. I never had Honor Club so I didn't see PCO during that era, but it's clear nothing has changed. He is a stiff moving goon who will take real damage, and Matthew Justice is a guy who always damages his body for the people. Justice is going to take a backdrop on the floor, get speared off the ring apron through a door, obviously he's going to do a big splash off the weird Aerial Assault Cube affixed to one ringpost that was only used one time in the Aerial Assault Scramble earlier in the night, and he's also the guy who will rush to hug a seated woman who he accidentally bounced a door off of. The longer it goes, the more it becomes about Justice taking damage and refusing to stay down, taking two gross PCO somersault sentons while laid out on a table that refused to break even just a little bit. Justice had a large man bounce off his body twice, and PCO was crazy enough to do that off the top, not get the result he wanted, and immediately decide to do it again (to the same result). I always get hyped when Justice does his one count kickout, and after PCO hit his unhinged moonsault the kickout was a good one. I also like Justice because that kickout usually doesn't mean he's just going to get up and shrug off everything that's happened to him. He uses that kickout last a desperation strap removal, psyching himself up as much as he's psyching up his fans. He still gets brained with a chair, but he went down like Matthew Justice. 

Jimmy Jacobs vs. Effy

ER: I think this is a pretty great pairing and I liked the match a lot. It felt like the big stuff really ramped up down the stretch, although I liked this a lot more when all of the chairs weren't involved. Jacobs went to the spike almost immediately in a weird violent Bugs Bunny spot, letting Effy go down on him under his skirt so he can tap him on the shoulder and spike him in the head. The spike stuff was all great, loved the visuals when Jacobs ran across the ring and stuck it in the turnbuckle when Effy moved, but then moved out of the way when Effy came flying in and almost tore his sac open on that spike. I don't want to see Effy get his sac torn up, personally, but flying towards a spike ass first and legs spread eagle is a good way to tempt that fate. Luckily, he only got hung up by a leg and it's a gift to us, as being hung upside down made the blood flow more. Jacobs's offense looks as tight as ever, like his perfect kneedrop to the back of Effy's head, smacking it down into a chair, and the camel clutch hooking Effy's chin with the back of a chair was gross. All of the big spots on a stack of chairs looked incredibly painful, but I think it hurt the flow of the match a lot. It meant a lot more time in between the violence, and I thought this was really singing when it was Jacobs working a cut while Effy started working over his back. I would have liked to see that play out more, but I do appreciate the punishment. 

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 12/19 - 12/25

AEW Dark Elevation 12/19

MD: Got some sickness in the house (yeah, that sort) right now, and right at XMas too. I had initially thought about doing the whole show as it had a lot of things to like (Shafir hitting people at weird angles; Athena being Athena, the best act in AEW right now; Workhorsemen vs BCC; Emi and Bunny doing their thing) but that's out. There was a Kingston/Ortiz tag, but I don't have a ton to say about it. If I was going to do a Shinno match from this week I'd do the Omega one from Dark that I didn't like one bit, but no one wants to hear me talk about that, so instead, let's go with our honorary Finger Slim...

Ethan Page/Matt Hardy/Isiah Kassidy/Top Flight/Konosuke Takeshita vs. Trustbusters (Sonny Kiss/Slim J/Jeeves Kay)/Wingmen (Peter Avalon/Cesar Bononi/Ryan Nemeth)

MD: The AEW webshows reward and punish those that watch them all. I've seen some griping about the Hardy Party/Ethan Page story popping up here and there and it's a shame as I think Page has done a great job with it. I get people being frustrated by the idea of yet another contract storyline (Khan writes what he knows), but the backstage stuff has been a lot of fun. Page is walking this obtuse line between being malicious and so egotistical (naturally) that he actually gets into the moment at times. He really leans hard into the fabricated enthusiasm that you get the sense that the character is sort of losing himself to the moment at times, but in a way that somehow makes the humiliation worse and not better for Hardy and Private Party. I'm not sure it's entirely coherent, but it's actually pretty compelling.

Here, he burst through the pair as their music hit and did the big hardy gun hang signal only to cut the music when he didn't get a big pop. He had a mic and it was a fun little gimmick but I don't think he leaned into it enough. Past one moment where he freaked out that Takeshita was ending the dive train, he only said anything when it was a plot beat. He should have been commenting on a lot more, like the Trustbusters triple combo sliced bread. That was my big gripe there. It seemed a little too in your face because of it, even if his facial reactions and faux babyface cheering on was actually pretty engaging throughout.

