Found Footage Friday: QUEBECERS EXPLODE~! CESARO~! GUNTHER~! LOS COWBOYS IN GUATEMALA~!

Los Cowboys (El Texano/Silver King) vs. Astro de Oro/Skeletor Guatemala 9/15/91

MD: There's a certain genre of match that I find fascinating. There's no good name for it but it's best described by the rudos/heels being visibly, noticeably concerned about the amount of heat they might get in front of a specific crowd and adapting their wrestling accordingly. I don't know what preceded this but there was nothing to make Texano and Silver King come off as particularly rudo in the early going here. They came out, they were nice to fans, they posed well with the belts and the anthems. They wrestled clean early. Texano worked really hard to get a handshake. And the trash was still coming and they seemed kind of alarmed and put off by it. For the anthem, there were a ton of kids singing which was always a good sign. Skeletor came out with a robe with Guatemala on the back. Astro de Oro was obviously beloved. 

So there wasn't any mask ripping here. Their win in the segunda was real quick. While they controlled in the tercera there was never really that sense of danger for the tecnicos. You always got the sense that even amidst the double teams Skeletor could PROBABLY make the tag if he really really wanted to. It was, shall we say, a ginger rudo performance. 

Instead, they flew all over the place. They missed leaps off the top rope and dives. There was plenty of heel miscommunication. Silver King was happy to fly out of the ring on a kick out. Skeletor was charismatic and hammed it up a bit with Texano. Silver King and Astro de Oro were really moving at times and mostly everything looked very good. There was a point in the tercera where Texano and Silver King did Tiger Feints instead of diving and one guy right in the center of the crowd shot let out a popper/firework thinking the dive was coming and that's a little bit of really interesting cultural information. It made me sad for him that they didn't get dives because his timing was perfect. Anyway, of course the locals won and everyone survived to see tomorrow. 

Jacques Rougeau vs. Pierre Carl Ouellet WWF 10/21/94

MD: This is about 80% of a perfect match to me. 75%, 75%. I was thinking structurally, but the thing needed blood too. It has parallels to MS-1 vs. Sangre Chicana in some ways. And before you balk at that, think of the setting. This is Jacques in Montreal, in what was supposed to be a celebratory swansong. He's up against Pierre. He's got Raymond in his corner. Polo's out there with PCO.  

And Pierre cheapshots him before he can get his robe off. Raymond tries to break it up but the ref pulls him off which just lets Pierre stomp away. Jacques tries to fire back, but Pierre's younger, stronger, bigger. He lays in a beating, a nasty, brutal thing. Every time it seems like Jacques has an answer, he cuts him off. Jacques is able to outsmart him and back body drop him over the top. He lands on his feet. Jacques gets a flurry and he catches him in midair and puts him in the tree of woe. When the ref tries to stop things, Polo comes over to choke him. Pure heat. There's one moment where Pierre is whipping Jacques off the ropes and Jacques makes a sort of out of control bobbling motion, almost seizing, with his head as he's getting whipped and it's some of the best selling I've ever seen.

The thing is, Pierre can't put him away. So he starts to go with more and more high risk moves. He hits a flip dive. He goes off the turnbuckles, once, twice, and then Jacques catches him, crotching him on top. It's not quite the punch heard round the world but it's pretty damn satisfying, especially to this crowd. 

And it opens the floodgates for the ritual beating. And what a beating it is. When Jacques tosses him into the stairs on the outside, it's about as loud as I've heard stairs. After beating him around the ring, Jacques goes for a mounted punch (no puns). Pierre tosses him off and we get this great ref bump. Polo comes in to attack. Raymond hits him with a superkick.

And that's when they should have taken this thing home. Have it seem like Pierre was going to get the advantage, have Jacques mount one last comeback, go to the finish. They don't though. They just sort of meander with some nearfalls and momentum shifts and they don't lose the crowd, but once you see Polo back on his feet rooting for Pierre, you realize that the match went just a little long in the tooth. The finish is amazing, Pierre going for a tombstone and Jacques turning it around for this gnarly sitout variation and then slowly, fatefully draping a hand over for three. There's just no reason why that couldn't have happened almost immediately after Polo got taken out. And blood. Blood would have been good. Still, 75% perfect is pretty damn good.

Cesaro vs. Gunther WWE 11/8/21

MD: This is a house show match between Cesaro and Gunther. In Leeds. It is definitely. That's nothing to scoff at. It's just not transcendent like Cena vs Reigns or even the parts of Jacques vs Pierre that were transcendent. 

It had room to breathe. It managed the crowd well (and a crowd like that needed managing). It didn't get ahead of its sails. It didn't go off any rails. It was measured and focused and did what it had to. Instead of having the crowd go for dueling chants or ironically entertaining themselves (or shouting 2! a lot or whatever), it got them to clap up three times, early on in a test of strength, then during a surfboard (the one with the head in; Cesaro got out of it with some headbutts of his own after he turned it) and finally once in the heat as he was building to the comeback. 

It got them to chant for the swing right before Cesaro got it down the stretch. They hit hard, both early on and right before the finish. And yes, they built to that swing and they paid it off. They worked things fairly even up front. Gunther would go for cheapshots and deviate from the wrestling first but Cesaro generally had an answer. I liked the big comeback spot as Cesaro was able to catch Gunther in midair and turn him, strength outdoing strength, and the finish was good, with a near-miss with the ref before a cheapshot and a thudding top rope splash. This hit marks, and that's admirable. A good match. A good house show match. And good for the crowd for letting it guide them.

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2020 Ongoing MOTY List: WALTER vs. SAXON

36. Saxon Huxley vs. WALTER NXT UK 9/24

ER: I've slowed down on the project, but it still amazes me how far I've made it into my NXT UK Guide. Before starting this pointless endeavor, I never would have thought of writing a sentence like "This was the best Saxon Huxley match I've ever seen", but this was the best Saxon Huxley match we've seen (so far?). Huxley, Jinny, and Tyson T-Bone are the three NXT UK workers who I think could have really good matches but are rarely put in a position to have really good matches. They're the best, most underutilized wrestlers in the fed, and this felt like the first time in ages that any of them had been used for something cool. They've made mistakes in the past comparing Huxley to Bruiser Brody, but his whole thing works a lot better if you just think of him as the drummer from the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. Here he's a madman who starts stiffing WALTER before WALTER even has a chance to start in, actually makes it work for far longer than you'd think, before WALTER takes over and punishes him far longer and with way more pettiness than you'd normally see in a show opening Non-Title Match.

 

I didn't know the match would evolve into what it did, but I really started paying attention when Huxley started throwing elbowdrops that were essentially him jumping onto WALTER as hard as he could, like Dennis Rodman's elbows to The Giant, where Rodman was just jumping onto top of him full weight. He was really good at flustering WALTER, sticking and moving with his running kicks, eating a shot if it meant he could land a couple, and when they fought to the floor I thought it was cool that he opted to break the count when it was possible he could have won by count out. He would live to regret that decision, as it pretty much leads directly to his murder. He misses one of those running kicks over the barricade, and it's all over for him. WALTER goes into kill mode and it's the best, slamming Huxley as hard as possible on the floor and kicking him wickedly across the back, which was already welting as he's tossed back first lengthwise across the barricade and then powerbombed off the hardest edge of the apron. WALTER just lined him up with the full edge of the apron and powerbomb him off the peak. 

The match is over for Huxley after that apron powerbomb, but I loved how the match itself wasn't actually over. Huxley made it back in on the 8 count, and we got to see that WALTER was totally fine winning the match in the way that Huxley had foolishly guilted into not wanting, perfectly content to take the count out that Huxley that beneath him. The rest of this match is WALTER having a loud empty arena fireworks match, teeing off on a too weak opponent and making loud echoing sound with every string. Huge chops thrown as hard as possible, Huxley trying to respond by cupping WALTER's ears on slaps, but no match for a big man hitting him as hard as possible. WALTER's top rope butterfly suplex sends Huxley past the middle of the ring, and before taking the win WALTER is doing mean shit like just slapping Huxley on the back as hard as he can and falling on him. It's great. This was WALTER's return to TV after tapings resumed during the pandemic, and he played this like a true Diva taking advantage of some perfect bathroom acoustics. 

2020 MOTY MASTER LIST

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NXT UK Worth Watching: Noam Dar! WALTER Mastiff! Ligero!

