Super Dragon and the Greatest Match Ever to Happen in Pacifica, CA

Super Dragon/Spanky vs. Jardi Frantz/Bobby Quance APW 5/11/02 - EPIC

ER: I was at this show. Terra Nova Hight School in Pacifica. It was top to bottom one of the best wrestling shows I've been to, and I've been to a ton of great wrestling shows in my life. I was 21, there with friends, and the show was loaded. A small four man title tournament meant we got two good Robert Thompson matches and two good American Dragon matches, the latter being their arm work main event. Three great singles matches, a strong undercard, but this tag was the match we were talking about on the drive home. This tag match is the best match of the dozen or so shows APW ran in Pacifica in the late 90s/early 00s, many of which I attended. I wish I remember the Excalibur vs. James Watkins match. I'm sure it had a great clothesline. Cheerleader Melissa and Sara Del Rey in a trios? That was probably good too. Chad Collyer worked American Dragon in the first or second match of the night, and after his match I saw him sitting up in the bleachers watching the show. I went up and sat with him, asking him a bunch of annoying questions, so I don't remember much about those two matches. 

I doesn't matter, nothing on this card can compare to this tag. Only one match in Pacifica APW history comes close and that is the Westside Playaz (Robert Thompson/Boyce LeGrande) vs. Jardi Frantz/Vinny Massaro match from 5/6/00. That one is not far off, but this match clears it. Two of the greatest all time APW tag matches. APW even ran a tag team tournament show in Pacifica now that I think about it. The people of Pacifica demanded to be treated as a Tag Team Territory. You need to run a strong tag match at your Pacifica show in 2002 if you run one at all, and you don't even need to make the rest of the card good. This card was good, but had it been garbage we would have still spent the drive home talking exclusively about this match. On paper, it was exactly what my friends and I wanted to see in wrestling. It was a dream. Our special West Coast version of the burgeoning super indy dream match. That it actually delivered on the on-paper promise was what made us true believers. 

Every man enters separately. The first sounds we hear are "Down With the Sickness" because Bobby Quance is inspired by no other man. It feels impossible that nobody else in indy wrestling history would have used Disturbed's nu metal classic as an entrance theme, but Bobby Quance was somehow the only wrestler who had the vision. Jardi comes out in a kimono to Hayabusa's theme, which is some tremendous weeb cosplay after going one on NOAH tour a year earlier.  Spanky continues the rib of coming out to songs with long or constant instrumental intros, coming out to the Proclaimers' "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" with an intro long enough to make more than one adult man yell "get to the fucking ring already." These guys were all about their bullshit and nothing was going to stop them. 

While I was there in attendance, I have no memory of chanting SUPER HOMO at Super Dragon and don't believe it's a chant I would have participated in. However, I recognize that it was a very loud chant, and with only 200-300 people in attendance any loud chant would require many participants. There is no video footage that confirms me doing or not doing the chant, but this was 25 years ago and we were all still collectively processing 9/11, so who's to say who did what at Terra Nova that night. I also don't remember Spanky working shtick around throwing his pubes at Jardi so some things just get lost to time and memory.

Jardi Frantz is now a well kept secret; a mostly forgotten wrestler only thought of by those who were there or those who memorized DVDVR 500s. I was there for basically his entire west coast APW run. He had evolved into a pretty great wrestler by 2002, a real slimeball who was surprisingly tough. A babyface only be default. His matwork was really strong and he got a lot of quick leverage over Spanky. This was during an era where APW was pushing all of their graduates to do real wrestling training and all matches had focused matwork. It was a great era. It's an era that should exist in full on tape and yet is the most unreleased great indy wrestling of the era. The Dragon/Quance matwork was an excellent example of their matwork ethos, worked like snug World of Sport, less flash more weight. Quance used his speed for leverage and rolled Dragon into a crucifix that had strong physics. Dragon had a stunning camel clutch application where he forced Quance into a full nelson and maneuvered that painfully into a heavy weight camel clutch. I wish he held it instead of quickly moving to a Gedo Clutch, I wanted to see him twist Bobby. All the matwork was tough.  

Things really took off when Spanky and Super Dragon fully cut Quance off. That was when they got everyone's attention. A lot of people in 2026 probably don't know the name Bobby Quance, but he was a super fast learner who looked like the next West Coast super worker from go. This was less than 10 matches into his career and he hung impressively with the rest of the very advanced guys in the match, and he was a good and right fit getting cut off. He played great from under and Dragon is best when he's sadistically going after someone. Dragon had an amazing back elbow cut off that started it all. A back elbow that would have played in 1983 Georgia. Spanky slid a fast loud kick into Quance's face and catapulted him into one of those Super Dragon chops that sends an echoing snap through a building. Spanky's pinfall attempts are as painful as his offense, every pin a stump puller, stretching this boy's ligaments. When Dragon did a springboard kneedrop onto Quance's stretched out torso and cleanly rolled through to the far side ropes to talk shit, everyone in Pacifica knew they were seeing greatness. Imagine Hayabusa with the attitude of Deranged. Sounds like the best wrestler ever. 

Jardi was great as the veteran Kings Road partner teaming with the guy who was 100% taking the pin. He gets a lot of impact on his basics, even if he doesn't look like a guy who would have hard bodyslams or heavyweight biels, a legdrop with unexpected impact from long slender legs. Spanky and Dragon bump big for Jardi's shine, Spanky going over the top to the floor on a missed charge while Dragon wraps himself around the ringpost. Jardi's running senton over the ringpost into them had the same energy as 1997 Juvy. Quance's shooting star press over the ringpost into them had energy that wasn't even imagined five years before. I remember being blown away the first time I saw someone do a standing shooting star, or Kidman doing his shooting star press off the ring apron. Quance, pro for a few months, shoots himself into brave new pro wrestling possibilities. It's as if several dozen people saw Blitzkrieg and decided to become wrestlers so they could invent more dangerous versions of flipping onto someone, acolytes forming over three years. 

Super Dragon was the best at taking Bobby Quance's offense. Quance wasn't around long, but he fought Super Dragon a lot during his run. Dragon was the SUWA to Quance's Dragon Kid. They're doing 1997 Rey vs. Juvy with their own spin and they're really great at it. Dragon is Juvy, decapitating Quance's Rey with a downward angled springboard spinning heel kick to the back of the head, catching and folding on Quance's springboard huracanrana. What takes it beyond, is neither Rey nor Juvy were as vicious as Super Dragon, and that viciousness ramps up to a big finish involving Dragon ragdolling Quance multiple times. There's a wild sequence where Quance is murdered by a cradled brainbuster, Jardi hits a 450 splash on Spanky that Dragon breaks up with a top rope double stomp, Quance gets whipped into a pair of brutal Burning Lariats, it's all just monstrous. 

I wonder how many other people went to the Taco Bell near the beach that is designed like a surf shack. That's a thing you used to do in Pacifica after seeing some of the best wrestling of your life. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE SUPER DRAGON

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Here's a Necro Butcher Match to Watch During the Kid Rock TP USA Half Time Show

Super Dragon/Necro Butcher vs. Kevin Steen/BJ Whitmer CZW 4/15/06 - GREAT

ER: More of a great Super Dragon/Necro match than a great overall match, notable for being one of the two times CZW used Super Dragon/Necro Butcher as a team. Imagine a cooler team in 2006 than Necro Butcher and Super Dragon. Do it, right now. I love them together and loved them in this. I just don't think this era of Steen/Whitmer was able to match their stiffness. Not even close. It was a dominant Team CZW match - which I like - but that made it feel like a missed opportunity for Whitmer and Steen to get real actual heat for repping ROH. Think about Akitoshi Saito showing up in Big Japan. BJ Whitmer could have been a shittier version of that. But is this actually a BJ Whitmer Match? 

Whitmer is good at taking damage, great at bumping for Necro, and this finally got going when Necro threw a chair into BJ's stomach and Dragon bounced a chair off Steen's head. Whitmer was great at taking and selling chairshots all match. Necro and Whitmer's suplex to the floor looked rough (complimentary) and Whitmer honest to god saved one of Necro's lives catching his cannonball over the ringpost. BJ Whitmer stood strong and absorbed all of that maniacal cannonball when nobody else could, and his reward was getting a dozen chairs bounced off his body. 

Maybe it's Kevin Steen and only Kevin Steen who keeps this match from being a classic, even though I liked everything Dragon did TO Steen. Dragon was throwing elbows and kicks that Steen could not credibly respond to. Dragon was generous, I thought, to both ROH reps, more than their offense deserved. Taking a Super Calo bump on the back of his head for a Whitmer clothesline is pretty generous, but he was kind enough to throw his body into bumps for offense that didn't always justify the bump. The violence down the stretch was good; Dragon stomping Whitmer's head on a seated chair, or Necro getting powerbombed onto the backs of two folding chairs. I love them so much, and I love the finish. Dragon drops Steen on his head to the chorus of a loud CZW chant, picks him up at 2...then drops him on his head again with a Psycho Driver while the chants only grow louder. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE SUPER DRAGON

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Samoa Joe is Wrestling for the World Title. Here's Him 20 Years Ago vs. Super Dragon.