You watch a big twelve man match like this looking for a few things: the rapid fire spots, interesting match-ups of opponents, and interaction between guys who wouldn't normally interact. I don't think we really got that last one. It was nice to see Page pat Darius on the shoulder pre-match as an extension of the above gimmick, but in general the Trustbusters (still working out their act) and the Wingmen kept to themselves and didn't work together much. We did get some fresh match-ups though. Kassidy and Kiss come to mind, and as Darius been on the shelf for so long, even the Wingmen and Top Flight working against one another seemed pretty fresh. So in that regard, this was a hit for me. They especially used Takeshita well here, as a big clean-up hitter. I would have liked Bononi teased a bit more (or even get to lean on Kassidy a bit) before the big showdown with Takeshita though. Honestly, I wouldn't mind seeing one of these on Elevation with various guys on the massive roster once a month.

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Found Footage Friday: LAWLER~! ROOSTER~! COLORADO~! REJECTS~! SLIM J~! ROCKWELL~! HAWKINS~! OKUMA~! EIGEN~!

Haruka Eigen vs. Motoshi Okuma AJPW 9/15/89

MD: Another recent Classics drop and it's a great thing to pop up because while we have a lot of Eigen and Okuma in this era, and likewise, a decent amount of All Japan comedy, it's always with them as foils for Rusher and Baba. It's rare to see the two of them one on one and really, comedy without Baba or Rusher. This was certainly something. They wrestled a bit before building to the comedy but once they got there, it never went away. It was a mean sort of thing though, Okuma headbutting Eigen in the mouth, both guys holding the other in the ropes like Sheamus and laying in a huge shot that would cause spit to go flying into the front row and everyone to go running, Okuma stepping over Eigen to hit the falling headbutt and then having it countered by Eigen tripping him. Okuma had somewhat more dignity here, with Eigen spitting farther, getting headbutted, having to run around the ringside area to try to find a way back into the ring without getting nailed, but Okuma got his comeuppance too. Very unique, very stylized, but interesting and worth watching at least once. The crowd was certainly into it and they should have been considering the effort, timing, and expert expressiveness of these two, all while being just hard-hitting enough to belong in 1989 AJPW. 

Jerry Lawler vs. Mike Rapada vs. Terry Taylor NWA Worldwide 11/13/99

MD: This was for Rapada's NWA North American title, with the appeal, as much as anything else, that it was a WWF announcer vs. a WCW office guy vs. a NWA wrestler, in 1999. The Nashville crowd was pretty big and fairly hot. Both guys had been feuding with Rapada and Lawler's promo setting it up was that Rapada thought beating him would let him get into WWF but that he'd never get there. The real appeal of this one, however, was seeing Lawler in a Triple Threat match. They'd been around for a chunk of the decade, obviously, and Lawler had called his share by November 1999, but you could see the wheels ticking even in the promo setting it up. 

Lawler and Taylor were de facto allies here, and this ended up pure Memphis. Lawler would use a sharpie (a real one, not an imaginary one), that Stacy handed to him into Rapada's throat repeatedly, but he'd have Taylor there in the ring to distract the ref. It allowed for a slightly different execution for hide the object but was effective through it's blatantness with Lawler being more blatant than ever. They built towards dissension between Taylor and Lawler as only one party could win the title, leading to a miscommunication headbutt to the groin and Rapada coming back. Finish was Taylor kicking out of all of Rapada's big moves and then stealing the win as Lawler was gloating after hitting Rapada with the pile-driver. This had its ceiling considering who was in there with the King, but it was great to see him experiment with the possibilities of a new form (and find ways to work all of his time-tested stuff in). 

Devil's Rejects (Azrael/Shaun Tempers/Patrick Bentley) vs. Slim J/Adrian Hawkins/Ace Rockwell NWA Anarchy 9/27/07

MD: As always, you can drop in to almost any of these Rejects matches and it feels like... well, home is probably not the right word, but certainly somewhere familiar and, for us at least, welcome. The Anarchy announcers are always the best at getting you up to speed too. They didn't know it but they were commentating for immortality. Here, things start out as 3 on 2 (really 4 on 2 given Wilson, the Staff of Righteousness, and that this was a streetfight). Hawkins had just refused membership in the Rejects and while he and Slim J meshed in look and style, and even had an early advantage by striking first, the numbers were against them. I liked Bentley a lot here, bumping huge out of the ring for Slim J to start, later on dragging his elbow over a wound when they were in control, playing his new character overtly in his elated reactions while still seeming menacing. When things seemed darkest and Hawkins was about to hit a pile driver off the top onto a chair on Slim J, Rockwell rushed out to even the odds which was a big moment and a bigger pop. That led to a great comeback highlighted by a Slim J diving reverse DDT on 2/3rds of the Rejects and a Coast-to-Coast by Hawkins. Eventually, as it so often happened the superior chemistry and teamwork (and sheer brutality) from the Rejects won out though, building and building and building it to a bigger payoff down the road and keeping these insatiable fans ever hungry.