WALTER vs. Dave Mastiff NXT UK 1/18 (Aired 3/5/20) (Ep. #82) 

ER: I liked this a lot, but also felt they almost showed too much. It's a short match that never quite feels as high stakes as they want it to feel, and moved too quickly for any of the biggest spots to sink in. I keep waiting for these UK bog beasts to have an undeniable banger, but they keep falling short in different ways. Still, I liked a lot of what they did here. The whole match was basically Mastiff throwing every piece of offense he has at WALTER, splatting him all around the ring. Mastiff has several pieces of really cool offense and while he did them all, he never made it look easy.  I thought a cool element of the match was how little offense WALTER got. Really, beyond a few big (and nicely timed) chops, a running dropkick, and the big powerbomb finish, this was all about WALTER either gaining an advantage by dodging Mastiff or not dodging and getting squished. 

WALTER went for the powerbomb early and wound up with Mastiff plopped on his chest. He got squished with a cannonball, a cool rolling senton, a regular ol' fat guy senton, and generously threw himself into a German suplex (the suplex really felt like it was 95% WALTER leaping backwards like a crazy man). But the match was also about Mastiff being able to survive as long as he did because of big WALTER misses, like a big missed splash and a sidestepped dropkick. WALTER maximized his cut-offs, always eating a few Mastiff strikes before shutting them down with one big chop or a big boot to the chest. And since Mastiff was throwing several shots to every one WALTER shot, he tired himself throwing out everything he had, misses and all. By the time WALTER hit that powerbomb Mastiff was toast. The strength of the match was WALTER's selling: the way he would curl up or drag himself to the ropes after getting squished, and I love how he fell over after hitting the match ending powerbomb. I have no doubt that WALTER could easily powerbomb Mastiff, but it was one of several things he did that made Mastiff feel like a bigger deal.

Noam Dar vs. Ligero NXT UK 3/6 (Aired 3/12/20) (Ep. #83)

ER: An underrated aspect of NXT UK is that while they don't have a large roster, they don't run a ton of repeat matches. Sure, some of these people have worked each other many times outside of WWE, but I think they really maximize the roster they have. You see repeat matches on Smackdown all the time, week after week, but on NXT UK you can find a match that's been done maybe twice. This is the second Dar/Ligero match (first one happened 8 months prior and was longer, but not as good), and you get that familiarity without feeling like you've seen all of this several times before. I thought Dar was really fantastic in this, acting like a real dick to Ligero and having that paid off in a couple fun ways. The match started with Ligero whiffing on an elbow when Dar just moved back away from it, and Ligero committed to the miss to make the spot look good. It looked more like Ligero was not expecting to miss, which is what all missed shots should look like. Later, when he drilled Dar with a Misawa level elbow, it meant more. Dar has insanely fun body movement, slipping and tripping unexpectedly to throw off Ligero's momentum. Dar kicks Ligero in the legs in several spots you don't normally see targeted, kicking him in the knees to get him to fall on the apron, rolling over to take out Ligero's ankle, always kicking him with this great dismissiveness. Dar rarely if ever falls victim to strike exchange silliness, so the stuff that lands always looks much better in his matches. Really the only weak part of the match was a bad looking Ligero handspring, but the move was reversed so I guess...good? Watch this, and just enjoy how they move around each other. 

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NXT UK TakeOver: Blackpool II 1/12/20

Trent Seven vs. Eddie Dennis

ER: Eddie Dennis has a wild set of reptile gear, full boots and toxic slime green snakeskin like he's some kind of early 90s straight to video punk. It's glorious. I like him and Seven as a match up, and there's some explosive stuff. The match starts with a wicked one armed powerbomb by Seven, planting Dennis after catching him charging in. Dennis takes Seven's offense really well, bouncing right off his head on a DDT, getting dumped to the floor with a snap German. But Seven's punishment gets even better with a fast tope and and a snapdragon suplex on the floor. Their pace is really impressive for the level of big moves they're piling up. It's like a weird crazy WCW Power Plant match if they only studied NOAH tapes, with some forearms and big flipping slightly complicated slams, threats of Burning Hammers and Emerald Flowsions, and Seven hitting a right forearm in the corner as hard as Misawa's best. There are a bunch of big complicated slams, and the absolute craziness peaks when Dennis launches Seven with a Razor's Edge to the floor like he was Mike Awesome. Totally crazy spot to lead to a finish, not like any other finish I've seen on NXT UK. This was a cool ass 8 minute gem, really scrappy and portent, filled with big slams and cool bumps. Hot as hell start to a TakeOver. 

Toni Storm vs. Piper Niven vs. Kay Lee Ray

ER: I really hated how they turned this match into a 3 way. I love Toni, but she felt like a real third wheel in the build to this match, and in the match itself. Niven won the title shot, and then the week before TakeOver Storm just demands Niven let her have the match, and then they put her in the match just because she said she should be in the match! It's awful wrestling storytelling, but she's also a kind of necessary distraction in the match, and allowed them to do some big things that would have felt silly to kick out of. I hate 3 ways as a rule, but they actually kept things at a great pace to start. Niven works really well in a 3 way, as one of her issues is insisting on working fast paced singles without always keeping pace. Here she's able to pace things out and is a great wrecking ball. Niven flattens Ray with a tope and misses a fast cannonball into the barricade, but is back to flattening when she breaks up a pin with a senton. The match gets pretty bad the more melodramatic they got, with dumb stuff like Ray finding a chair under the ring and choking Storm while showing tons of light on the choke, or a big dumb face off between Storm and Niven where the camera framed them. The "making movies" thing can be real painful, but when they went back to being dangerous things got good again. Nigel on commentary calls Kay Lee Ray the "Glaswegian Sabu" at one point, which sounds near blasphemous, but when she hits a somersault plancha to the floor and bounces her legs off the barricade and head off the floor, then breaks up a pin by spiking herself with a somersault senton, this could be an Actual Thing. She looked like she under-rotated on a crazy senton, and then took a powerbomb right after. That's nuts. Storm gets to visually beat Niven before Ray superkicks her off, and I guess now that sets up Storm/Niven which feels reductive, since Storm just shoehorned herself in to begin with. There was some really good stuff here though, a lot of it. This was actually my favorite match of either Niven or Ray in NXT UK, and Storm facilitated some of that. 

Tyler Bate vs. Jordan Devlin

ER: This was a big match with a big payoff and big in-match build, a singles match that actually felt mostly worthy of the long TakeOver match lengths. I think Devlin put his time in well, liked how a lot of the offense built, I mainly just didn't like the ways Bate would just pop up to start his own sequences. Now, Devlin works around most of that really well, finding fun ways to set up Bate's comebacks. Devlin kept using the ropes in fun ways, like cutting off a Bate dive and nailing a nice rope flip moonsault, choking him in the ropes, also getting caught in a torture rack-type fireman's carry when he went to slingshot in with a cutter. Devlin, unsurprisingly, was a real asshole here. He mocked Bate and added some extra sauce to holds and strikes, the best being Devlin dragging Bate down into a Romero surfboard, then bending back on Bate's chin until they were staring eye to eye, sicko stuff.  