Super Dragon vs. Samoa Joe JAPW 10/30/04

ER: Samoa Joe will be in the main event of Full Gear in a week, and this match against Super Dragon from 20 years ago got posted recently. I had never seen this match and I don't think I saw any of the SoCal Dragon/Joe matches live. I don't know if I even knew they had a match in JAPW. Joe was my favorite wrestler in the world around this time. He was so fast and powerful in 2004. This is billed as "ROH vs. PWG in a JAPW ring", but Samoa Joe wrestles this like a guy who had done some tours with Zero-1 and was throwing in tributes to guys he rode the bus with. He buzzsaws through a legsweep like Hashimoto, rears back a headbutt like Fujiwara, he does a great magic trick of the Ole Kick into the guardrail just like Otani. Now, Otani would just actually kick guys in the face but Joe's magic is in how he builds up steam and accurately kicks just past Dragon's face into the railing, twice! He focuses on speed and impact rather than breaking faces and it's impressive as hell. I like Zero-1 Joe. It turns the match into something more than "ROH vs. PWG"; It becomes Guy Who Went to Japan vs. Guy Who Had Great Ideas With His Friends in a way I'm very nostalgic for. 

Super Dragon throws some of the hardest chops you can throw, like a 19 year old backyarder hitting his friend as hard as possible. His somersault senton tope is an insane dive to do in the Rahway Rec Center, flying past the ringpost and connecting flush with Joe while also hitting his head on the floor in a way that looked like Joe credibly reversed the dive into a sitout powerbomb in one motion. It's one of those moves and moments that defines that era of New Jersey indie wrestling, just incredible risk + innovation.  

They also weren't an easy crowd. Dragon hits a high concept enziguiri that doesn't quite read and the Jersey crowd starts chanting AVERAGE DRAGON. I thought these two would light each other up but instead I wound up impressed with how well they worked a lot of their strikes, hitting hard on chops but not killing each other with potatoes. Joe's ole kicks are an all time great worked act of violence, going in fast but only grazing. I've seen Dragon murder people with strikes and stomps but I thought it was cool how he "pulled" the double stomp off the top. That said, Samoa Joe holds onto his Death Valley Driver like a monster, straight into the pin, looked disgusting. There is nothing average about what they did. I loved wrestling so much in 2004. 

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Things Used to Be Better. I Used to See Super Dragon Live.

Super Dragon vs. B-Boy MPW 11/3/01

ER: Billed as the SoCal Match of the Year by the title card, it is almost certainly not. Even among Super Dragon's other 2001 MPW matches it would be tough to call this the match of the year: A Low Ki time limit draw, a 2/3 falls match with Rising Son, and a Jardi Frantz match. Jardi might sound like a fake opponent to anyone reading this in 2025, but he was a great indie wrestler in 1999-2003. I had the time of my life during this era of west coast wrestling. I couldn't get enough of it and went to so many shows with friends. Even if I don't think this is what the 2001 SoCal MOTY might have been, this is definitely what a big SoCal indie match looked like in 2001, which was incredibly groundbreaking. I really liked Millennium Pro. Those were some good times. The shows were held at a Jewish Community Center in a nice neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley. So, you're in the Valley watching wrestling in a hotel conference room style lit carpeted room and you'd get a bad Hardcore Kidd or Cincinnati Red match and a brilliant Super Dragon match and then you and your friends get to hear Adam Pearce ice out a room with a heavy breathing post-match late 2001 promo stating he was "blown up like the towers".

Our intrepid cameraman is seated next to a soft spoken mother and her little girl who is giggling through a 25 minute long SoCal match of the year. The girl asks her mom for her compact mirror so she can see how loose her tooth is while B-Boy is kicking Dragon across the face, dropkicking him in the back of the head, and throwing vicious crossfaces. Everybody left with loose teeth. B-Boy works over Dragon's leg and it's decent stuff, but everything is more compelling whenever he's stiffing Dragon up, which is most of the runtime. It's weird to see an era where Dragon wasn't the guy working more stiff in a match. B-Boy had an insane offense arsenal and we see it all, done with real energy. His Thousand Oaks Jam was more Bobby Eaton than Psicosis and that's a huge compliment. Crazy distance and a beautiful landing.

They take awhile to set up a cool spot on the floor, but the payoff is worth it to see in a well lit community center: B-Boy tries a reverse splash crucifix bomb off the apron and Dragon reverses it with a Super Calo headscissors that sent him down an aisle surrounded by coral upholstery hotel conference chairs. When Dragon goes for the follow up dive he gets stopped in his tracks deader than dead can be. The whole chain that led to the crucifix bomb was started by Dragon scouting B-Boy's past dive blocks, and didn't count on B-Boy staying diligent to stopping all dives. It was a great bit of layering where every action actually played off previous actions and subverted learned behaviors all within one match. Dragon's blocked dive wasn't his only miss, as he was good at leaving openings with a big miss. His missed phoenix splash was great and led to a strong nearfall.

This got super exciting when it was clear that the crowd was really wanting B-Boy to take this. He starts rocking Dragon with left-right elbow combos and levels him with a clothesline, and these people are living with it. Dragon takes a suplex on his head like Super Dragon would do and fighting spirits to his feet to hit a lariat even more badass than B-Boy's. We've dealt with 25 years of guys aping fighting spirit that they saw on their first puro tape, but this was before ROH even existed, before any kind of super indy style pulling from Japan. Roll your eyes at the masked man's fighting spirit lariat, but you cannot deny the humongous jump-to-their-feet babyface reaction the spot got, completely blowing B-Boy's loud support from just 20 seconds ago out of the water. This was a Super Dragon crowd who started growing loudly into a B-Boy crowd before being firmly turned back into a Super Dragon crowd...but then B-Boy kicked out after a Psycho Driver and the entire crowd shifted right back to being a loud B-Boy crowd. Incredible vibes.

Maybe this was the SoCal match of the year. There were other matches I saw live that I liked more, others I liked more on tape, but I don't remember any of them getting the entire crowd so involved with the ups and downs and the major tide shifts. That's special, and almost surely why it was so fondly remembered by anyone who witnessed it at the time. Still plays as something big today.

Super Dragon vs. Bobby Quance APW 5/24/02

ER: Damn, there I am in the front row of this Gym Wars show with a girlfriend who would not be my girlfriend by June of 2002. I noticed her and my friend Jason before I noticed myself sitting in between them. There couldn't have been 80 people at those Gym Wars shows and we went to a ton of them over a several year period. I didn't even remember seeing this match but here is proof that I did, over half my life ago, in a Hayward garage with 60 or so other people who were all locked in, living in an era before cell phone dominance.

Bobby Quance is basically 10 matches into his short career and is malleable in the best way. This is just 15 sick minutes of Super Dragon manipulating the match into anything he wanted it to be. It starts with nice engaging arm work and armdrag mat wrestling, with Dragon grapevining Quance's arm in cool ways while maneuvering him into pins, Quance coming back when he can with speed. Dragon lets Quance show off a bit, breaking the match open taking a headscissors to the floor to set up a big Bobby tope con giro, then catches a springboard huracanrana back into the ring for 2. That's when Dragon starts trying to shut him down by going after Quance's leg, and it rules. Dragon throws his full weight into a dropkick to the knee and starts kicking at it, then locks in what I can only describe as a very stiff figure 4. You see a submission several thousand times and suddenly you watch a match where you're also watching your 21 year old self watching a match and both versions of you are witnessing a truly great figure 4 leglock. Dragon starts goading Quance into slapping him in the hold and Quance is small enough that he can't quite reach Dragon's face. Quance's effort to make the ropes was great, but not as great as Dragon mocking everyone's applause with dainty hand claps when Quance finally gets the rope break.

Dragon is good at always making it look like he's trying to finish the match, while providing openings for Quance to extend the match. There's a cool Psycho Driver set up where Quance almost rolls through it with a rana, but Dragon blocks his reversal and pulls him back up to hit a beautiful piledriver. When Quance gives the rest of what he has, he limps convincingly through his comeback and hits a back elbow and clothesline much harder than you'd expect he'd be able to hit by looking at him. He gets geared up enough to foolishly try a shooting star press, sees Dragon has moved and lands on his feet...and realizes he would have been better off just missing the shooting star because Dragon never stopped kicking at all sides of his knee. Quance's knee buckles and he's left a sitting duck for Dragon's clothesline, and nobody in the states was throwing better clotheslines than Dragon in 2002. Dragon easily could have ended things there, but he gets in a slick show off move with a spot I do not remember him doing: he rolls over the ropes like he's doing the Misawa feint, but rolls back into the ring in one motion and leaps into a back elbow. So cool. His springboard spinning heel kick lands heavy to the back of Bobby's head, and I love watching my friend Jason put his hands up over his face after Dragon sticks him with the Psycho Driver. What a find, and what luck to have been able to see this kind of wrestling live in 2002 and sitting on my couch in 2025.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE SUPER DRAGON

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Super Dragon Doesn't Want the Pistols to Whistle

Super Dragon is back!! After a six year hiatus (which followed a three year hiatus, which followed another three year break) Dragon came out last night at the PWG return to jump Bandido and form a heel trio with Taurus and Flamita. Who knows how many matches we will get (if any) but I am amped. Figured I would review a couple of his big matches and pump up the Super Dragon C+A

Super Dragon vs. Bobby Quance APW 10/25/02 - EPIC

SR: This was a serious contender for the greatest US indy match I've ever seen. Virtually flawlessly worked 30 minute junior epic which had everything – matwork, storytelling, selling, devastating moves and guys slapping eachother in the mouth. We start with 10 minutes of nearly uninterrupted matwork which was ultra tightly worked, smooth stuff. Quance is someone nobody really talks about anymore, but he was a great talent and just mindlbowingly good for a dude in his 2nd year of wrestling. The matwork they did here was much better than the wristlocky WoS imitation stuff you usually get in US indies and closer to lucha matwork with a bit of japanese influence sprinkled in. Quance would shoot for double leg takedowns and judo legtrips, while Dragon just pounces on him like a snake, in between working ultra tight pin attempts and slapping eachother. Quances tiger feint rana may be the single coolest move a skinny US junior has ever invented. This is 2/3 falls and both the first 2 falls have really smart finishes that pay off in the long run of the match. Dragon was incredibly vicious here, modifying his signature offense to work Quances arm, but he also did a great job selling a big head kick. Quances arm selling was pretty much flawless as he was struggling to hit his offense for the rest of the match and he looked quite sympathetic trying to take down his bigger, more vicious opponent. There were also numerous great counters from Super Dragon, ranging from Fujiwara armbars to turning a DDT into a powerbomb mid-air. He also had this amazing flying armbar. Match also had all the usual brutal offense, neck-compressing suplexes, huge double stomps and lariats etc. The finish is fucking infuriating, but please don't let that detract from the amazing work these two did here.