PAS: I just love this stuff. I really should have been watching Anarchy weekly back in the mid 2000s, it is very much my kind of wrestling. The Rejects are a swarming gang of creeps as always, although it is a different vibe without either of the monsters Tank and Iceberg. Damn Slim J is a great brawler. I say it every time one of these matches come out, but it just blows me away how great he is at throwing hands, timing comebacks, bleeding, all of it. Really almost a 21st century Tommy Rich, and it is a shame he never got a chance to really have that kind of match on a bigger stage. Loved Rockwell coming from the back, he is an amazing brawler too, and that is a trope which always works. Rejects win felt earned and that double team reverse DDT that Azreal and Tempers did was awesome looking. Great match, but basically any time these guys matched up it was tremendous. 

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Found Footage Friday: TAKA~! ISHIKAWA~! WARGAMES 2x2~?! SLIM J~! SHADOW JACKSON~! CONCRETE GORILLAS~! NWA ELITE~! DEVIL'S REJECTS~!

Yuki Ishikawa/Kurashima vs. George King/TAKA Michinoku BATTLARTS 2003

MD: If George King wants to post BATTLARTS matches on Instagram, we're going to watch them. King was the odd man out in some ways, but you can't say he wasn't game. Whenever TAKA was in, he was shouting encouragement from the corner. He wasn't afraid to slap and chop hard and he had a lot of feats of strength that felt labored in a way that added to the struggle. Occasionally, you questioned the timing or positioning maybe, but Ishikawa was going to be able to work him into holds and make things look great with just a bit of feeding. That's all he needed anyway. It was a lot of fun to see Ishikawa and TAKA square off, as TAKA threw some nasty kicks but spent a lot of his time twisted and contorted in a crossface chicken wing or outright getting dropped on his head by Ishikawa. Kurashima was in there to take suplexes and throw them, but it was mostly Ishikawa's show. King and TAKA layered in just enough cheating to keep things interesting and help rationalize the finish. 

Slim J/Shadow Jackson vs. Jay Fury/Nemesis 2x2 War Games NWA Anarchy 7/19/08 

PAS: Slim J has seemingly gotten a spot in AEW/ROH which is awesome, he is one of the most underseen and underrated wrestlers of the 21st century, and it is great he is getting a bit of shine. Most people remember him as a high flyer workrate guy, and he is very good at that style, but he truly excels in a bloody ugly brawl like this.

This was a four person War Games match, which conceptually seems a bit silly, but worked fine. It just ended up as a quick tag team I quit match. Nemisis and Shadow Jackson together were the Urban Assault Squad, a long time Cornelia tag team, and this was the apex of their post break up feud. There was a trophy involved in the break up, and the sharp trophy was used as a stabbing implement to open up all four guys. Slim J started the match and took a nasty beating throughout, including getting German Suplexed while both he and his opponent were standing on the top rope, and getting hung with a noose from the cage. There was a lot of battling on the top rope, and at one point the fence started peeling away from the cage, which gave the whole match this chaotic, razor's edge feel. Like any minute this whole thing is going to collapse. Jackson had a real connection to the crowd, but I didn't think his offense looked that great, the heel team was fine, if a little unmemorable, but this was another great example of what an all time deranged psycho Slim J is and was.  

MD: I loved the layout on this. It was like a War Games Lite or a Sprint War Games. Slim J started with Fury for the first five minutes, wrestling from underneath to really dominate towards the end. Nemesis came in and they began to just demolish him. Jackson came in three minutes later to even the odds and they had a big comeback. It was particularly interesting though as Slim J had to earn his part of it like he would have to in order to set up a hot tag. Nemesis had been holding the cage to keep Jackson out and it was only when Slim J was able to fight away from the noose and take over on Fury that Nemesis had to help his partner and Jackson was able to come in. The faces then slipped on a banana peel and we got a really brutal beatdown, tons of shots into the cage, and the insane visual of Slim J eating that German from the top of the cage all the way across the ring. It was an amazing distance to travel on it. Anarchy is so good at booking big moments in these matches and here it was Slim J coming back again as he was about to be hung and Jackson rising up to get his revenge as the crowd lived and breathed with his every movement and the triumphant victory. It was real folk hero stuff which is what you want in a War Games. I agree that specific things could have looked a little better in practice at times and that probably would have put it further over the top, but I'm completely behind the theory of this one.