Devlin is good at working enough actual offense that reversals of that offense actually make sense, and Bate is good at stepping up with someone like that. I do think it veered into move trading, with Bate constantly need to shrug off whatever had just happened to him to hop up and do something impressive, but luckily Devlin is good at facilitating those hop-ups and Bate can break out something impressive. Bate does an airplane spin that starts slow and ugly and looks like it will be a dud, but keeps going and going and by the end I loved how Bate started with a bit of struggle and then kept building speed. By the time he dropped Devlin I was dizzy on my couch, which sounds stupid, but I'm not sure I've seen someone do an airplane spin this fast. Devlin had smart counters to expected Bate offense, dropping him with a cutter to the apron that almost leads to a count out win (with Devlin amusingly kicking him around 8 to keep Bate out longer), and nailing him with a Spanish Fly to counter a Bate charge. Devlin incorporated a lot of learned behavior into reversals, but Bate mostly just took big moves and then decided to do his own moves. This was the match with the somewhat infamous "punch out" spot, which I actually think is "not actually as shitty as it was made out to be". It's kind of hilarious to me that of all spots, Bate and Devlin doing stand and trade got GIF'd and laughed at, because most feds run shows with worse standing exchanges up and down the card. Do Tyler Bate's arms look short and silly when he swings them? Short? Always. Silly? Sometimes. Give me a punch exchange like this every single time over turn taking elbows and forearms. I liked how some of their punches whiffed completely, because it's frankly silly when every strike in an exchange hits perfectly. Bate needed a big finish to firmly put away Devlin, and Devlin is always great at getting spiked on DDTs and flattened by powerbombs, and the crowd was along for every second of Devlin taking it. Perhaps this went too long

Mark Coffey/Wolfgang vs. Fabian Aichner/Marcel Barthel vs. James Drake/Zack Gibson vs. Flash Morgan Webster/Mark Andrews

ER: So, this match was insane. This was easily one of the greatest highspot ladder matches in history, not just WWE history. This was 25 minutes - normally a match length that I would argue is completely unnecessary for *most* matches - but due to the furious pace that this things was worked, I was shocked at how "long" the match was when it was over. This does not feel like a 25 minute match, because from minute one every single person is flying around the ring at breakneck speed taking bumps that surely shaved months/years off their careers/lives, and I don't think that pace even took a slight break until the 18 minute mark. Not only did they work wall to wall crazy spots and dangerous moments, but they did a great job of making every team seem like they could walk away with the belts. I thought they did so well without the ladders, chaining offense together faster and faster, utilizing all 8 guys to give proper rest and generally avoiding guys ignoring damage to get to the next spot in time, that I was kind of dreading this becoming a climbing contest when it settled down. So, they opted to never settle the match down, using the ladders at first in familiar ways, but then doing twists on familiar ladder match spots before exploding with some things I've never seen before. 

It is completely pointless to detail all of the spots that happened in this match, because it would take me twice as long to type everything than it would take you to find and watch the match. One of the cooler aspects was that every team in the match, worked like a team. They all had tandem offense that was not always their typical tandem offense, remixing some spots and adding in ladders to others, and all the teams actually felt like they had individual strategies. They kept the spot set-up time to a minimum, and when they did one gigantic crash spot that had everyone fall like dominoes, prolonging the punishment instead of everybody just landing like shit from one giant tower powerbomb. It's tough to pick a standout, but I really liked Wolfgang a ton. He's the guy doing crazy spots while also shaking his arm out after punches. Yeah, he'll throw big ass Mark Coffey over the top rope onto everyone and then vault out himself to powerslam Drake on the entrance ramp. But, while men lay dying on the battlefield around him, he's still remembering to sell that his fist hurts, and I love it. So Wolfgang was probably my favorite, but this was a team effort. Every guy got at least one big moment (at LEAST). Mark Andrews hit a perfect shooting star press off the ladder onto Coffey, he and Webster hit a wild tandem somersault senton off a very high ladder, and Grizzled Young Vets seemed to be on the end of all the worst punishments, especially poor James Drake. Drake got smashed with ladders and under ladders and under bodies so many times, poor guy spent most of the match kicking his legs and holding his insides. Imperium looked like real beasts, squeezing their double teams into a ladder landscape even better than the others, Barthel tossing smaller guys off the ladders into waiting arms of Aichner so they could be dropped on their heads. 

It's a match with nothing but great spots, but my favorite had to be Imperium punishing Webster. With Webster laid on a ladder, which had been propped up on the ropes, Barthel holds Webster down so Aichner can hit a springboard moonsault, with Barthel rolling OVER Webster at the last minute TOWARDS Aichner's moonsault, so he wouldn't be standing where Aichner's boots were going to whip. I mentioned the car crash spot, and it really was great. They brought 5 or 6 ladders into the ring, everyone was climbing on them and climbing over each other like World War Z, one guy getting knocked to the mat here, Barthel getting knocked all the way to the floor there, Webster amusingly setting up his ladder so it smashes Gibson in between his own ladder, total madness. Wolfgang goes bet mode down the stretch and spears Aichner so hard into a ladder that the ladder breaks into 4 pieces. I don't think I've ever seen a ladder snap right in half during one of these matches, even when someone falls onto one from a great height. I thought I was pretty burnt out on stunt ladder matches, but this one had me from go and was absolutely relentless. 

WALTER vs. Joe Coffey

ER: I thought this was a pretty great 17 minute main event that made the decision to be a 27 minute main event, and treated that extra 10 minutes as if the previous 17 were just a dream. It was admittedly a bit odd how the match seemed to position Joe Coffey as the babyface and WALTER as kind of a generic heel , but I liked the actual ring work a lot. WALTER worked this mostly as a big chopping monster, and Coffey was the smaller "babyface" who kept trying and throwing WALTER with suplexes. WALTER is great at a big man getting knocked off his feet, and I loved how all of Coffey's suplexes looked like he was having trouble lifting WALTER, because he *should* be having a lot of trouble suplexing WALTER. WALTER wasn't hopping into any suplex and it ruled. If Coffey was going to hit a Saito suplex, it was going to be low to the ground with a heavy landing for both, making the suplexes look more like something you'd see in a Hashimoto/Red Bull Army match. There were a couple odd miscues every time WALTER threw a big boot (one that was supposed to hit did not at all; one that was supposed to miss, hit, and was treated as a miss anyway), but mostly it was WALTER throwing heavy chops while Coffey kept deadlifting WALTER on suplexes. WALTER threw hard elbows, cranked Coffey's neck, and worked a nice STF, Coffey hit a boss shoulderblock off the apron (flying at WALTER like a torpedo), fought for a big German suplex, and hit a surprising moonsault. 

When WALTER accidentally hit the ref with a John Woo dropkick (and the ref sold it like a drama queen rolling down a very soft incline), things mostly fell apart. Coffey gets an immediate visual pin off a powerbomb, Alexander Wolfe and Ilja Dragunov run down and get involved, Dragunov knocks Wolfe into Coffey and they basically do a full match restart for the remaining 10. Nothing felt like it mattered down the home stretch, and WALTER - who had just been "pinned" by a powerbomb moments before - now has several winds and the two trade moves until one of those moves wins the match. Every big move (WALTER powerbomb, Coffey avalanche belly to belly) was used as a way for the guy taking the move to transition back to offense, and there were more miscues like Coffey mostly missing a big clothesline and them just repeating the spot right after. After WALTER chokes out Coffey he had to give the biggest acting performance of his life, acting vaguely threatened by Adam Cole. Cole looked tinier than both referees and the camera angles made it looked like a small child ran into the ring after WALTER's win. 

This was a top to bottom great show, with the only bad 10 minutes being the last 10 minutes of the main event. Every other match was a total over-delivery, making this easily one of the best TakeOver events. WALTER/Coffey was probably the weakest overall match, and that was a match I really loved until it went crazy with the booking. Highly recommend this show. 

Best Matches: 

1. Tag Team Ladder Match

2. Jordan Devlin vs. Tyler Bate

3. Eddie Dennis vs. Trent Seven

COMPLETE GUIDE TO NXT UK

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2021 Ongoing MOTY List: WALTER vs. Dragunov

7. WALTER vs. Ilja Dragunov NXT TakeOver 8/22

ER: This was a really great 2007 NOAH throwback. At its best it felt like Morishima vs. McGuinness, or even Morishima vs. Kobashi. It had a big Kings Road feel, with chops that caused major blood blisters and elbows to brainstems that looked life shortening. You really have to buy into Ilja Dragunov's facials, and there are some bad ones. He's the worst version of early 90s goofball Kobashi, with some offense that approaches Kobashi at his most punishing. WALTER is the very very important Morishima. You needed somebody in there grounding things and keeping this from becoming Funny Face theater. WALTER just brought 20 minutes of punishment, coloring up Dragunov's body with welts and bruises while ramping up the body impact the whole time. WALTER threw two back to back lariats that were among the best lariats of the year, knocking Ilja out of the sky with the first one, and then out of his boots with the next one. When you buy into Dragunov as an energizer bunny who needs to be dismantled to quit, it adds to WALTER's beating. 