PAS: I didn't like this quite as much as Sebastian, the knife's edge between a pro-wrestler and a reckless maniac which Super Dragon lives on is what makes him so compelling. This was much more a typical juniors match, although admittedly one worked at a super high level. I loved all of the arm work and the different ways Super Dragon whipped into them, he feels like he could have been the world best Minoru Tanaka, and this match really made me think about how great Super Dragon would have been in BattlArts. Quance was a bit colorless, but I was super impressed with his matwork, and that 619 rana was excellent. His shooting star landed with a real thud too, which was nice. Finish had a ref bump and imposter Super Dragon run in and get the win (two matches two imposter Super Dragons), a bummer considering how good the work was, but it was still a treat to watch 

Super Dragon vs. Samoa Joe PWG 2/12/05 - EPIC

PAS: This is the rematch after Joe was able to beat Dragon by count out in their previous match. This was as border line unprofessional as you want a match up between these two to get. Dragon and Joe are just unloading with slaps, headbutts, chops and kicks, and every couple of minutes they interrupt the wrestling match they are having and just start a double murder. They do a cool countout tease with Joe crushing Dragon with a spectacular elbow suicida, and Dragon barely beating the 20 count. Joe almost gets the pin with a sick death valley driver, but Dragon is able to fight back, hitting a gross curb stomp where he grabs Joe by the nose, a top rope double stomp to Joe's neck and a psycho driver which dumped Joe right on his hot dog neck. Joe rolls to the floor and is able to get a flurry of slaps, but Dragon sneaks in right at 20 to steal a count out win. Though the fake Super Dragon jumping SD 1, kind of Shelton holed Joe a bit, but otherwise this was a classic, totally what I love about both guys. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE SUPER DRAGON

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Super Dragon is the Original Subliminal Subterranean Titanium Criminal Minded Swift SD

Super Dragon vs. Mike Quackenbush Rev Pro 9/28/02 - FUN

ER: I had higher hopes for this one, as it never really felt like a match, much more like a fun exhibition of moves and submissions. Now, I was kind of expecting a fun exhibition of moves and submissions - these are two guys with plenty of both - but this literally felt like an exhibition as there wasn't much happening between the moves. There was a lot of move, stand up, new move, stand up, submission, stand up, other guy's move. It wasn't bad, but Quack is someone who can string together a match really well and none of that happened here. Neither guy did their wildest spots (no big crash and burns to the floor), with the biggest miss being a Dragon corkscrew senton that would have missed Quack by a couple feet even if Quack hadn't moved. But the few subs looked good, Dragon hit a hard clothesline right into Quack's chest, Dragon got nicely spiked on a DDT for a nearfall. And Dragon's finishing run combo of a German suplex, rolled into a Blue Thunder Bomb, turned over into a piledriver? Well, that's a brilliant looked finishing package. However, that finishing package came literally after that spike DDT that got Quack a 2 count, and Dragon literally just stood up and hit all of those moves. So nearly everything looked good, but it had the psychology of a Smackdown vs. Raw video game match.

PAS: I agree, this didn't feel like it had much of a structure or process. I liked the early matwork, but when the got up off the mat they just did some stuff without any of it really stringing together in a sensible way. This was a tourney match, and maybe it would have been better if it had been a PWG or Chikara main event, just didn't feel like they put much thought into this match. 

Super Dragon/B-Boy vs. Bobby Quance/Jardi Frantz GSCW 3/29/03 - EPIC

ER: Big spot tag with some fun location specific structure, with Jardi and Quance are heels opposite hometown boys Dragon and B-Boy, leading to some heel in peril sections and our faces working like the bigger jerks. It's a fun tone for a stiff spotfest tag to take on, and I like all of these guys together. I miss this era of wrestling as these were all guys I got to see live a bunch so I have lots of memories associated with these lunatics. Heel Jardi was an awesome part of 2003, a heel proto-Matt Riddle with more of the stoner vibe and none of the MMA vibe, but all of the violent bump vibe. Quance was barely 30 matches into pro wrestling at this point, but it adds to his ring work. He doesn't hold back on hits or misses, and has that same kind of excitement that Blitzkrieg had. And since he's so new to all of this, there's a rawness to his misses and a desire to impress on things that don't quite work. When a move is supposed to miss, he goes through with it like he expects it to hit, which leads to several of his exchanges with Dragon look like something out of early Zero-1. Quance would throw an elbow that Dragon would kind of duck, and the off balance positions Quance winds up in make it look like he was never expecting anything to miss. It looks so much better than moves today that are thrown specifically to be reversed. Quance seems confused by the heel reaction from the crowd, but Jardi leans right into his role as deadbeat stoner heel who was getting high with his friends in the drive-thru before accidentally driving directly into a girl on a bike.

Dragon and B-Boy throw nothing but stiff shots, everyone gets kicked in the back at least twice throughout this match, Dragon comes up throwing hard slaps a couple times against Jardi, and both of them really start teeing off on Jardi in the corner. Frantz is a great punching bag and rag doll, and it's crazy he is the heel here as B-Boy drops him to his butt with a high left kick, plasters him with his running corner dropkick, and really gets folded in half several times. His comeback offense is cool, like his leaping top rope tornado DDT on B-Boy or his super impressive springboard rana on Dragon. There isn't too much selling in this one, but it doesn't really matter once they all start stringing together big spots. The match could have been different as there's some fairly engaging submission work earlier once B-Boy/Quance started against each other, but I like the big spots breakdown. Quance and Frantz hit stereo shooting star/450, there are some nice pinfall saves, Dragon hits an awesome top con hilo past the ringpost into Jardi, and the finish itself is really great: Dragon goes for a Psycho Driver on Quance, Quance lands on his feet and tries a low dropkick which Dragon leans out of, leaving Quance prone to an awesome B-Boy shining wizard. Dragon even dives onto the pin just to prevent Jardi from breaking it up. The match was a little scattered at times, but I loved the way it played against dynamics, and everyone involved did too much cool stuff.

PAS: Crazy spotfest tag matches aren't my favorite style, but I think this is about as cool of match you can have within that parameter. You have a ton of big spots hit pretty perfectly (the Frantz single jump springboard rana would be an all time legendary spot if hit on a bigger stage), counters and reversals that actually looked good rather then just dance moves, some actual drawn heel heat by Frantz and a whole ton of sick violence. B-Boy and Super Dragon are a tremendous team of violent asskickers, and they find lots of ways to kick people really hard in the face, and I loved Jardi winding up Super Dragon and then taking a Super Dragon sized asskicking. Jardi really got the crowd worked up, so they went nuts when Dragon started pushing his shit in. Quance was a little dry, but he had tremendous physical body control and looked really good mat wrestling with B-Boy. These matches can often go on too long, but I thought this ended right when it should have with the three count coming right at the apex of the crowd engagement.

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Matches from CZW High Stakes II: Night Show 9/11/04

This show opens with a "Remember the Sacrifices" 9/11 flute instrumental memorial, showing fire fighters and ground zero extraction crews, segueing directly into a warning that CZW contains graphic and violent content because 2000s wrestling and (well, everything, for a few years) 9/11 had a strong bond. CZW even ran two shows on this day, the 3rd anniversary of 9/11, presumably to honor troops and first responders twice as much.


Super Dragon vs. Chris Hero - FUN

ER: For two guys who seem like they would have some real classic against each other, turns out they only had two singles matches. They had some tags opposite each other, but half of those included Davey Richards, so, you know. This one never really came together, and felt more like an assemblage of neat things both men do rather than a cohesive match featuring those things. You get your rolling wristlock exchange opening, your forearm exchange section, your suplex exchange section, and the momentum basically turned whenever either of them felt like turning the momentum. A lot of the greatest hits looked good: I'll always love Dragon's ringpost Cassandro bump, or Hero's running face wash big boot. You get hard Dragon short arm clotheslines, wrenched in cravats from Hero, a great German suplex spot where Dragon throws him after no selling an eyepoke, a Hero capture suplex that really folds Dragon, and a nice Dragon tope con hilo. But some of Hero's elbows actually don't look great, and the whole thing has a kind of exhibition feel throughout. It felt like they were checking off boxes rather than actually putting together a match. Moves got bigger, but since neither guy seemed to have much trouble getting back on offense, the moves never felt significant. Hero maneuvering through Dragon's limbs to get to the deathlock cravat was a slick as hell finish, and the whole thing would certainly make for a great 4 minute highlight video. But this was below what these SC favorites are capable of, and you gotta hold legends like these to a standard.