Devil's Rejects (Azrael/Shaun Tempers/Iceberg) vs. NWA Elite (Abomination/Phil Shatter/KIMO) NWA Anarchy 7/19/08

MD: There was a moment right at the midway mark of the match, even as the announcers were laying out the stakes again, where I thought to myself "This is actually a pretty conventional tag." Of course in that moment Iceberg decided to take a bite out of Shatter's skull, so obviously it's all relative, but this was a different sort of match for these groups. It was titles vs the chance to ever challenge again, where the Elite were trying desperately to wrest some gold, at all costs, from the Rejects after a six month reign from Azrael/Tempers. What you got on one side was a fairly oddball group with KIMO's unconventional strikes and Abomination's size, but with Shatter doing the brunt of the work from underneath as the Rejects worked like a well oiled machine. Shatter had a lot of time working with these guys and taking their stuff and, to some degree, to be able to get Iceberg up when needed, including to set up the hot tag. Unexpectedly, Iceberg took huge bumps in the process. They had a great moment at the end where the managers were taken out on the apron and everyone crashed into each other to set up the finish. Ultimately everyone worked to put over KIMO which was a choice in time, I guess. The Elite's team never really seemed to gel here (Abomination was really just there, an absence in your vision in his all black gear), but Shatter held up things well considering he had the Rejects to work against.

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Found Footage Friday: PANAMANIAN LUCHA~! CACTUS~! MORRUS~! SLIM J~! ROCKWELL~! DEVILS REJECTS~!

Galvez/Taur vs. Kato Kung Lee/Celestial 1988

MD: More Panamanian lucha. This was pretty polished. Galvez stooged well and looked like he could be the Cuban Assassin's partner. Taur had this great sweeping punch. Both of them based perfectly for Celestial who had a ton of fun headscissors takeover variations. Kato Kung Lee came off as an attraction at the height of his power and the fans were very into his rope running/climbing shtick that befuddled the rudos and won the first fall. The beatdown that followed primarily relied on the numbers game and was compelling enough, and then the comeback was celebratory like you'd expect. I'd say this match, at least, would stand up fairly well against comparable ones from the era.

Shaun Tempers/Azrael vs. Ace Rockwell/Slim J NWA Anarchy 5/20/06 - EPIC

MD: This was a great piece of business, with all of the story beats and intensity of one of the more complicated Anarchy matches but in a nice, compact package, going less than 15, with a clean shine, heat, comeback structure. It had all the wildness and mayhem you'd want though. Rockwell and Slim J rushed the Rejects at the start and they both looked great in the early going. Rockwell was incredibly intense with his headbutts and punches and running shots as the camera kept switching back and forth to try to keep up with the action. Slim J took a bit more of a beating given the size differential but came back in the ring with offense that seemed to pause time as he shifted around this way or that. I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone else do his flipping grounded neckbreaker in a Rude Awakening style, for instance. All of that only worked for so long as they could keep the Rejects away from each other, however, and they came back in the ring when they could start to work together. Eventually, Rockwell stormed the ring by using his cast as a weapon and they went towards the big spots of the finish. The first was an absolutely insane superplex counter where Slim J pulled all of his weight down to switch motion in midair and with just a touch of his toes on the mat turned it around with huge momentum. It's not the sort of thing I'd want to see every day but here, it absolutely worked. Then Rockwell crashed Tempers through set up chairs on the floor with a top rope splash. And to set up the actual finish, Slim J took out Wilson and Azrael with a corkscrew dive. The finish was what you'd expect here, something to keep the heat on the Rejects and protect Tempers' weapon, but overall this one really got the job done in keeping the feud hot while giving the babyfaces a lot of chance to fight back.

PAS: This was really great stuff, high energy, big time violence and really intensity. Great demonstration of what made and makes Slim J so amazing. He brawls like an absolute demon in the beginning of this match and also pulls off some incredible state of the art highspots. The reversal of the superplex was mind blowing, just such a cool mix of balance and athleticism, his corkscrew dive to the floor was also next level. Rockwell is tremendous too, he feels like a guy who needs a deep dive, also really great at the punching and kicking parts and hits that wild top rope splash through the group of chairs. The Rejects were fine foils and the finish did a really nice job of setting up their all timer of a War Games which was still to come, I really need to see every second of this feud.