The beating grows as the frustration grows, but the presence of the frustration is important. Ilja is aggravating, as he leans into the Backlund dorkiness, but he also leans into a beating, and that's easy to like. WALTER destroys him on offense, and not all of Ilja's hits the same, but he has moments where he steps to the plate and crushes it. His senton really pops WALTER's guts, and down the stretch he hits WALTER just about as hard as someone can hit a man in the cerebellum. WALTER hits some of his nastiest ever stuff, like a shotgun dropkick that had to have left Dragunov with a flared ribcage and a release powerbomb that was cruel. I love WALTER's top rope splash. It's one of the great He Doesn't Belong Up There splashes with the unsteady takeoff but heavy landing. I didn't fully buy into Ilja absorbing ALL of that damage, but he is good at withstanding a beating, and when it's time for the finish he makes everything look finisher worthy. His shots to the back of WALTER's head were sick, and I loved the quick tap when Dragunov yanked WALTER to his feet by the neck. This was one of the best WALTER performances we've seen in WWE, maybe one of his best ever. 

PAS: I think Eric is being hard on Dragunov, this was a great WALTER performance, but it was Dragunov's match. I am normally down on wild Nic Cage wrestling performances but, I thought his drooling, spitting, screaming descent into hell really worked for this match. I really dug all of his judo throws and takedowns, felt like credible impactful offense using WALTER's size against him. This had to be one of the most violent WWE matches ever. Dragunov took an ungodly beating, and laid into WALTER as hard as he could back, by the end of this match his entire body was a bruise. WALTER had been champion for so long, that if you were going to take him out, he had to be taken out, and obliterating the back of his neck and head with elbows and yanking back his head like that felt like an appropriate end. It really did look like he could have paralyzed WALTER with those shots, and I loved how WALTER tapped quickly. I wasn't coming in expecting to love this. NXT epics usually leave me wanting, but this was awesome stuff. 

2021 MOTY MASTER LIST

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NXT UK TakeOver: Cardiff 8/31/19

Noam Dar vs. Travis Banks

ER: Great stuff, an excellent start to a big TakeOver. Noam Dar may be the best on the roster at doing dance step wrestling, and he does it in a way that doesn't actually make that style a problem. His timing is strong, his placement is excellent, and the way he positions himself and occupies himself while waiting for offense is second to few. The main problem, for me, with dance sequence wrestling is that nothing feels organic, everything feels like a blank eyed run back of rehearsed spots, and Noam Dar manages to do very complicated sequences while adding personal touches that keep them feeling organic. I've never gotten the sense that he is locked into a pre-planned set of steps, as he seems to respond incredibly quick to a change in plans. If a kick doesn't land the way it's supposed to, the plan does not appear to continue as initially planned, and there are very few guys this good at thinking on their feet. Dar doesn't take any shortcuts in his transitions, chopping down with his elbow to lock an arm, snatching Banks out of the air by his leg and holding it tight the whole way through a sequence, and a cool way of attacking several parts of the body while appearing to be focused. 

Banks is good at selling Dar's inflicted damage while still getting his offense in, and he's good at taking Dar's most punishing stuff. I loved Dar's two vicious snapmares, one into the ring ropes and another into the barricade, really making it look like he's forcing Banks into a painful bump. There's also cool work around the ring steps and other ring rope tricks, but all the reversals were super crisp and fit nicely into the match. Dar comes off like a Jack Gallagher peer at this point, great at crafting strong story in a 6 minute match or an 18 minute match. He's good at pulling off smug but undeniably well executed heel offense that makes things feel more heated, and gives a good babyface something real to play off. This built to some really hot, fast stuff. Banks plasters Dar with a great tope, nails him with a couple double stomps, Dar leans into hard sliding dropkicks and hits his own brutal running knees, all building to some well orchestrated kickouts. This ramped up really well and was worked snugly enough to keep throwing off sparks. Great chemistry, great gauntlet to throw down at the start of a big show. 

Ilja Dragunov vs. Cesaro

ER: This is Cesaro's first appearance in NXT UK, and I love WWE treating their Network brands like territories to send main brand stars into. It's something they should do more, give some of the best guys the opportunity to work a Star Passing Through a Territory match. Cesaro brings great main brand presence, dwarfing Dragunov and acting like the guy deservedly crossed over to the main roster. Dragunov is bigger and more muscular than most of the guys in NXT UK, but Cesaro makes him look like a Little Buff Boys finalist. Cesaro beats Dragunov pillar to post, forcing Dragunov to make some pretty awful faces, faces I loved seeing take uppercuts. Dragunov may make dumb faces, but he endures some real punishment for the right to make those dumb faces, so more power to him. Cesaro is really dominating, building from hard chops and shoulderblocks into throwing his whole body into uppercuts and headlocks, dragging Dragunov arm under throat into sick crossfaces. Cesaro throws Dragunov over the top rope to the floor, into the barricade, drawing fair comparisons to The Berzerker. Cesaro delivers a Berzerker level beatdown. He gets a huge (fast counted) giant swing and a violent belly to back suplex. I thought Ilja's comebacks were fine, though I don't think I ever fully bought into him potentially beating Cesaro. Cesaro felt too much like a larger more perfect killing machine version of Dragunov, and Cesaro as a killing machine is a beautiful sight. He hits a press slam into a kneelift and then a torpedo uppercut for a big nearfall, and finishes things with a huge pop up uppercut, immediately yanking Ilja into the Gotch piledriver. This felt like a good version of Ric Flair vs. Terry Taylor, with Cesaro coming across as a far more punishing traveling-champ Flair. 

PAS: Dragunov is kind of a goof, but an endearing one. I mean Kikuchi made silly faces too, and Dragunov takes Kikuchi level beatings. That press slam into a knee strike by Cesaro really should be his finisher, what a brutal bit of business that was. I did think when Draganov had Cesaro reeling on the floor he had a chance, and I loved Cesaro decisively shutting the door on him with that pop up uppercut and Gotch combo finish. I would love to see Cesaro in this role more often. He had a great Regal match years ago when he did this same sort of drop down. He is dead in the water on the main roster anyway, he might as well as go after the NXT UK title again. A rematch with Dragunov as the champ would be great stuff.  

Mark Andrews/Flash Morgan Webster vs.  Mark Coffey/Wolfgang vs. Grizzled Young Veterans

ER: This tag bit off more than it could probably chew, but there is plenty of joyous wrestling action to exist in matches where guys bite off too much. It's a 20 minute tag that would have exploded at 15, but gave us a big babyface tag title win for hometown Cardiff boys Webster and Andrews. Everyone here had a lot (maybe too much sometimes) to contribute, with Wolfgang standing out as one of the best guys on the brand at taking complicated flier offense. Gibson did the same, and Webster got to shine with his fun combo of dives, ranas, and top rope flips. Wolfgang is the biggest guy in the match, and he goes up for two different crazy bumps where he's on someone's shoulders. He takes a poison rana with a perfect vertical spike, and then takes a nutso Doomsday Device tope from James Drake late in the match, folding hard on the entrance floor. Gibson is good at getting into position for some big Andrews offense, both GYF taking his Stundog Millionaire as well as anyone. Fan reaction kept growing along with the match, even if I thought things could have been edited down (take out the long Gallus disappearance that only gets paid off with a Drake tope, trim the standoffs and bad showdown fighting) they clearly knew the audience and kept them hooked. Strong rudos make for strong babyfaces, and this was a fine team effort. Gibson and Drake started off hot 50 episodes ago, but they've been a stale act with the titles. Webster and Andrews will be a fun change of pace in title matches, champions that feel beatable but are capable of surprising. Gallus are the clear talent of any tag match, and the 3 way format made them too much of an afterthought. I don't think it harms them as an act, as they still remain the favorites to get the belts and have a long run. Wolfgang feels like someone who has over a year of different title defense ideas in him. 

Dave Mastiff vs. Joe Coffey

ER: I thought this started incredibly, with the first 4 minutes stacking up well against all my favorite NXT UK stuff. I wish this was just a violent street fight instead of a last man standing as when they were fighting, rather that doing stunts, this was excellent. So we have those first 4 minutes, starting with a great fight in the entrance way with both going after the injuries suffered in their excellent match that set this match up. There's a sick early moment (very early) where Coffey gets whipped into the turnbuckles hard and the whole top rope snaps off. Coffey really flew into that buckle and the PONG sound when he hit was great, and I really don't think that rope was supposed to break. They kind of try to go on with the match in ring but once Coffey eats shit off the middle rope they go with a more weapons and plunder approach, which is fine. It lead to cool things like Mastiff jamming a turnbuckle support bar in Coffey's mouth and throwing him mouth first on the mat, and I wish they would have played more around with that instead of going to the floor so quickly. The under ring weapons portion was my least favorite of the match as it felt so much more manufactured than the body/injury targeting fight this started as. But Coffey still took some crazy bumps, like a sky high backdrop on the floor and a release German suplex, plus getting walloped a couple times by a cricket bat. 