PAS: I agree that this was less then the sum of its parts. You are going to have some cool shit in a match with two wrestlers with a ton of cool shit, but I never felt it built to anything. I really liked Super Dragon stepping in on a flippy roll from Hero and just pasting him in the chops, and the Super Dragon double stomp to the head is one of wrestling sickest moves. Still that is a move which ended TARO's career and Hero kicks out at two and goes right back on offense. There was a lot of do-si-do reversals for a pair of guys who are normally bangers, and it did just kind of feel like it went till it stopped.

Sexxxy Eddy vs. El Generico vs. Kevin Steen vs. eXceSs 69

ER: I was about to skip this one, as the first several minutes were pretty bad, the kind of 2004 multiman wrestling that doesn't hold up and looks like guys carefully trying new moves and sequences. Eddy throws the absolute worst knee strikes I've seen, with his foot floating up and out behind him every time he did a knee, it looked like some kind of joke offense Rip Rogers would do to get heat (except I'm pretty sure they were just supposed to be actual kneelifts). Then we get one of those dive trains where most of the guys don't seem to know how to catch dives, and it was both a bad moment but also the moment of the match that started winning me over? I mean something about guys just hitting concrete and guardrails has a kind of unifying vibe to it. Generico does a tope con hilo and just lands on his feet without hardly touching anyone, Eddy takes a gnarly flight into the guardrail and crowd on an Asai moonsault, and my brain switched over into "I mean if they're going to kill themselves then let's see it."

And then they killed themselves! Generico was throwing heavy ole kicks in the corner, Steen started crushing people with suplexes, Generico dropped Steen disgustingly on the top buckle with a brainbuster, and then while I was reacting to that he dropped Sexxxy Eddy even more disgustingly with a buckle brainbuster! Steen attempted to cripple eXceSs 69 (presumably and understandably for his name) by throwing him overhead with a cradle suplex that dared Excess to bump on anything other than his neck. And the thing that started really getting me involved with this - other than potential death - is just how strong the crowd gets into Eddy. They really really want to see their guy beat these Canadians (they are all Canadians, but he's THEIR Canadian). You see, before the match, Eddy had done a strip tease for a barely legal girl, aggressively rubbed his dong on her, and then autographed her bare ass, so obviously he's a babyface at the New Alhambra. But the crowd really organically got into an Eddy win as the match went on, and I really like a crowd getting into a wrestler rather than rooting for a MOTY. Steen looked really awesome in this, delivering a ton of dangerous offense (kids never even piledrove their Wrestling Buddies as hard as he delivered a package piledriver in this match) with a smug look and teen acne, he hit a top rope gutbuster that should have shattered his leg, and Eddy kicking out of Steen's great moonsault was a genuine surprise. This was rough and bad, and then won me over. Eddy got the big win, and then everyone stood in the ring for a long time afterward congratulating themselves on what a great job they all did, and it was hilarious watching them all take curtain calls like they were all retiring immediately. 

Eddie Kingston vs. B-Boy - GREAT

ER: This was nothing but action, with both men throwing increasingly heavier and heavier shots, never going into overkill but ramping up the violence consistently. It was a chance for both guys to show off some deep offense wells, while never feeling like either guy was trying to get all their moves in. This was Kingston's first singles match in CZW (and probably the earliest Kingston singles match I've seen, since I haven't dove too far into his Chikara work) and it's so good. He and B-Boy slugged it out and Kingston is a slightly more raw version of his later singles work, but it's surprising (it probably shouldn't be) how confident and mostly formed his style was just 75 matches into his career. Bobby Quance is on this show, and he's a guy whose whole thing was "incredibly quick learner", yet Kingston didn't even have as many matches as Quance at the time of this match. Kingston talked a ton of trash while leaning into some mean B-Boy shots, both men throwing big running kicks to the face, both throwing hard follow through elbow strikes, and the quick pace lead to minimal down time without ever feel like they were rushing to get to another big moment. It looked like it was going to be a real B-Boy steamrolling, loved him kicking King around, bouncing a chair off his head on the floor, and Kingston is great at taking ringside beatings. 

I loved how King would make inroads, especially his blocked shining wizard cradle suplex, or when he caught a kick and used B-Boy's trapped leg to lift him up and plant him with a sitout powerbomb. BLKOUT gets involved, and I'm 95% confident that B-Boy murders Sabian with an electric chair driver. His head gets driven directly into the mat and his body goes stiff (before getting rolled out of the ring and out of our lives). We got a lot of Ultimate Warrior Actually Died rumors in the 90s, but the Second Sabian hasn't gotten nearly as much press. BLK Jeez is not the original Sabian, and you heard it here first. Kingston takes a ton of gross damage, like a brutal death valley driver and a blockbuster through some set up chairs, and the finish is a fantastic visual: B-Boy drops him in the corner with a chair over his face, lays a table over him, and then hits a running kick THROUGH the table into King's face. THAT is a kill shot finish, people. Kingston is a lunatic from taking something so unprotected, and you can even see B-Boy taking extra time in the corner to psyche himself up for putting his damn leg through a table. When the guy about to murder you is having second thoughts about murdering you, that's a weird vibe to bring to a wrestling match. And it ruled.

PAS: This had the awkwardness you might expect from Kingston still being green, but both guys have a ton of charisma and aren't afraid to throw heat. This is a fun role reversal with B-Boy in the later Kingston role of veteran beating on a young stud, and Kingston being an awesome Tre Lamar as the young outgunned cocky kid. Poor Sabian though. That electric chair drive landed on the crown of his head and must have knocked three inches off his height. That finish took a while to set up, but you can't quibble with B-Boy driving his foot through a table and through someone's face.


M-Dogg 20 vs. Bobby Quance

ER: Bobby Quance, as I mentioned before, is famous for being a pro wrestling natural, who moved on quick and left people wanting more. This match was basically the end of his career, with the announcement after the match that he was joining the Navy. And for a guy who never wrestled full time and worked less than 100 matches, he really did have a lot of polish. He looked even more polished wrestling opposite M-Dogg 20. Quance had a lot of cool grappling to start, trying to get wrist control standing, taking M-Dogg down while going for armbars, and M-Dogg actually appeared to be working a funny heel gimmick where he only did disappointing highspots to get under the crowd's skin. M-Dogg hit a springboard tomahawk chop, and kept locking on chinlocks for heat instead of following through on spots (like hitting a snapmare and stopping short from kicking Quance in the back, opting for a chinlock). I was getting plenty of entertainment out of M-Dogg pulling this bullshit - man who is only known for gymnastics refusing to do gymnastics - but the crowd didn't seem to care. And then, M-Dogg stopped caring as well. They went to the finish earlier than expected, felt like they were building to something a bit longer, and the match ended with an M-Dogg shooting star press that landed 2 feet short. That finish felt like somebody shit their pants and they had to immediately go home no matter what. 

Ladder Match: Nate Webb vs. JC Bailey vs. Chris Cash

ER: This had down time, but was much closer in spirit to Crazy Crusher vs. Hell Storm, which is the only logical way to judge a ladder match. That match was focused on impossibly stiff strikes and death wish bumps with no thoughts to safe landings, and that's what this was. It wasn't as pure as that backyard indy dream, but the vibe was there. There are some UGLY bumps in this one, the kind of things that could have easily crippled someone. The grossest moment was Webb dropping Bailey with a back suplex while Bailey had a ladder hung around his neck. The way Bailey gets folded up I honestly don't know how how he didn't break his neck. That's not the first time in the match I thought Bailey broke his neck, as the finish saw him take a burning hammer off the top of a ladder, onto a ladder that was set up between chairs. That's the perfect beauty of Canadian indy backyard spirit. Webb is super talented, a flyer with a crazy ideas, someone who could have been a super successful "straight" worked, but his willingness to do crazy things without thinking too hard about them makes him even more special. I didn't love Cash here, even though he took a similarly gross bump to Bailey's ladder around neck bump, he seemed to be slower on the draw in pulling off the crazy spots. Bailey and Webb were in there to take incredibly stupid bumps onto their heads or into piles of chairs, and Cash was the guy to pick up the scraps. This wasn't a clean match and there were some longer than needed set up times, but the heart and craziness was there and that's far more important.