Cactus Jack vs. Crash the Terminator MECW 9/10/95 - FUN

MD: This was supposed to be Cactus vs. Barbarian but apparently Barb couldn't make it. Cactus hyped things up pre-match saying he'd teamed with Crash (being the future Hugh Morrus) before in Japan and they'd have a good match and they shaked, but Crash then ambushed Cactus. Cactus comes back with a really nice forearm sending Crash out and Cactus got back on the mic saying that it was time to fight instead. I don't think the intensity quite lived up to that opening, or that they went quite as hard as you'd expect for a main event substitution like this, but for one thing, the ring seemed really unforgiving. That said, I liked the idea of the entry point with the mic work before and after the ambush. You could picture Foley in the back trying to figure out how they'd start the match. Once they got going, most of Cactus' stuff was very credible. Great headbutt. Nice running elbow drop. DeMott was obviously strong. He caught Jack off the second rope impressively and got him over on a big suplex and a power bomb. Finish was a missed moonsault and a second double arm DDT and there was a sort of senseless ref bump in the middle, which was literally impactful but not exactly resonant. The announcing continues to be some of the worst in recorded history, without even the woman that helped the Waltman match we saw.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE SLIM J

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE CACTUS JACK

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New Footage Friday: HASH~! LIGER~! CHONO~! SANO~! SLIM J~! BARBED WIRE~! MATT BORNE WILL PLAY SUN CITY~!

Maniac Matt Bourne vs. Daniel "The Hulk" Voges South Africa ??

MD: A bunch of this South African footage dropped and we're playing it safe by going with the sure thing, Maniac Matt Borne. I tried to figure out when this probably was, but only found a story about Borne losing his passport on the way to South Africa and some guy stealing his identity and ODing years later. Here he was facing Danie "the Hulk" Voges, who was obviously a beloved local folk hero, at least from the reaction he got. It felt a little like an Otto Wanz match along those lines. This was a round system, seems like the best of five with some weird production quirks between the Dutch (?) commentary and long shots of crowd reactions of the same few people, a pair of twins, a couple that was very into it, and one guy who seemed to be sleeping. Borne was great here though, laying it in, stooging, getting heat, taking big shots. I'm not sure if Voges' straight on chops would look good against anyone else but they looked great here. It was mostly these two throwing shots but Voges won a fall in the second round with a power slam that was nasty as he barely got Borne over and Borne evened it up with a knee off the top in the fourth. Voges bled pretty heavily in the last round and it ended with both guys still scrapping and the fans left wanting more.

PAS: The Otto Wanz comparison is right on, the match also had sort of a Carlos Colon feel. This was basically all punches, but both guys had great looking punches, with Borne throwing hands, and Voges having this chops to the neck and chin. We get some really dramatic blood a big almost fatal powerslam and some glam looking ladies in the crowd horrified at the violence being laid out on their hero. I wan't to check out some more Voges, I like a big time local hero and he had some big star timing. 

ER: I love the aesthetics of this, feeling like our big German CWA rounds matches. We all separately got the local legend Otto Wanz vibes off Voges, except he's like the Iron Mike Sharpe of Otto Wanz's. Borne doesn't work his Buzz Sawyer lite style here and instead works as Kevin Sullivan. Kevin Sullivan/Mike Sharpe is a fight I'd want to watch, and it was good here. I like big heavyweight matches where they fill a lot of time by throwing downward clubbing forearms across chests and throw right hands and slaps to the jaw that land with thud. Borne throws punches at Voges' hairline and busts him open, and a regional hero fighting and swinging through a bloody forehead is a simple classic recipe that we've now seen get the same rabid reactions on every continent but Antarctica. This is the first broadcast in wrestling history that I've seen let a camera linger on a man who fell asleep in the crowd, capturing that moment where he wakes up with a snort and immediately begins acting as if he hadn't been asleep. It also captures a woman outright screaming in support of Voges, and that kind of regional passion plays to every part of my wrestling heart. That Voges delayed powerslam on Borne was well worthy of winning a fall, and I love the brawl it devolved into. 

Shinya Hashimoto/Naoki Sano vs. Masa Chono/Jushin Liger NJPW 1/6/90 - EPIC

MD: Unique match up where they weren't afraid to mix the pairings. It starts out with Liger vs Hashimoto with a nice bit of Liger crashing against him and Hash giving just what he should until Liger's able to zoom past him and finally get him down. Later on, it's interesting as he almost has a hard time getting Liger up, despite the fact Liger's smaller than Chono, giving everything a grittier, uncooperative feeling that makes every impact all the worse. A chunk of this was Chono leaning on Sano and while that was fine, you were kind of waiting for the other guy on each side to get back in. As per the norm for 1990, the STF was both over and protected. The eventual payoff was Chono and Liger dropping Hashimoto with a spike pile driver and then Hashimoto trying one crushing shot after the next to finally put Liger down. Good match that gave us just enough of the Liger/Hashimoto pairing and never wore out its welcome.