They both take some gnarly spills, both get put through tables, but some of the stuff is so silly in its violence that it doesn't really vibe with their super serious attitudes. Take, for example, when they both get chairs and run headlong down a long aisle at each other, collide, and then both spill backward down the aisle. It was like Homer and Bart running at each other wearing pots on their heads. Coffey takes the Finlay roll on the announce table, both fall off the second landing through another set of tables, you know the drill with WWE brand Last Man Standing matches. The finish is clever, with both men getting to their feet after their tandem spill, leaning on those rolling load-in containers, and as Coffey is standing he kicks the rolling container out of Mastiff's hands and causes him to fall, or, not stand. There was a lot of great in this match, but while they did a ton of damage to each other, things felt much more mapped out once they went to the floor. Coffey for his part turned in a great overall performance, and the first 4 minutes play as a killer follow up to their excellent TV match. 

Toni Storm vs. Kay Lee Ray

ER: Disappointing. Not the kind of match you want to change a title on, and the title change came off completely flat. I loved how they started things, with Ray refusing to lock up and repeatedly hopping to the floor, until Storm hit a great tope suicida past the ringpost, Storm slams Ray into the barricade, throws forearms and kicks, and generally dominates most of this match from there. In fact, the whole thing felt so flat because it felt like Storm was either too dominant, OR too dominant so that she would save face with a title loss? I can't explain it, but whatever it was, it didn't work for me or the fans in attendance. This was the Toni show, with a couple of big German suplexes (one tossing Ray from the middle turnbuckle), Code Red, big headbutt, and a Storm Zero that only gets 2 (with a suitably doofy Toni face accompanying it). Storm even nails another tope suicida, but they get to the finish so quick that it almost felt like something was wrong. Ray hits a knee, big senton to the floor (Toni with a nice catch so Ray doesn't die), and then Ray hits a couple Gory bombs in the ring for the title win. Now, I loved the Gory bomb set up, with Ray dropping Toni over the top rope with the first and a traditional one for the pin, but I don't think anybody watching thought this was the finish. It wasn't a short match (10 minutes or so), but this didn't feel like a finish they had actually been building to (even with Ray hitting a Gory bomb earlier). This landed flat, and if they were going to put a belt on a heel then Jinny would have been a much more interesting choice. This match never felt like the match they were building it to be, never felt like any kind of unique history played into it. 

WALTER vs. Tyler Bate

ER: This was a 2019 match that even people who pretend online to not watch NXT UK went out of their way to watch. This was the first NXT UK match that Meltzer went real cuckoo about, choosing once again to break the rules of his own established star ratings, and being perfect-plus still means something to some people. But you know? I just did not need 42 minutes of perfect-plus. I don't think that length was necessary and I would've loved to have seen a 21 minute edit. But it's also an impressive physical feat to work over 40 minutes of hard striking and harder bumps, and this match somehow managed to get more physical the longer it went. I did not buy Bate standing up to all the damage and making all the comebacks he did, but I also must acknowledge that there was some absolutely brutal punishment he took that was not pulled, and I can't take that away from him. Tyler Bate took a genuine beating, and still kept the awareness to pull off some very complicated runs. 

I do think there was far too much down time, and that it's hard to sustain disbelief when WALTER is laying it on full strength. WALTER threw enough full arm chops to purple up Bate's chest 20 minutes in, and that chest was one thing Bate never forgot to sell. WALTER crashed hard on shoulderblocks and lariats and went to the chin with his elbows, and his rudest offense made it seem like he should have no problem disposing of Bate in under 20. Bate had a few impressive throws on WALTER, but I never once bought any of his strikes. When there's this much of a size difference you REALLY need to tighten things up to narrow that gap. Instead Bate had a lot of big blows that were supposed to be moment payoffs, and I think they all landed flat. I am just not going to buy into a single Bate short left hook putting WALTER down for longer than anything he did to Bate. And to buy into this match, you have to buy into several moments just like that. Implausible as I found the last 20 minutes of Tyler Bate comebacks, they did work a ton of very good nearfalls that really build nicely. Bate was at his best when he was using his body as a weapon, hit or miss. His tope suicidas were unhinged full body crashes into WALTER, his top rope corkscrew senton was great, he flew into a chop to the shoulder blades and got powerbombed horizontally into a ringpost. So while I hated a lot of Bate's payoff strikes, his peaks were majestic. The crowd was truly along for the ride and wanted to see Bate win the title, and that goes a long way towards the match's favor.  So while I wish I could have seen what their 20 minute main event looked like, they do manage to fill 42 minutes with some strong peaks. That's an overall success. 

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NXT UK Worth Watching: Ohno! WALTER! Andrews! Seven!

Kassius Ohno vs. Mark Andrews NXT UK 6/16 (Aired 7/17/19) (Ep. #51)

ER: This was a different match than I was hoping for based on the build, but unsurprising that Ohno is going to craft another cool match around a different NXT UK opponent. I went in (perhaps unfairly) wanting a superkick battle, like the amazing Chris Adams/Great Kabuki match from Texas. Ohno took a great jab at Andrews on TV, saying Andrews is a guy who does a superkick because of his idol Shawn Michaels, instead of respecting his British wrestling heritage and using it because of Adams. Ohno has the true greatest British style wrestler is hands down the best gimmick going in NXT UK, and that's enough to make me not as grumpy about not getting Ohno working a superkick match. We get a cravat match and it's as cool as expected. Andrews occasionally finds an interesting way out of a cravat and gets an armdrag, slips around into his own headlock, but keeps winding up getting his neck twisted in different ways. 

It peaks with Ohno catching an Andrews pescado, walking him to the ringpost, unwrapping the turnbuckle pad from the hoist, and throwing Andrews throat first into it. But that's probably not even the meanest thing Ohno inflicts on Andrews, as his cross chops to the throat are maybe the most painful looking strike on WWE TV. Andrews gets his weakened neck worked over more while Ohno also finds ways to trap limbs, and Ohno is great at making openings for him, although in the end I think Andrews got far too many openings. Ohno usually has perfect instincts for how much to give an opponent, especially a smaller opponent, but I think Andrew's comeback was a bit beyond. Ohno is great at taking his offense, helping pull off a dragonrana to the floor, a nice in ring rana, and a poison rana that Ohno took convincingly as a heavier man. Ohno's reversals of flyer offense are always a highlight, and he splats Andrews with a tremendous pancake, really slapping Andrews into the mat. Ohno built to the finish as well as possible, and even though I didn't fully buy into Andrews getting the win, I don't think anyone else on the roster could have pulled off this match layout as effectively as Ohno did. 

WALTER vs. Trent Seven NXT 6/16 (Aired 7/24/19) (Ep. #52)

ER: This was a really really great 8 minute match that was 15 minutes long, but they were doing a thing and they did that thing well. This was a big Trent Seven dying on his sword match, so that was a lot of fighting back and WALTER refusing to finish and instead choosing punishment. I thought the first half was really great, and then we had more slowdown and more fighting back down the stretch, going a bit long but making its point. The steam was really good to start, with Seven hitting WALTER with a tope on his entrance, another dive after, then keeping on him, even when it became apparent that more defense would have helped him. He would fire at WALTER with chops and WALTER would endure them, then fire back with kicks to the face and chops of his own. WALTER locked in a mean half crab and snug STF, tying up his arms. This was a real good slugfest, neither man with anyone to hold them back, WALTER hitting big uppercuts and Seven firing back with a convincing lariat. I wasn't as convinced with all of Seven's comebacks, but thought WALTER sold strong for them and I liked WALTER punishing him for his insolence with powerbomb after powerbomb. I would have preferred them slugging it out until one of them fell on their face, but this worked well for the angle. 

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NXT UK Worth Watching: Wolfgang! Gallus! Wild Boar! WALTER! Primate!