Necro Butcher vs. Wifebeater

ER: This was a few big gross landings with not a whole lot in between, so it's going to come down to how much you like to see Necro take punishment. I like that quite a lot, so for me there was plenty here to enjoy. The bumps are what you're here for, and there were plenty of crazy bumps. They brawl through the crowd, Necro superplexes Wifebeater off the bleachers through a table, Necro gets powerbombed off different bleachers through a couple set up chairs, Necro eats a powerbomb through the merch table while some poor guy tries fecklessly to move the VHS and DVDs off the table first (he does not, meaning Necro lands right on a ton of VHS, the table eventually gets broken, VHS tapes everywhere). The set ups to a lot of these are kind of ugly. Wifebeater has a really difficult time both lifting Necro for moves, and appears to be deadweight while being lifted. If you're generous, maybe it comes off like they're struggling to prevent a move, like Misawa sandbagging a powerbomb. It isn't that, but if you're generous you could at least make that argument. It would be a good thing for someone to cover it up on commentary. In the ring Wifebeater snacks on sour cream Pringles, shoves thumbtacks down the front of Necro's pants before hitting a fistdrop on his groin, and then a gruesome inverted atomic drop. That kind of stuff is great, but there's a lot of time in between this stuff. Sure, some of that time is spent on punches to the head, but the whole match is pretty disconnected. The finish is a real cluster, with more tacks than I've ever seen on a mat getting poured out but not really used, then a glass pane getting set up between two chairs. Lobo is guest ref and kind of commandeers things, preventing Wifebeater from using a weed whacker, then taking far too long to open up some lighter fluid and light this pane of glass. Necro has to basically stall for 30 seconds and act like he can't lift Wifebeater for a powerbomb, and they stumble a bit when the glass is finally lit, but Wifebeater finally exploding through glass is a great finish. His back covered with rivulets of blood as he walked out looked even cooler. This is the kind of match that would make a killer 3 minute highlight video, and I'm okay with that.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE SUPER DRAGON

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE EDDIE KINGSTON

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New Footage Friday: FUCK ITS! SUPER DRAGON! NEGRO CASAS! EL DANDY! SILVER KING! FAMILIA DE TIJUANA! EMILIO CHARLES JR.!

Felino/Emilio Charles Jr./Dr. Wagner Jr./Negro Casas vs. Pantera/Silver King/El Dandy/El Texano CMLL 12/16/95

PAS: This was an elimination 8 man tag with eight all time great wrestlers going out there are just flowing for 30+ minutes. We open with Negro Casas and El Dandy ripping it up on the mat and just go from there. Matches like these are always going to be more about the rhythm then any real story, although I did dig it coming down the Wagner boys. Fun Wagner performance as he was just planting people with powerbombs, and of course Dandy and Casas were both tremendous. As I have said a million times Casas is the master of minutia, little reactions or sells or execution on moves, everything matters and counts, and it is fun to watch him flit in and out of a match with so many other all timers.

MD: It's a 4x4 Cibernetico with some of the best talents of the era. What's not to like? According to the old WON I looked at, this was billed as "for La Copa de altra rendimiento which basically means the Cup of high-class submissions," and Dave was baffled at the pinfall finish. Anyway, it was interesting how this flowed. You didn't get a lot of clear pairings with defined beginnings and endings but instead transitions between one wrestler and the next. Of the pairings we did get, Silver King vs. Negro Casas stood out. I always love the little trip spots they work into their exchanges. Very few dives but lots of great exchanges and big moves. Maybe Casas kicked out of one or two more things than he ought of, especially when there were still enough guys around to allow for interference, but that's a small issue, as was the botch on the Felino elimination. Wagner came out of this looking like a big deal. And yeah, while it's cliché for us to say it, Dandy's punches were sure great.

ER: I love having a collection of these types of matches, the kind of match I can throw on in the background if a friend or two are over and everyone in the room gets their own level of enjoyment out of it based on their individual concentration level. The person concentrating the most gets the benefit of seeing small sequences or individual movements, but someone dicking around on their phone will still look up and see Silver King stomping the hell out of Emilio Charles' knee or Dandy getting Casas out of the way with a breathless magistral. They'll see fast moves done by men they don't know who have large perms. It's worked at such a pace that it's perfectly entertaining for every level of involvement. I thought the major standout here was Texano, looking like the stiffest and most aggressive guy in a match filled with stiff strikes and fast aggressive sequences. Everyone was lighting up everyone, like Emilio Charles throwing skeleton rattling corner clotheslines or Wagner crushing Pantera with a sitout powerbomb. Casas is the perfect kind of glue for a match like this, and Dandy comes off so plucky and punchy. I get why Dandy didn't translate to southern American wrestling crowds, but seeing him in his wheelhouse and basking in his enthusiasm is infectious. He looks like the coolest version of Barbra Streisand in A Star is Born. The first three minutes of this match are just Dandy and Casas tearing through brisk mat sequences and really its all you need. This is the kind of thing you can play through a couple times and notice new stuff each pass.

Super Dragon/Rising Son/Pantera vs. Damian 666/Halloween/Nicho El Millonario Rev Pro 11/30/02 - GREAT

PAS: This was Super Dragon really clearly excited to work a Familia de Tijuana match. Most of Dragon's career was fitting people into his formula, so it was fun to watch him fit into a formula. We get some early lucha comedy, some pratfalls, an awesome somersault rana through the post by Dragon and a killer finish. Really enjoyed Rising Son in this as he was ripping off high difficultly ranas with true pros there available to base for him. The kind of match which must have sent the crowd home on a real lucha high.

MD: Whatever I was doing in the early 00s, it wasn't watching RevPro. I guess I was focused on the East coast scene? I have no idea. That made this pretty fresh for me. The biggest problem was that La Familia de Tijuana was just too over as cool heels, getting more cheers by far, to the point where I was sort of embarrassed for Pantera at one point. They didn't adapt the match for the crowd. That said, everyone seemed to be having fun, especially Damien who was goofing a bit more than usual. They did a lot of groin based offense accordingly. Nicho based beautifully but there's nothing new with that. Super Dragon was in there less than Rising Son but his flipping tope out through the corner to set up the finish was breathtaking. The timing of the dives at the end felt a little off to maximize the moment, but I doubt anyone in that crowd cared.

Nasty Russ vs. T-Money vs. Jay Donaldson vs. Samson Walker NWF 8/15/15

PAS: This was a four-way cage match with our boys the Jollyville Fuck-Its against each other along with two other Kentucky area indy guys. It was a spotfest cage match and the Jollyville boys are guys with huge spots, and Donaldson and Walker were right there. Walker is a big guy, even bigger than T-Money and he does some chucking around including catapulting Donaldson into an ace crusher. We don't get a Nasty Russ cannonball, but we do get a crazy moonsault off the cage into Walker's feet, and several nasty cage bumps including one where he goes forehead first into a steel post. Finish was absolutely psychotic and one of greatest cage finishes I have ever seen. Total blast and a great look at some Segunda Caida favorites earlier in their careers.

MD: If you're going to have four guys in a cage, fatal four-way style, this is a pretty good way to do it. This gave everyone time to shine. When guys had to lay around, it was generally warranted. The characters were well-defined. Walker was comedic yet powerful and explosive. Donaldson had the hype man, the step-up kicks, the attitude, and the opportunism. Russ carried himself like a champ, tenacious, with fighting spirit and an easy charisma, and T-Money was an unquestionable force. The setting felt like an indy lucha match that just happens in a public square, which added to the ambiance. The big spots were sufficiently big (killing your own knees by landing on a moonsault from the top is insane and the finishing stretch worked really well). The gaga at the end (Walker faking an injury in a cage match to get the door open; Donaldson dismantling the ring, a unique use of a wrench to say the least, with the ref going above and beyond to cover for how long it was taking, the friends having victory and the belt between them at the end) was fun, even if you don't usually want gaga in a cage match. You definitely felt the stakes throughout, which is what you want in a match like this.

ER: This was exactly the kind of thing I wanted to watch on my lunch break today. A loose cage with four guys willing to die, with a finish so doomed that if I hadn't seen these guys wrestle at a later date I would have just assumed that this did actually end with two of the guys dying. Russ and T-Money have seen a lot of praise from Segunda Caida. Those Boys from Jollyville are really the two that got us into AIW proper, and they're the team that has probably most often been referenced by us as a dream match tag opponent over the past couple years. I loved seeing the ways they acted as a team here, and even more excited for the gigantic moment where they were not together. I am not familiar with Samson or Donaldson, but came away especially impressed with Samson. As Phil said, he's almost like an even bigger version of T-Money, and had insane pop up strength. He shot Donaldson so far into the air a couple times that his body cleared the top of the cage, once for a super high backdrop and once for a fantastic looking cutter; but he also hoisted T-Money up for a sit up powerbomb like it was absolutely nothing at all, jerking him up sky high before bringing him down. I also loved how Samson basically stopped the match with an injury, waited until everyone was otherwise occupied, then dove for the cage door to attempt escape. That feels like Chris Hamrick Cage Match 101 and I love it. Donaldson had one dodgy strike exchange, but did a lot of things I liked. At one point he broke up a move by hitting an enziguiri right into Samson's armpit (intentionally targeted) and hit another enziguiri that really landed. He also ripped apart the ring ropes and strangled Russ with the rope, beating him with a wrench and buckle. Russ always flew into action with his awesome big punch, everyone took big bumps (Russ moonsault into feet was wild), and the finish was spectacular.

Everything about the finish was great, with T-Money about to escape but getting lured back in when Donaldson threatened to brain Russ with a chair. Money gets back in and just destroys Donaldson with a Pounce, sending him flying sideways into the cage. As Money is about to exit, Russ grabs his ankle, and we get a great bit of friendship when Money looks down and says "come on man". He already saved Russ from getting his face rearranged by a chair, and now the guy won't even let him win? Well, he certainly solves that problem, picking Russ up in a bearhug and running him straight through the cage door, sending both crashing to the grass in brutal fashion. T-Money looked like he went straight down, Russ crashed and burned underneath. Money had to leap, holding Russ, over the top rope and through a cage door, so both of their trajectories were beyond fucked. I can't think of many match finishes more spectacular than this one. I would have lost my mind live, then calmed myself down to make sure I didn't witness a death, then lost my mind again.