PAS: I love the Liger vs. Hashimoto match up. Unlike most junior versus heavyweight matches Liger always tries to go toe to toe with Hashimoto. It isn't David vs. Goliath, Liger is more like Mike Tyson: he may be short, but he hits just as hard. I loved him using momentum to drop Hashimoto with a shoulder block and a flip kick to the temple. Chono versus Sano was really cool too. Sano was such a smooth and violent wrestler, and I love the solebutt to the stomach as an equalizer. Hashimoto really went after Liger at the end, hitting almost a half powerslam half brainbuster and Liger kept coming and getting in his face. Great stuff, really fun discovery.

ER: I thought this was excellent, with my love for it growing with every moment I reminded myself that this match would have - if not for a man with a camcorder - gone undocumented. Watching how hard these four legends beat the shit out of each other for 2,200 fans in Korakuen early in the new year and nobody else, and yet a 40 year old guy in California is able to see these fully beatings 30 years later. It makes me emotional. It's crazy to see this level of commitment on a house show, with strikes thrown full force in spots and tons of offense that missed, but was thrown to hit. The true greats, men like Hashimoto and Liger, bring that suspension of disbelief into their matches with their full commitment to offense, and to see it worked to maximum effectiveness on a small but hot Korakuen handheld just makes me love them more. 

These guys come off like the toughest wrestlers on earth in matches like these. The Hashimoto/Liger segments were my favorite and they were complemented perfectly by Sano running traffic like a madman and Chono leaning into and bumping big for Sano made him feel like a real force. But Hashimoto and Liger looked like fucking pro wrestlers. Everything landed and every landing felt real. There's an early Liger hook kick that catches Hashimoto behind the ear and Hashimoto crumbles perfectly. The misses were incredible, so violently executed that you buy the idea that Hashimoto threw a spinning heel kick that was supposed to take Liger's head off until Liger moved when he wasn't supposed to. Now, these men are pros, and the reality is that Hashimoto merely threw a spinning heel kick so hard that it would have seriously injured Liger had it not been ducked, and Hashimoto is such an ideal version of what a professional wrestler should be that he makes every miss look like he expected a bullseye. 

Hashimoto drills Liger into the ring with a running brainbuster that is an insane spot for an untaped show, and when Hash hits that spinning heel kick he sends the full weight of his hip crashing into Liger. Sano is a barefoot psychopath, hitting a gorgeous pescado (later to be completely outshone by Liger's gorgeous tope con giro but hey) and throwing a bananas running dropkick to knock Chono off the apron. When Hashimoto gets the pin on Liger, he's a man really holding his opponent's shoulders to the mat, with Liger being pinned because he was the weakened man. It's that attention to detail when they aren't thinking about how many people are going to ever witness it. It's a special thing when you find a match that only exists because of some guy and his camcorder, and the match raises the stock of all four guys involved. 

Slim J vs. Azrael NWA Anarchy 4/9/11 - EPIC

PAS: This was a barbed wire massacre match, and a real great chance for these two sickos to poke little holes in each other. Both guys are really great traditional brawlers, and they had some cool violent moments in a match which was mostly about getting stuck. I loved the insanity of both guys swinging barbed wire baseball bats super hard into each other, I mean just imagine how much their wrists hurt. Azrael driving his forearm into a barbed wire chair on a missed slam was sick stuff on top of it all. Slim J amps it up in the closing moments of the match, wrapping himself in barbed wire and using his body as a pokey weapon. Azrael hits a sick ace crusher on him, but can't cover because him arm got punctured. The announcers mention all the brawls these two have had in this feud and I want to see all of them. 

MD: They delivered on what was advertised here. There was barbed wire everywhere throughout. While it was pretty gratuitous, everything was done with consequence, which is what you hope for out of a match like this. Early on, the basic layout of the ring, with weapons everywhere and Wilson on the outside put Slim J at a disadvantage as he had to get things out of the way whenever he wanted to try to hit one of his moves. I liked how they built up the wire early, as the wrestlers themselves were tasked to put it on the ropes. That was a gradual process but it built up tension for the first few shots into it, and did have the very clever moment of Azrael using the Staff of Righteousness to do it at one point. In a match like this (like an exploding cage match or anything else along those lines), one whip can completely change momentum, so long as the wrestlers put it over, and they absolutely did here, and that makes for different sort of narrative opportunities. Mid-match, Slim J, to create the great equalizer, wrapped himself up in the wire and tried to use his body as a weapon to varying effects. It meant that every impact in the finishing stretch was pushed even further over the top. I probably won't revisit this one anytime soon, but they treated everything in this match with fear and respect and consequence and it elevated it into something that was more than simple blood and guts.