Wolfgang/Mark Coffey vs. Wild Boar/Primate NXT UK 6/14 (Aired 6/19/19) (Ep. #47)

ER: Great hard hitting sprint, both teams have a strength at building quick in and out tags that are majority killer and not any longer than they need to be. This started with The Hunt running wild and hitting a pair of dives and Boar hits some sentons, and you can see a strength of Coffey and Wolfgang is getting into position for all of The Hunt's attacks, cutting off in nicely timed spots, but also setting up small comeback moments (like Mark taking a big bump off the apron after getting hit by Boar, only for Wolfgang to cut him off), and I like the simple ways Gallus grounds Boar, with stomps and a full nelson and quick tags. It was all building to a big Primate hot tag (which honestly should have been hotter, and gone on at least a couple beats longer), but Mark and Wolfgang are good at getting good height on things like backdrops, and I did love how quickly Mark turned to tables by just running Boar into the ring steps with a double leg. The assisted powerslam/kick finish felt like it came a bit too quick, but I liked the work in the match that got us to that point. It ended up being a nice Gallus showcase, and I was a bit surprised how "down the ladder" it made The Hunt come off, but could be easily explained by "good teams beat good teams" and that's fine. They were working at a pace that easily could have allowed for another 6 minutes of strong tag wrestling, and I hope they get the chance to have that match. 

WALTER vs. Travis Banks NXT UK 6/15 (Aired 6/26/19) (Ep. #48)

ER: WALTER is so good at being a territory Ric Flair, in his specific territory. He almost always towers over every one of his challengers, but that doesn't mean that he would have to actually be good at believably selling for his small opponents, doesn't mean that he would have to ever get good at integrating his small opponents' offense into a match. But he is really great at showing vulnerability, and it's matches like these that highlight how good he can be at showing just the right amount of it. Travis Banks doesn't necessarily have offense that looks like it would be too damaging to WALTER, but it's worked into the match at such a time, and sold so excellently by WALTER, that you get the sense the WALTER *could* be surprised with an upset. WALTER is of course savage here, throwing full weight behind everything he hits Banks with, and my favorite moment came early when WALTER just grabbed a kicking and resisting Banks and plopped him on the top rope, as if he were a Long Island security detail removing Low Ki from a venue. 

WALTER lays Banks across the turnbuckle and then just climbs up to stand on his neck, until Banks falls hard to the floor. Banks did not seem like someone who should even be challenging WALTER in that moment, so it was impressive when he starting landing leg kicks and WALTER started feeling them. WALTER's selling was really what put this onto the next level, as he was great at realistically occupying himself by lightly limping, showing his knee buckle, stopping briefly to make sure the injury wasn't worse, the tiniest little things to give Banks enough time to get to his next attack. There was a good nearfall when Banks hit a nasty double stomp off the top, felt like Toyota really driving her heels into Kong. And Banks' tope really sent his weight all the way into WALTER, and I love when an undersized man throws himself as hard as he can into a tope. Also, it felt like WALTER appropriately sold that tope, and it made sense that even with that nice dive WALTER was still able to finish things 30 seconds later. NXT UK is maybe the only brand under the WWE banner that seems to understand that nothing needs to be 50-50, and there are plenty of engaging ways to craft high quality and/or interesting matches at 75-25. 

Wolfgang/Joe Coffey/Mark Coffey vs. Wild Boar/Primate/Dave Mastiff NXT UK 6/16 (Aired 7/10/19) (Ep. #50)

ER: Trios continue to be an underutilized match style on NXT UK, and here's another one that shows what an asset they can be to the program. I also like that this is just six bruisers, just gathering them all in one place. NXT UK men's division is definitely divided up between fast guys who want to hit their spot sequences (and some very good at it) and guys that just want to crash into each other, and this match just throws six of the crashers in together. This was a real nice Gallus showcase, shows how well they work together and the slightly different things they all bring. I really like Wolfgang, a wrestler who does a ton of cool things but nothing overly flashy. He might be the only guy in wrestling to still fling themselves into the mat on an Irish whip, and I love it, it's like Mitch Williams falling off the mound to throw harder. Wolfgang has some cool tackles, a nice diving lariat, the perfect glue guy for Gallus. Wild Boar is a great hot tag, comes in with an awesome log roll trip, then a great senton and an awesome spear in the corner. Gallus separates him from his boys and I dug all of Gallus controlling Boar, all building to a big Mastiff hot tag. Gallus are good at control, and arguably better at feeding for comebacks, especially Mark Coffey. Coffey is intentionally in the ring when Mastiff runs wild, because nobody was going to take a higher backdrop than Mark. Mastiff hits an awesome Finlay roll into Wolfgang with Mark on his shoulders, hits a German on Mark, headbutt to Joe, cannonball to Mark, and then we get stereo dives from The Hunt. It was a great finishing stretch, and I had no clue who was going to take it, as all were very good at hitting something cool and then getting taken out. Joe wound up leveling Boar with a lariat after Wolfgang took out Mastiff, and yes I'm going to need more trios matches. We've seen some good trios with bruisers, let's see a flier trios!

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NXT UK Worth Watching: OHNO! Imperium! Williams!

WALTER/Fabian Aichner/Marcel Barthel vs. Pete Dunne/Tyler Bate/Trent Seven NXT UK 4/20 (Aired 6/12/19) (Ep. #46)

ER: NXT UK really doesn't do many trios matches, and they have a roster that would really benefit from having some trios matches. I guess they really weren't part of traditional British wrestling (not sure I've ever seen a trios match from World of Sport, but there are a lot of things I've forgotten over the years so who knows), and there have only been a couple so far through 46 episodes of NXT UK. The highest floor NXT UK matches have strong pacing, and it's easier to pace out a trios. This was all really fun and the format made everyone's entrance into the match a little more exciting. A Pete Dunne hot tag is going to be better when he's able to tag in and hit a cool few things before being leveled by WALTER, and Bate is someone else who benefits from a tag that's not immediately stopped so he can get in all his moves. Imperium are good at controlling, sectioning off the ring, keeping things interesting by rotating guys through. WALTER felt like the real standout here, always there to cut someone off with a high kick, and his work with Dunne was especially noteworthy. WALTER is really good at setting up offense for people, and when Dunne tagged in - looking like he was just going to be getting his shit in - I loved how WALTER turned it into a much cooler segment by quickly sidestepping a moonsault and chopping Dunne in the back of his neck before locking in a rear naked. Aichner and Bartel threw themselves into their offense with gusto, like a nice Bartel kneedrop or a killer Aichner brainbuster. WALTER was really great at running things, all members of Mustache got to show off their strengths in quick bursts, with Seven chopping a great watercolor pattern on WALTER's chest, Bate getting a big double clothesline, nice dive from Seven, and then the debut of Alexander Wolfe finishes it. It's a played out way to debut someone, bring them in under a hood while announcers poorly feign confusion, but Wolfe sticks Bate with a nasty sitout powerbomb so I'm good. 

Kassius Ohno vs. Kenny Williams NXT UK 6/14 (Aired 6/19/19) (Ep. #47)

ER: Another great Ohno NXT UK performance, with him always finding ways to restrict himself during matches, always working a match specifically toward his opponent. His NXT UK run really feels like  the closest we can come to a genuine territory arrival. It has a real Finlay Return to the Indies feel to it, and that's a great feeling. Here he starts working over Williams' right arm, holding it clutched in his armpit while refusing to be shaken off. Williams tries to roll him off with an armdrag, Ohno rolls through with him and comes up trapping the same arm. Ohno put on a clinic of handless limb control, bending Williams' arm at the elbow just by moving his body. Just as I'm wondering how Kenny is going to get out of it he leaps up and grabs Ohno in a headscissors, forcing Ohno to rope break. I was wondering where Ohno was going to take the arm control, but instead Williams got cute with a sunset flip attempt and Ohno stomped him right on the underside of the jaw. 

And from then on Ohno does not give one good damn about Williams' arm, just wrecking Kenny with chops and strikes, hard boots, flattens him with a Finlay roll (there's that name again...), and comes up with several cool ways to shove Williams' throat into the ropes. I do think Williams took it down a bit with his comeback, breaking the nice rhythm they had going. There was just a bit too much hesitation with a few of his moves, and Ohno is someone with precise timing. Ohno's sequences are all tightly orchestrated, so it's obvious when Williams is making him wait too long on a mark. It's not super offensive, and he still manages a couple cool things like a multi step ankle pick, and it's mostly a strong pairing. Ohno hits knees on his senton after being too cocky, but I think Williams needed to work quicker than he did. It felt like Ohno had to sell too long for offense that looked like some of Williams' weakest. The worst offender was him doing a sloppy upside down rebound off the ropes (similar to a poor Jon Moxley night) and hitting a too pulled penalty kick after. I mean...he could have just kicked Ohno. He didn't need to navigate a ropes course before kicking him. 