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Super Dragon Ain't The One For a Punk Motherfucker With a Badge and a Gun

Super Dragon/Rising Son vs. TARO/Excalibur Rev Pro 7/21/00 - GREAT

PAS: It is hard to remember exactly how ground breaking this stuff was when it happened. This was a couple months after the Low-Ki vs. American Dragon Super 8 final, but for most of the 90s US Indy wrestling was a lot of Stone Cold Stunners and maybe a Mark Shrader suplex. Here you have four guys in a warehouse in the LA suburbs breaking out crazy lucha dives and armdrags along with sick All Japan headrops and unprofessional stiffness, it was a total outlier. This was pretty early for all of these guys, and any time you try such high wire stuff you are going to stumble a bit, but when they hit they hit. Really impressed with Excalibur in this, as he was working a lot like Super Dragon, mixing in some nasty potato shots with his highflying. At one point he just walks over and kicks Rising Son in the side of the head. Not every dive landed, but they were really going for it. Super Dragon blows a Space Flying Tiger Drop, but then hits a perfect tornado Asai moonsault. Maybe needed to slice five minutes or so to be an all timer, but it was without a doubt entertaining. Finish was as gross as your expected, both TARO and Excalibur must have had spines made of superballs.

ER: This match was the main event of the first Rev Pro show I ever traded for, and while I went to a few Rev Pro shows they had moved out of their tiny gym space by the time I made the trip, these tapes had a huge affect on still teenage me. My wrestling tapes were expanding quickly into lucha and Japan, and it felt like these guys were all trading for the same tapes that I was devouring as quickly as I could. Turns out, they all definitely were. What stands out most for me about these early Rev Pro shows were how willing to try EVERYTHING these guys were, and how generous they all were in letting each other try new shit. They had enough character to not come off like over cooperative dance partners, as they filled in gaps between spots with stiff strikes and spots that lead to late match callbacks. So you'd get something early in the match that seemed like a fun dickhead spot, like Dragon just low blowing TARO as TARO fumbled with a headscissors, only for it to turn into a big moment late in the match when TARO low blows Dragon. 

Dragon had this funny habit of using his friends and enemies as weapons, and we got some good moments of him not necessarily throwing Rising Son to the wolves, but of sending him through for the greater good of the match. I loved the awareness of Rising Son going for an Asai moonsault but Super Dragon shoving him back into the ring to stop a charging Excalibur, loved the humor around Dragon hitting nasty dropkicks while TARO and Excalibur were both tied to the tree of woe (with Excalibur constantly lifting himself out of the way so TARO keeps getting merked). The flying in this is pretty insane, with everyone trying multiple dives to the floor. A couple don't work, but most work great. Excalibur's dive was beyond nuts, like he was trying to spring right off Dragon and fly to the back of the gym. Excalibur was always the nuttiest bumper of all of these guys, and that's some painful company to keep. Dragon's corkscrew moonsault was amazing, and I can't get enough of their willingness to crash hard on everything. These early Rev Pro matches had the energy and daredevil-but-still-learning enthusiasm of the best backyard wrestling had to offer, with cool innovation and great taste, with ahead of their time skill. I remember watching these matches while on SoCal wrestling road trips with friends and all of us losing our minds, and how could we not?


Super Dragon vs. Vic Grimes APW 10/5/03 - FUN

PAS: Their match the previous week in LA was really awesome with a terrible finish, this match had a fine finish but never really came together in the ring. Grimes took a ton of the match with Dragon working below, which wasn't what I wanted out of this. Both guys throwing potatoes is rad, Grimes working over Dragon with generic big man offense is less so. Grimes had some nice looking stuff, but a bunch of it was all set up, no conclusion. There was a cool spot where Dragon ducked a running boot and put on a leglock with Grimes leg stuck in the turnbuckles, and Grimes took a nasty spill down some stairs, but I was hoping for another hidden gem, and this wasn't that.

ER: I thought this kicked ass, and didn't have the same problems with it that Phil did. I went to tons of Gym Wars shows and thought I was at this one, but a lot of this didn't seem familiar. This was Grimes recreating one of his big Falls Count Anywhere matches from early Gym Wars (think 1997, and all the major changes that happened in wrestling from '97 to '03) opposite Erin O'Grady/Crash Holly. The stip isn't on this match, but the spirit was there. The APW Gym in Hayward was TINY, enough room for maybe 50 fans (if the roll up doors were opened) and I loved how these two took advantage of that small space and made everyone scatter. The best parts of the match were definitely the first 5 minutes (this was a 20 minute match with nearly half of it clipped out for whatever reason), where they were stiffing the hell out of each other with strikes. Both guys hit real hard, and I let out a loud OOF when Grimes ran a straight leg into Dragon's jaw. That straight leg being played for the coolest spot of the match was a neat touch, as Grimes shows super impressive flexibility by missing a corner yakuza kick, leading to Dragon literally hanging off Grimes' leg like monkey bars. 

As Dragon worked over Grimes' leg some guy yelled "you already fell 40 ft, how bad could this be?" I'll always love a big fat guy hurling himself into danger, and Grimes was big, built like Scott Norton if Scott Norton stopped lifting but kept the same diet. He hits several cool leg lariat variations and a great diving clothesline off the apron that sent both flying through vacated chairs. Back in the day Grimes actually climbed that roll up door like a ladder and leapt off. That didn't happen here, but I like how the memory of it happening was used as a tease. He didn't fall off it, but he did still get rammed mouth first into that door. I would have liked seeing more fighting upstairs, but liked Grimes falling down that narrow Gym staircase (the one Roland Alexander would lounge on with his belly out during matches). Dragon was great at taking offense from such a massive opponent and I would be stunned if Dragon ever worked anyone larger. Him throwing his body into Grimes was the best. He had a couple sick double stomps and a major springboard spinning heel kick that crashed his whole body into the back of Vic's head and neck. I miss those days. I have no idea how I missed this match.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE SUPER DRAGON

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Eddie Kingston's Crew is From the East, He Leavin' At Least 20 Police Deceased

Eddie Kingston/Joker vs. Super Dragon/Necro Butcher CZW 2/11/06 - GREAT

PAS: It would be nearly impossible for any match to live up to that lineup of insane asskickers. It's like Kurisu and Kurisu vs. Kurisu and Kurisu. Match opens up with Dragon and Kingston exchanging slaps,  which is great, and then into some mat wrestling, which you know, fine and all, but not what I am here for. It picks up quite a bit when they brawl to the floor, the camera focuses on Kingston vs. Necro which rules, but you get little pieces out of the corner of you eye of Super Dragon braining Joker with a chair or curb stomping him on the floor. There is a beatdown section on Kingston which is good, but I kind of wan't a Super Dragon and Necro beatdown on Eddie Kingston to be the best tag beat down ever, and it wasn't that. The Joker hot tag is fun and there is this amazing moment of Necro grabbing Joker by his shirt and punching him fifteen times directly in the jaw. The finish had some moments, but I didn't love the backdrop no-sells, and the Joker roll up is more cutesy then this match deserved. This is well worth watching, the great stuff in it is really great, but this was closer to the 100th best match of 2006, and I wanted it to be closer to the best.

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Matches from JAPW Halloween Hell 10/30/04

This show showed up on my internet, and it has a bunch of C+A guys in matches, and a opening salvo for my mini Homicide vs. Teddy Hart RIVALS C+A

H Effect (Dixie/Deranged) vs. The Solution (Havok/Papadon) - GREAT

ER: This is pretty much exactly the 7 minutes you would want out of these two teams. Solution are better than you remembered them being, like a more generous High Voltage. Havok is the slightly larger of the two and had a big fallaway slam, spinebuster, a couple big throws, but would also sell. Papadon dropped elbows and a nice kneedrop, and was also game to take Deranged's big flipping kicks. H Effect had such great energy and it's fun to watch them against a team that easily could have opted to steamroll them. Deranged really is deranged, flying to the floor with a freaking 450 legdrop while Dixie is also diving out onto a target right next to his. Dixie was so special because he was a great flyer and a great junior, but didn't skimp on things you usually don't expect from juniors. At the bell H Effect gets jumped and Dixie is immediately firing back with these great punches from his knees. Nobody pays any attention to making their punches from the knees, or elbows to the gut out of a headlock, look good. Dixie does. It makes his hot tags even better, as he comes in with his big speed but isn't just hitting weak flying forearms while pinballing between Solution, he's coming in throwing great punches. The finish is great as Deranged gets caught doing a rana off the apron to the floor, and eats a powerbomb into the ringpost, then gets tossed in the ring for a Blockbuster Doomsday Device. That's a finish and since it's Deranged of course he takes it as vertically as possible. But Dixie straight up almost died post match. The Solution bring in a chair and set it up, and give Dixie a tombstone onto the set up chair, starting with Papadon standing on top of the chair. So you had him jumping off the chair while dropping Dixie headfirst onto the chair, just looked insane and also looked like an incredibly stupid idea. Dixie never seemed like a guy to turn down a bad idea though, and it's why we love him.

PAS: I remember Havok being really fun in the Hard Hitters tag team with Monsta Mack, and he is really good here too big spinebuster and great looking diving elbows he looks like he is caving in Dixies chest, he seems like a lost big boy wrester of the 2000s. Dixie and Deranged are perfect pinballs for muscled up gym rats, the bump insanely and have some big spots, the Deranged flipping legdrop dive was great looking, and Dixie has such great execution on simple spots. The double team block buster and tombstone on the chair were both certifiable bumps. I could watch H Effect gets mauled everyday.