ER: Slim J's legend grows with every month of footage from the past 20 years. He's one of the great babyfaces from that era, as talented as but somehow not even as heralded as The Amazing Red. Slim J has been knocking out Rey Mysterio level matches for years now to a fraction of the acclaim, and it's crazy. Here's another to add to his legend, a violent insane spotfest from the great Anarchy. There's great carny shit like Reverend Dan at ringside, and the early match looked like old school bullshit with classic Dusty Rhodes teased barbed wire spots. But when Slim J dodged and Azrael hammer-fisted a chair covered in barbed wire full force, the tone of this all changed. Slim J took a full force tennis racket shot to the head, and from then on full force was the name of the game. 

Azrael's beating looked vicious, and Slim's selling of the beating made it look even more lethal. Slim J might be the greatest selling babyface of the entire 2000s indy scene, it's not even a contentious statement. Here you get great high level cruiserweight spots from Slim J, like his fine Santo roll, but you get violent additions like Azrael subsequently getting flapjacked face first onto a chair. But soon Slim is wrapping himself entirely in barbed wire like a sexy boy band Sabu and they're swinging - again, full force - barbed wire bat shots like they were wrestling in the ugliest dirt lot lucha. And, as someone who has had their hands stung by many different aluminum bats, Slim straightening his wrists and shaking his hands was a familiar pain. 

Slim's missed corner avalanche while wrapped in barbed wire was like Zona 1-2-3 Kid, and that Azrael ace crusher is one of the greatest ever iterations of that move. Let's get Azrael into the online discussion for best ever stunner/crusher. Slim J takes a kind of whipping slam into a thick garbage can like a true garbage match legend, always combining big impact with a folded body, and Azrael's sitout driver off the rope rope through a table was an incredible finish. It's the kind of finish that even Shane McMahon might not consider to win his father's love. The chemistry here is incredible and it feels like it will play out like a legendary bloody lucha feud the more matches are uncovered. If this is the only one we ever get? We were lucky., 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE SHINYA HASHIMOTO

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE SLIM J

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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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Slim J Bit Off More Than He Can Chew Like A Face Full of Swedish Fish or Lorena with Two Penises

Slim J vs. Iceberg NWA Anarchy 4/26/14 - GREAT 

PAS: This was more of an angle than a match, but it is a heck of an angle. Iceberg and Slim J had been a tag team (with the amazing name of Iceberg Slim), but Berg had gone back to his heel ways and rejoined up with Jeff G. Bailey. Slim gets on the mic and demands an explanation, Berg cheap shots him with a nasty right hand, then smashes him all around the arena, throwing him into the post and the ring barrier. Slim gets a slight comeback, only to continue to get destroyed until Berg gets DQ'ed for driving the implement of destruction into his head. Ace Rockwell comes out for the save, only to get jumped by Shaun Tempers. This sets up Rockwell/Slim vs. Berg/Tempers which I am sure is great. Cool big man vs. little match if a bit one sided. 

Slim J vs. Griff Garrison Anarchy Wrestling 1/13/18 - FUN

PAS: This was a fun TV juniors match with future AEWer Garrison early in his career. So many of the Slim matches we have been reviewing lately have been brawls, but he is also really good at this kind of AEW Dark juniors match. He hit a really great looking headscissors off the ropes, a flipping springboard dive in the ring and a rubix cube finish. Garrison got a moment or two to shine, but this was mostly a showcase of Slim J's offense, which is always worth watching

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New Footage Friday: FELINO~! MAGICA~! WOLFIE D~! FLASH~! SLIM J~! MASADA~! MURDER ONE~! WAR GAMES~!

El Felino vs. Mascara Magica CMLL 5/21/96

PAS: A real hidden gem which, barring some third caida wonkiness, is a real classic. The first fall is some of the best lucha mat wrestling I have ever seen. Felino and Magica were working these sick looking leglocks, just tremendous torque on ankles and knees. There was some llave in it, but it really felt more like Tamura RINGS stuff than Negro Navarro. Felino also really bangs at Magica's shoulder in the second fall, leading to a cool bit of business where Magica can't lift Felino into the submission he won the first fall with. I liked the screwy finish to the third fall with Magica sliding under the ropes to beat the count, but not getting his foot all the way in, felt like kind of heartbreaking NBA replay moment where the game winning three point shooter had his toe on the line. I thought the restart Caida got a bit move spammy, and had this possible foul from Felino which didn't pay off. They were telling such a brilliant smaller tighter story and then went unnecessarily maximal, it was like the end of a Marvel series. WandaVision is about grief, Falcon and Winter Soldier is about race, but let's end it with a bunch of pew pew lasers. Still the good was so good that this was a real treat to watch.