Kenny hits a dive and waits a bit too long to hit a back elbow off the top into the ring, and things immediately get great again when Ohno cuts him off and aims to murder. Williams tries more silly flouncy rope tricks and Ohno rams him throat first into the ropes again, then doesn't waste time smashing him in the back of the head with a roaring elbow while Williams was still hung up in the ropes. These two match up again 9 months from now, in a match I saw before I saw this match. I think their second match is better, but they make a great set as both matches are very different. Ohno could have had unique matches with every member of the UK roster several times through. There's no reason this couldn't be the reality we are living right this moment. 

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NXT UK Worth Watching: WALTER! Mansoor! Devlin! Banks!

Mansoor vs. Travis Banks NXT UK 4/6 (Aired 5/1/19) (Ep. #40)

ER: This is fairly low end among the recommended NXT UK matches, but a surprising Mansoor performance really elevated it for me. Where has this Mansoor been? Mansoor has been in several matches I've enjoyed, but never like this. Normally he is the same generic highflyer babyface that WWE turns all of their highflyers into, with their only personality being their ethnicity. Here, Mansoor is heel, and he works the match as if he's heel Alex Wright working as the Sheik. It's an awesome combination and Mansoor shows more personality here than in even his best babyface performances. I liked his cocky kip-ups and cartwheels to break wrist locks, and how he yelled at Banks to get off him on a rope break. 

And instead of doing flippy babyface offense, Mansoor changes up his offense to work heel, with my favorite bit of offense a running throat thrust, looked great. He shoves Banks off the top to the floor in a violent way, and stooges nicely to set up Banks' offense. Not only did Mansoor change his offense to work as a heel, but he bumps like a heel too, and that impresses me even more. He takes a couple comical trampoline bumps for Banks, bouncing and recoiling off ropes (like good versions of Rock taking a stunner), and leans into Banks' best stuff. Banks pastes him with a punt from the apron, and the tope he hits after completely smashes Mansoor. Mansoor caught this dive like a champ, just standing right in the path and getting leveled by it. Fired up Banks is fun, but he's even more fun with heel Mansoor playing into and off of it all. This only goes 6 minutes, and wraps up far too neatly, with Banks hitting the Kiwi Crusher without any struggle, and if they added a wrinkle or two I would recommend it even more. As it is, it surprised me, and I like being surprised.   

WALTER vs. Jordan Devlin NXT UK 4/6 (Aired 5/1/19) (Ep. #40)

ER: I was expecting this to be a bit bigger than it was, but enjoyed what we got. As someone who watched very little NXT UK (before starting going through all the episodes from the beginning), I was embracing my unfamiliarity with the product and letting the show lay out who was important, who was a threat. And through the first 30 or so episodes nobody seemed like as much of a threat as Jordan Devlin. And I don't think anyone on the roster has been hurt by the arrival of WALTER as much as Jordan Devlin has. Devlin's spot on the ladder became noticeably lower the moment WALTER showed up, and seeing how this match was worked - knowing how dominant Devlin was presented over the first several months of the program - is fairly definitive proof of that. All that aside, the match is really fun and any bitterness over it may just be me wishing I didn't have to see so much Pete Dunne in the title picture, as Devlin brings far more interesting match layouts than Dunne. This was worked with Devlin desperately trying to evade WALTER, outright running from him for the first couple minutes, and of course getting caught and getting brutalized. WALTER crunches him with chops and suplexes, WALTER matches him impressively with speed, knocks him around, and it leads to a cool turning point where WALTER tries to press Devlin back into the ring, falls short, and Devlin gets tied up in the ropes. 

But Devlin gets a shot in at WALTER's leg, and begins to exploit it. WALTER is really great at selling a knee, because he doesn't do any awful melodramatics, and instead sells more like someone walking down stairs after a day of too many squats. He's really good at selling leg tightness, and Devlin has hard enough kicks that they are believably damaging to the big man. WALTER also starts bleeding out of the mouth, which gives us the great visual of blood streaming down WALTER's cheek. They work a nice balance of Devlin wearing down WALTER, but having to get too close to do so, so still getting rocked by loud chops or tossed with a highlight reel Saito suplex. The only thing really holding the match back, was that no matter how effective Devlin's leg attacks were, it never felt possible that Devlin could beat WALTER. I think it was a mistake pairing the two so early, as I think this was a match that actually could have been built to if they didn't have their WALTER/Dunne blinders on. So it never felt like WALTER could lose, and that's a shame because Devlin is someone that had been built up strongly enough to plausibly beat him. Still, the match rocked, and we'll see where it all goes from here. 

PAS: I haven't seen much of Devlin before and he kind of strikes me as just a white guy with pace and nice abs. Still WALTER is an evocative enough worker, that he can do something cool with a white guy with pace and nice abs. I really liked the work on the leg, Devlin really chopped up the quad and knee and it actually made WALTER a bit vulnerable,  that and the bloody mouth actually had me buying the near falls, when I figured it would be more of a steamrolling, that Saito suplex did look awesome too. WALTER did feel a bit inevitable, and although I hate to say this, I feel Devlin could have used one more kickout. 

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NXT UK Worth Watching: Ohno! WALTER! Bartel! Aichner! Dennis! Williams!

Kassius Ohno vs. WALTER NXT UK 1/27 (Aired 2/27/19) (Ep. #31)

ER: Ohno is someone who can work tiny masterpieces in just 10 minutes, so of course these two get to the point quick and don't abuse nearfalls. No, instead they just hit each other, working in rhythm but doing things to break each other's rhythm. We got plenty of big chops, WALTER built to big kicks, Ohno tried to slow him down with a cravat, and occasionally he'd hit a nerve and WALTER would plow him over. Ohno took an almost Harley Race bump to the floor when WALTER kicked him in the ropes, and he kept trying to come back firing, with WALTER absorbing a bit while laying in wait. I loved Ohno hitting a senton on WALTER's arm when WALTER was rolling back in to the ring, and we get a fun sequence where WALTER grabs for a sleeper but Ohno blocks it by grabbing WALTER's arm and thumb. WALTER eventually gets that sleeper, Ohno grabs the ropes, but WALTER smacks his arms away and drops him with a German suplex. WALTER-as-weapon is always fun, and it was fortuitous that Nigel was comparing WALTER to young Andre, and not long afterward WALTER ran and flattened Ohno with a bombs away. Ohno's missed moonsault is an impressive spot, made more impressive when a WALTER dropkick sends him the rest of the way across the ring right after, and I am a huge fan of these under 10 minute Ohno matches that end with no overkill. They have a bigger war in them, but I was into these warning shots, and I think it's the best, most complete NXT UK match we've seen so far.

(This match landed on our 2019 Ongoing MOTY List. My review here has some additions and changes from the original.)

Eddie Dennis vs. Ligero NXT UK 2/23 (Aired 3/20/19) (Ep. #34)

ER: We've had some fun short Eddie Dennis matches against smaller guys, but they've mostly been under 5 minutes. This was the first substantial one and it was good, nice chemistry between he and Ligero. Some of Ligero's offense doesn't quite work against the taller Dennis. The set up on the lower rope cutter could have been better, and I wish that move wasn't a thing he did every match, it can feel a little shoehorned in. But Dennis is good at missing offense to set up Ligero, and things got really good when Dennis caught a Ligero dive and splatted him on the apron. Ligero really throws himself into the turnbuckles on Irish whips, Dennis works a nice cravat, and I think it's great that Dennis throws his clotheslines that miss the same way as the clotheslines that hit, makes everything mean more. Ligero's comeback works, because Dennis is smart in the ways he bumps around for him, including a nice bump to the floor to set up and awesome Ligero slingshot rana. We get a nice springboard splash and Ligero's code red was pulled off really well, but Dennis catches Liger with a great superplex and ends things a short while after. This was filled with a ton of moves, but they all felt smartly placed throughout, never drifting into back and forth. It felt like Dennis sold it all appropriately, Ligero really got planted by all of Dennis's big offense, and it ended right when it should have. They knew exactly how much material they had and they didn't overstuff it. 