Low-Ki vs. CM Punk - GREAT

PAS: This was a nifty match which basically served to highlight Ki's shift from respectful martial arts Ki, to Strong Style Thug Ki. I am a big fan of heel Low-Ki and he was in full fuck you mode in this match, flipping off the crowd, constantly shit talking to Punk, and constantly breaking up Punk's momentum by thumbing him in the eye. Punk really didn't have the flexibility or athleticism to keep up with Ki in a showcase match, so something built around character work like this fits with his strengths. Ki was working really stiff as you might expect, including two super high double stomps which really pulverized Punk's toxin free liver.

ER: For two guys who I lump into the same East Coast Indy Revolution barrel, I certainly don't think of CM Punk as a Jersey All Pro guy, and wracking my brain I cannot actually think of a time I saw Punk match up with Ki. They were all wrestling the same guys during the same time period, so it had to have happened, I just don't recall seeing this match-up before in any form, before writing this entry. I was surprised that Low-Ki took so much of the match, and I wish we could have had a more interesting structure than Ki mostly dominating Punk for the first 80% before Punk just comes back full speed. I liked Punk's comeback, thought his long armed chops looked good, thought he had impressive pulling strength on an Irish whip, and he threw one of the best swinging neckbreakers. But it felt like he spent way too long getting his back and core worked over in brutal ways to come back so suddenly. Or maybe it was just that Ki looked that devastating on offense. Ki was great trash talking Punk, and making the fans clear space for him to throw Punk to the crowd, only for him to throw him to the ring, isn't something we see from Ki and I liked the Fuck You attitude as much as the expected silent warrior mode. I loved him taking apart Punk's core, dropping him on the guardrail, a really great gutbuster, a pair of double stomps with insane height (and another from the tree of woe that started with some clunkiness, which Punk recognized and totally saved it by punching back while getting put in woe), a really mean, targeted attack. Ki took Punk's stuff great (he's one of the best offense takers in wrestling history, and several guys who were JAPW regulars were also great at it) and I love him getting planted with that DDT earlier gave a nice reversal when Punk went to that DDT later. All in all it was a super fun contest, from an uncommon pairing.

Samoa Joe vs. Super Dragon - EPIC

PAS: These two guy had a pair of wars in PWG, but this war more of the touring indy version of this match. While this might not have been as epic in scope, they didn't tone down the violence even a little which makes it epic to me. The fact that Super Dragon throws such uncalled for shots really unleashes Joe's violent side. I have never seen a Muscle Buster look as spine damaging as it looked here, and he crushes SD with a death valley driver, and hits this jumping knee which looked like might have severed Dragon's head. Dragon of course unleashes nasty kicks and slaps and backhands, JAPW was and is a fed with potato chefs and these guys took it to a higher level.  I especially loved all of the leg sweeps, both guys where just flinging their legs recklessly at the ankles and knees of their respective opponents.

ER: This was really the peak of Super Dragon being king of all bump freaks. Indie wrestling was filled with tiny guys dying hot death (just look at H Effect earlier in the show) but Super Dragon was a heavyweight (still lean in 2004) that was just regularly taking moves on his neck. And if you were willing to eat a beating, this era Joe was a bad opponent for your body. I was surprised at how much this was dominated by Joe, but Dragon never felt out of it. Joe really was a beast here, that kneedrop Phil mentioned was one of the best I've seen Joe drop, and he had some absolutely devastating looking facewash kicks on the floor, plastering Dragon's head into the guardrail. Dragon had a great sell of one of them, seated in a chair, Joe lands the kick and Dragon just kind of slumps into the chair, holding his face. We build to a big dive where Dragon hits his insane tope, flipping through the ropes past the ringpost, and ends up falling on the back of his head due to the way he fell into Joe. Nasty. He hits a gorgeous springboard spinning heel kick to the back of Joe's head, and a nice double stomp/kneedrop off the top to the back of Joe's neck. But Joe is not a selfish man, and doesn't want to hog all that neck pain to himself, so he plants Dragon with a wayyyyy too snug death valley driver, and then yes, one of the nastiest muscle busters ever done. It's a shame we don't get Super Dragon the wrestler anymore, but after watching this 15 years later, it's kind of amazing we got him for as long as we did.

Homicide/B-Boy vs. Teddy Hart/Jack Evans - EPIC

PAS: This lived up to it's on paper promise. Teddy did lots of crazy flips, took a bunch of nutty bumps and clutched his knee a lot. Homicide chopped and punched people a lot and made crazy faces, Jack Evans did some wacko dives, including a moonsault to the floor bounding off of B-Boy in a fireman's carry. I loved the shooting star press version of Demolition Decapitation which the Matrats team pulled off, and Homicide just flapjacking Evans to the mat and flipping him right into a cop killer was nasty awesome stuff. Finish had some silly bullshit which JAPW would unfortunately fall victim to, the lights go out, and the Carnage Crew is in the ring (which has to be the most underwhelming, light go out guys in the history of wrestling), this is playing off of some early ROH locker room drama between Crew and Teddy, but then they have a swerve and the Crew turns on the SST and joins up with Teddy, big yawn, just end in a double DQ or something, this felt almost Russoish, and almost kept this match from EPIC status, still this is a magnetic match up and I can't wait to watch it all.

ER: I loved this. I think it's one of Hart's best performances. He absolutely dies so tragically on a few bumps that the crowd at the freaking Rahway Rec Center starts actively rooting for Teddy Hart and starts BOOING Homicide. B-Boy and Homicide came off like total assholes, and Evans/Hart have bodies that bend in ways that just shouldn't be possible. Hart and Evans get crumpled all over the ring and floor, Evans getting dumped by an Exploder, Hart getting launched into the crowd and taking out a fan and tumbling off the top to the apron and bouncing off the ring steps. It was crazy hearing the fans get so behind Teddy Hart, and Homicide/B-Boy were relentless. Evan's double stomping B-Boy and vaulting off of him into a moonsault was nuts, and that shooting star Demolition Decapitation was really breathtaking. There's no way that move should have looked that good and not seriously injured someone. It makes no sense. But a lot of stuff in this match looked like it would hurt like hell, like B-Boy's dropkick through the ropes or Evans getting folded in like 8 spots by the Cop Killah. This match also has an immaculately timed stupid spot that was timed so perfectly that it no longer looked anything like a stupid spot. Hart was setting up a shooting star press on B-Boy and as he starts it Homicide rushes in out of camera right and hits a perfect cutter. Those complicated precision timing spots usually just don't work. There are always seams. You see a guy frozen and waiting to hit his mark, because the window is so small. This was the most natural the spot could look, and really should have finished the match. We do get some match ending silliness, but I liked Homicide taunting Hart by locking on a sharpshooter, and Carnage Crew can NEVER be the most underwhelming lights go out in history because 1999 WCW gave us THE GIFT OF MIDNIGHT which will assuredly never not be the answer to that question. Hart cuts a hilariously 2004 post match promo about how Gabe Sapolsky thinks he's a piece of shit (because he did a bunch of flips or something and then pretended he had a concussion so didn't remember doing a bunch of flips) and then Devito says "Yeah but he's OUR piece of shit". This is gonna be great.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE LOW-KI

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE SUPER DRAGON

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DIXIE AND INSANE DRAGON

HOMICIDE VS. TEDDY HART RIVALS

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Real Slow and Before You Know Super Dragon had a Shotgun Pointed in the Window

Super Dragon vs. Vic Grimes APW-LA 10/18/03 - GREAT

PAS: Vic Grimes was an APW trainee who had one match in WWF as Droz's drug dealer Kilo, was an ECW Baldie and went to XPW where New Jack tried to murder him in a ring. Perfect guy to have a nutso potato fest with Super Dragon. Grimes is a total bump freak, he places Dragon's head in a chair and then misses a legdrop off the apron landing tailbone first, Dragon isn't afraid to hit him as hard as he can. Dragon takes some big bumps too, including getting crucifix tossed into a concrete support pole. Both Grimes and Dragon hit really hard which kept this from just being a stunt show. Dragon hits a crazy senton from the top rope to the floor through a table, and then keeps double stomping Grimes in his ribs like he was trying to squeeze cake frosting out of a tube. Lame finish kept this from being an EPIC, Grimes hits a bunch of big moves and keeps pulling Dragon up at two (including an awesome fat guy top rope elbow) we have a run in from Adam Pearce (maybe, the video isn't pristine and there is no commentary), then Disco Machine and Excalibur run in and they fight with Grimes until Dragon rolls him up. The amount of punishment both guys took was pretty intense, the booker really let them down by booking such a dog's breakfast of an ending.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE SUPER DRAGON

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For the Record it's Super Dragon For the Street it's Villian

Super Dragon vs. Eddie Kingston IWA-MS 10/22/04 - EPIC

This was from the IWA Strong Style tourney, and is exactly what you want from this match up, 8 minutes of these guys hurling unprofessional potatoes. Kingston hits his Tenryu jab/chop combo even harder then normal, throws gruesome slaps to the face and does some awesome dazed selling. Dragon has probably the most violent violence party I have seen, he looks like he is trying to remove Kingston's contact lenses with his feet. Finish is totally gross, post violence party Dragon goes to the top and double stomps Kingston right on the back of his neck and head, I am shocked that Kingston's head didn't smush like a pumpkin. Not nearly the length of most high end Dragon matches, but there is nothing wrong with going full bore for a short bit of horror.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE SUPER DRAGON