MD: A week or two ago, an Atlantis mask match dropped and I realized I'd seen it a few years ago because dataintcash posted it on Youtube, which got me thinking how much I wanted him to post some more stuff as it'd been a while. Lo and behold, this drops. At the least, it's been offline for a while. It's a long title match and outside some goofiness in the tercera (and even allowing for that, really) it's very good. They had plenty of time to let things breathe, which is what you want. The primera was worked straight and it covered the ground of what you look for in these: it was competent, as in they didn't blow things or seem lost; competitive, as holds weren't just given but had struggle; and compelling, with some more tricked out holds and escapes. The next level is having some semblance of a narrative and there were bits and pieces with that, between a focus on the legs and both guys going for STFs. The pace picked up and led to the first of multiple Mascara Magica dives in th e match and the finish. The segunda had Felino fake a leg injury after another STF and then took the opportunity to do a cool victory roll from the apron in to set up the fall. In the tercera, he went full rudo with some great arm focus (including Mascara Magica not being able to hit things), and ultimately a tecnico comeback and huge dive for what looked like the win, but they restarted the match and it felt almost like a fourth fall, building from Felino clotheslines and Mascara Magica roll ups to bigger (and still legitimately impressive in 2021) spots with neither guy able to pin the other until Mascara Magica switched to a submission and got the nod. Just a good, long title match, where even the restart didn't hurt it as it felt thematically different afterwards. Anyway, someone nudge dataintcash to post some more stuff.

Wolfie D vs. Flash Flanagan MCW 4/4/98

MD: This was on a Tojo Yamamoto memorial in 98. Wolfie was on a crutch with his leg in a cast. I'm a big fan of matches where someone's working with a real limitation because they're almost forced to get outside of rote spots and be creative. This was definitely creative. There was a need for Wolfie to be on top for a lot of it so they had to keep finding ways for that to happen when he could barely move around, first with the crutch shot, then by tying Flash in the ropes, then with a chair, etc. It made it more of a thought experiment than the straight up bloody violence you might hope for out of something like this, but maybe that's fitting for a Tojo memorial show. These two worked a bunch of gimmick matches (tables, death match, falls count anywhere, ladder) over the span of a couple of years before starting to team later in 98 and this ended in BS with the chain breaking and nothing really getting settled, but it was fun while it lasted.

Slim J/Murder One/Gabriel/Altar Boy Luke vs. NWA Elite (Todd Sexton/Masada/Rainman/Azreal) NWA Wildside 7/3/04 - EPIC

PAS: Another Cornelia War Games gets dropped and we get to see another classic. This was really wild, with probably one too many gimmicks and ideas, but some real high highs. Slim J has got to be one of the great cage match workers of all time, what a total psycho. He bleeds a ton, takes huge bumps (including a top rope side slam), and gets barbed wire kicked into his face. Really liked the classic Wildside tag teams facing off against each other, with the Blackout of Murder One and Rainman beating the bricks off of each other and the Lost Boys of Gabriel and Azreal doing the same. Masada brings the lunacy by lighting his hand on fire for chops. Lots of set up required for the big ladder bump off the cage, but the payoff looked painful, and Dusty got his moment to elbow everyone. Again Cornelia proves they know how to end a War Games, with Slim J sticking barbed wire in the mouth of Sexton for the tap. Nasty, nasty stuff. 

MD: Interesting structure here as this has the longest Match Beyond that I can remember. Usually, you get through the War Games itself and it's pretty quick to the finish. The first pairing seemed like it was two minutes instead of five, but you forgot that quick. The pre-match promo had Bailey hype up Sexton, who was playing scared to get over the danger of the match (which is always nice to see in a world where everyone tries to be tougher than it) by saying they needed him in first as the technician to work on someone's limb and damage him for the submission or surrender portion. That would be well and good except for the other side surprised them by starting out Slim J, who as the smallest guy, you wouldn't think would start. These Wildside/Anarchy matches are full of clever little bits like that. Some of them, like Gabriel getting trapped outside the cage at the end, worked really well. Azrael (who was pretty great in this one, bumping and basing all over the place and happy to crash into the cage over and over) going through the table from the inside out worked well too. 

Some things, like Dusty freeing Slim J from the cuffs, or the dissension between the two tag teams that were trying to work together, or the final turn on Sexton needed a bit more space to breathe but it's hard in a War Games when things are happening all the time. It was also a bit of a victim of its time, where every move needed an extra twist or flip or spin to it. Everything was a tricked out video game move. When they used the barbed wire or tossed people into the cage, it all worked a lot better. That said, the fact that the match worked as well as it did despite the trappings of its time was a testament to how much effort and thought they put into these and how much history and character elements they could call upon, even in 2004. And hey, what was up with Luke and Rainman deciding to do headlocks and rope running at the start of the third period though? Even the announcers called that out. In a way it, like everything else, sort of worked though. A War Games is pure distilled chaos and everything in this match fit that bill.

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