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Blame it on Super Dragon, Cause he Says it Gets Funky When You Got a Subject and a Predicate

Super Dragon vs. Samoa Joe PWG 8/14/04 - GREAT

Nifty match which told a great story of the bully Super Dragon, running into the even bigger bully Joe.  This was in the middle of Joe's ROH title reign and he was coming back to the West Coast as the conquering hero. Dragon tries to smack him around and stiff him, and get met back with even bigger shots. Say what you will about Dragon, but he isn't afraid to take it as good as he gives it. He gets hit with some nasty slaps and punches here, including some big stiff slaps to the back of his head. Dragon did get some moments of offense, hitting a teeth loosening lariat and even landing a top rope double stomp onto Joe's head. Finish was really cool with Dragon hitting the violence party, only to get thrown over the top rope with a belly to belly and landing hard on the wood parquet. Dragon tries to get back in the ring but ends up collapsing unable to answer the count. Loved the way they told the tale, and the moves were brutal, just thought it could have been a bit shorter, if the pace had been pushed a bit this could have gotten into all time classic territory.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE SUPER DRAGON

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The Boy Super Dragon was a Friend of Mine, Till I Caught Him in My Car Trying to Steal my Alpine

Super Dragon/Disco Machine vs. TARO/Mr. Excitement Rev Pro 6/19/02 - GREAT

I had seen Mr. Excitement's name in results before, but I am not sure I had seen him wrestle before. His opening matwork with SD was fun stuff, with Mr. Ex doing some nice rolling kneebars and guillotine chokes. They both tag in their partners and TARO and Disco have an arm drag section with some fun flippy arm drags by TARO. They both shake hands and bask in the crowd applause and Super Dragon comes in to shake Disco's hand and offer a hand to TARO only to crack him right in the neck. We then get a long beat down section on TARO and no one beats a guy like Super Dragon, and few take the kind of beating that TARO takes. No surprise that TARO retired early, because he is hellaciously beaten every time I see him. Some of the suplexes he takes would make Misawa's ghost cringe in horror, during the final run he takes a backdrop driver straight vertical on his neck like Kobashi or Oro, and he takes four or five other really nasty fold up neck bumps on germans. TARO doesn't really have the offense to fire back in this match, although he does use his rana's really well as momentum shifters, and hits a big dive. There was a bit of a lag right before the end where, Super Dragon piledrives Mr. Excitement and then puts on a chinlock seemingly to let him get his bearings together, but otherwise this was a great all action tag with some huge violent highlights.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE SUPER DRAGON

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Super Dragon Has a Crime Record Like Charles Manson

Super Dragon v. TARO Rev Pro 7/7/00 - GREAT

This was the earliest Super Dragon match I could find and I was surprised at how well it held up. Dragon had mostly developed all of the traits I liked about him, even as a babyface he is still a crowbarring asskicking motherfucker. TARO is a stick skinny dude in a lucha match, he looks like he has DJ Qualls physique, but he can take a hellacious ass whipping. SD dumps him on his head, slaps cheek tissue out of his mouth and even rocking chairs his head into a wall. The Psycho Driver SD lands to finish the match was grotesque. TARO gets most of his offense off by cheating and outside interference, but I did like some of his reversals including a snap rana out of a Tiger Driver. Might have gone a bit too long, and it was hard to buy TARO near falls, but this was damn fun stuff, and I am excited to revisit more pre PWG Dragon.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE SUPER DRAGON

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2015 Ongoing Match of the Year List

17. Young Bucks v. Angelico/Jack Evans PWG 7/24

PAS: I am really rating this as a whole segment. Ricochet and Tozawa are hugging after their wank off of a match, and Super Dragon comes from the back and starts killing folks, the Young Bucks come out in Super Dragon masks and the three of them lay waste to the entire locker room. Super Dragon especially kills Candace LaRae including curb stomping her on the bottom turnbuckle which is just horrific looking. All three guys are hateble dicks. Finally Evans and Angelico make the save with some big dives and we have a balls to the wall spotfest tag. I imagine if I watched a lot of Young Bucks matches I would get tired of their shtick, but it is fun in small doses, and Jack Evans just takes a huge asskicking. Didn't out stay it's welcome (Hero v. Bailey earlier on the show went 5 near falls and 6 minutes too long) kept it moving and had plenty of high points.

ER: Well this is pretty much the spotfest of the year. This is just absurd, at times flat out impossible wrestling. This whole segment was outstanding, with Super Dragon destroying everybody while the Bucks wait for them to feed out of the entrance way. Reminded me of the big coliseum scene in Gladiator where all the captives are shoved into the battle arena and one gladiator is just waiting at the entranceway to blindside them. The abuse LaRae takes is borderline uncomfortable, and Super Dragon basks in the discomfort. And the beatings just continue, and continue, and that's what makes the Evans and Angelico entrances so great, as they rush out and separately fling themselves into the attackers. Angelico especially just launches himself past the rinpost and into the crowd. The Reseda venue adds TONS to a match like this, as the crowd is just directly in the way of everything at all times, and this match featured guys constantly flying into the crowd in dangerous and spectacular ways. Some of the double teams in this are just.....I have no idea how they came up with them. I'm not even going to begin to describe them, but there were so many strange "I'm holding this guy and then another guy jumps off of me into a shooting star and then I do a 450 while holding this guy" and it's incredible that nobody broke their neck. Sometimes I think they're setting up one insane spot and then they take it a whole different direction ("oh, obviously Evans is going to springboard onto his partner's back while Matt is holding Angelico in a samoan drop.....wait Evans did that and then moonsaulted from Angelico's back to the floor!?!?"). Guys fly in and out of frame, you get every flying move you could possibly desire, done from the top to the floor, done springboard style, men fly into fans, through chairs, and the whole thing is a flat out sprint from beginning to end. This is the match you show to your friends who don't care about one bit about pro wrestling, and then watch them lose their shit the entire time. Just unreal.


2015 MOTY MASTER LIST

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With Right, Left, Right Left You're Toothless, Then You Say Goddamn Dragon's Ruthless

Super Dragon v. Excalibur PWG 5/13/05 -GREAT

This was an impromptu Guerrilla Warfare match which was started after Excalibur turns on Super Dragon and takes responsibility for the fake Super Dragon who had been attacking Dragon at previous shows. They have a pretty nasty prop garbage match, it doesn't have the frenzied brawling of the best Super Dragon fights, but it does have some especially nasty spots. Especially nasty was Excalibur getting curb stomped with his head between a ladder which looks like it might decapitate him, and Super Dragon taking some gross chair shots to the top of the head. Excalibur does a nice job looking vicious despite not having the best looking offense. Finish had the fake Super Dragon run in and unmask as Steen, and both he and Excalibur beat up Super Dragon and Excalibur ended up pedigree piledrivering SD through a table (which broke first and end up looking nastier.) Kind of a BS WWE PPV finish, and Super D wasn't as much of an asskicking tsunami as the best stuff, still if you want a couple of guys totally die on bumps this was pretty great.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE SUPER DRAGON

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Super Dragon is the Motherfucker that You Read About

Super Dragon v. Kevin Steen PWG 8/6/05-GREAT

This is a Guerrilla Warfare match and the match that set the standard for brutality in the gimmick. I loved the opening 10 minutes or so of this match. Steen had been coming out in a Super Dragon costume to taunt Dragon in the set up to this match, and this was almost like Super Dragon v. Super Dragon, with both guys just exchanging nasty backhands, and awkward thrown chairshots. Steen was trying to beat SD at his own game and the reckless brawling was really compelling. The second half of the match brought it down unfortunately . You had one guy set up his opponent for a brutal garbage spot, only to get a kickout, and then they would go set up another big garbage spot only to have the tables turned. There was some truly sick stuff here, package piledrivers onto thumbtacks, slams through barbed wire boards, Steen getting handcuffed and chairshotted, but it just took too long to set everything up. It felt less like a fight and more like a CZW death match tourney final. Still had lots to love, but this was a step below the best Super Dragon brawls.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE SUPER DRAGON

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Some Drop Science Super Dragon's Dropping English

Super Dragon/Davey Richards v. Jack Evans/Roderick Strong PWG 3/4/06 -EPIC

I was a little hesitant about digging into the Davey Richards tag period, so far I only reviewed Dragon brawls, and a long tags with Davey Richards of all people as his partner was pretty daunting. This however was fucking choice. Jack Evans is really best as American indy Kikuchi and Super Dragon lays a horrific ass kicking on him, stretching him in unnatural ways, dumping him on his neck and beating the grits off him. At one point he just pokes him in the trachea.  He also gives him a curb stomp on the side of his neck, and a bunch of different bits of violence I can't even describe.

Evans had some pretty offense, he cracks Richards with one of the best pele kicks I can remember, and hits a spaceman plancha into a 450, which was totally bonkers.  Richards was pretty much just doing Benoit shtick here, and kept it pretty simple, he did a little goofus selling, but was in the background enough so he didn't bother me. This did stretch, with three separate long beatdowns on the faces, still when the beatdowns are this nasty I don't mind it. Finish run was pretty exciting and the long finish runs were always what bugged me about PWG and the length here was fine.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE SUPER DRAGON

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