Marcel Barthel/Fabian Aichner vs. Kenny Williams/Amir Jordan NXT UK 2/23 (Aired 4/3/19) (Ep. #36)

ER: I've said this several times before, but NXT UK really excels at the kind of match where one side gobbles up 80% of a match while the other side hangs on, and they know how to make that imbalance action packed and always interesting, even when the winner isn't in doubt. And yet sometimes there are surprises, and while they've been giving the Williams/Jordan team some surprise wins lately (their first wins on the brand), I was still surprised by the match ending twist. The bulk of the match was Aichner and Barthel dishing out perhaps their most impressive beating yet, every single thing they did had extra mustard on it, and this felt like they were really making examples of Williams and Jordan. Barthel refused to play along with Jordan's silliness and instead cross chopped him in the throat. That was early in the match, but every single Aichner/Barthel cut off spot was just as sudden and violent. Aichner gave this really fun tiring performance, as he was constantly flipping back and forth between hitting a big power move and taking a huge bump to the floor. Aichner took no less than three bumps to the floor off Williams' offense, flipping through the ropes and splatting off a rana, getting kicked off the apron, eating a great Williams baseball slide dropkick as he was getting up to the apron, all this great aggressive bumping that was counterbalanced by aggressive sudden cutoffs. The double teams were fantastic, like Barthel distracting Williams and Jordan while Aichner ran in and hit both with lariats to the back of their heads, or Barthel hitting a brutal dropkick on Williams after Williams was hung up in the ropes after dispatching Aichner, or that big spinebuster slam into Barthel punt that I was certain was the easy finish. Williams kneeing Aichner in the head on a vertical suplex, then getting a narrow escape schoolboy for the photo finish sneak win, looked really good and the reversal felt honest. This was easily my favorite Williams/Jordan tag, holding up their end while Aichner and Barthel looked super threatening even with the loss. 

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NXT UK Worth Watching: Barthel! Aichner! Mark Coffey! WALTER! Mustache Mountain!

Marcel Barthel/Fabian Aichner vs. Trent Seven/Tyler Bate NXT UK 1/13 (Aired 1/30/19) (Ep. #27)

ER: This was great, probably the best UK tag match so far. This was a more successful version of the GYF vs. Mustache tag from TakeOver, with all the fat trimmed out and nothing but action remaining. This is half the time of that tag and really hits the target. The first 2/3 of this felt like a great early 90s WCW tag, with no overly long heat sequence or too long shine. It had quick tags and constant momentum changes, making it feel more like a Brainbusters/Fantastics match, which is a great thing to see in modern wrestling. Barthel is really great at getting into position for offense, and that's important against someone like Bate who goes through a lot of "same moves in the same order" offense. The quick tags by both sides made this match feel more epic than it probably was, as I was shocked it was only a 13 minute run time (felt longer, in a good way). Aichner and Barthel control with cool suplexes and body scissors, both Bate and Seven get runs at wild hot tags (I really liked Seven running wild with a DDT, snapdragon, big lariat, and Bate going wild with a no hands running plancha to the floor), and they did a great job of ramping up the crazy. 

The teamwork from Barthel/Aichner is excellent, and they're smart about using Bate's actual best strength: running into painful offense. My least favorite parts of Bate matches is when everyone has to line up to take his offense in a specific order. I never like when guys selfishly derail things like that. But he has a real gift for taking some stupid bumps and crash landing his body in very unselfish ways. There was an awesome moment here when he went to do his Ray Stevens shoulder spring into the ropes, except he springs directly into a Barthel enziguiri. Bate has a way of committing to these spots that I truly admire. It always surprises me, because when he does his own offense there is always him waiting for guys to make sure they're in proper position; but when the plan is for him to intentionally miss a tope or something he just does that tope the exact same way he would have done it if someone were catching him. So he flies into that top rope and just catches Barthel's boot between the eyes, and it looked so great I was hoping it would be the finish. Bate's willingness to die at some point of a big match always makes it more annoying when he comes back with his planned comeback, but again, Barthel/Aichner are great at taking fast offense (it's not easy to plausibly take that rolling double kappo kick but GYV and these two make it look good). The finishing stretch is hot, and while I wish Barthel and Aichner would have won (Mustache Mountain is already established and I'm really not sure losses would hurt them at this point, the others have far more to gain with a win), this whole thing was great action. 

Mark Coffey vs. WALTER NXT UK 1/13 (Aired 2/6/19) (Ep. #28)

ER: NXT UK is great at delivering on these compact ass kicking matches that get out of there before any of the violence is deemed pointless by repetition. If two guys are beating the hell out of each other, you really only need several minutes of it, as the longer it goes the more redundant the damage becomes. WALTER debuted in ring last week, crushing Jack Starz, and I like how they sent him out the next week against someone much closer to his size. A WALTER squash is plenty fun, but seeing him trade chops and clotheslines with another big guy is much more fun. Coffey does cool things with his control, and I think a lot of his offense hit even harder than WALTER's. Coffey's chops can't come close to matching WALTER's, but his body punches sure as hell hit harder. Coffey also throws hard kicks to WALTER's back, stomps his calf to set up a chinlock, works in and out of a snug back stretch, and a truly great elbow smash to WALTER's jaw. Having a big meaty opponent gives a nice canvas for WALTER's offense, big strikes landing hard across a broad surface. He drops Coffey with a nasty backdrop on the apron, throws loud chops in the corner, hits a nasty running kick, and stretches Coffey over the top rope by jamming his boot underneath Coffey's chin. More chops, uppercuts, clubs to the chest, both guys really dealing, all of it heavy. Match ends a little simply, with a WALTER dropkick and powerbomb. It wrapped things up a little neatly, but I much prefer the match wrapped up neatly in 6 minutes than seeing 10 more minutes of chop exchanges. This is one of the harder hitting NXT UK matches we've gotten so far, here's to more!

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2020 Ongoing MOTY List: WALTER vs. Holland

26. WALTER vs. Ridge Holland NXT UK 3/7 (Aired 9/3/20)

ER: We're over 5 months into quarantine and they reveal that they've just been sitting on matches like this? Why?? They've been airing months of "classic" matches and they had this unseen tidy heavyweight collision the whole time? What else are they keeping from us? Whatever the answers, I'm glad we eventually got this little gem. There was no backing down here, just WALTER reddening Holland's chest with chops while Holland threw lariats to the side of WALTER's neck. WALTER makes a favorite wrestler decision of mine, to just try to wreck a guy's arm to prevent him from throwing so many lariats, and because Holland is more stubborn than most men it only leads to more ass kicking. These two rams kept butting, and it got better the longer they kept it up. 

WALTER was really cruel, dropping Holland with a back suplex on the apron, stomping Holland right on the neck when Holland tried to bridge out of some matwork, and they work the kind of match where even a bodyslam feels like a finisher. Holland kept running into chops and a big kick, kept coming back with lariats to the neck, and I loved him powering through a WALTER sleeper to get him into a torture rack. He just kept going and growing, trying to put WALTER through the mat with a real ass overhead belly to belly suplex, big powerbomb, and an almost northern lights bomb. WALTER always comes off calm when he is starting to lose control, and appears to get more focused and tighten up his moveset. He doesn't take risks, throws in smart things like blocking a Holland lariat attempt, and just goes into this clubbing arms/sleeper mode. His uranage was great, and while I wish we hadn't gotten interference to lead to the finish, Holland quickly headbutting Wolfe out of the way only to eat a nasty high kick and lariat is a cool big man finish. So seriously, what other unseen matches are they sitting on?

PAS: Fun big boy punch out. This had more selling then most of your Big Japan matches in this style, more just two big dudes toughing it out than no-selling and making faces. Holland has real farm boy strength and looked great hoisting WALTER up for a monster belly to belly suplex. This wasn't a heavyweight jumping into a suplex, this was a big guy getting thrown. Great looking short headbutt by Holland, from a guy who definitely used that to drive a pint glass into someones cheek in Essex. I always like how WALTER breaks blood vessels and Holland was totally bruised up by the end of this, although he totally gave as much as he took. Short, simple, violent and effective wrestling.


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WWE 305 LIVE: WALTER! Mastiff! Bronson! Dain!

Killian Dain vs. Bronson Reed NXT 2/26/20 - SKIPPABLE

ER: This was some pretty dry big man wrestling. It had cool moves that might make for a decent highlight reel, but both of these guys were having a constant contest to see who could be worse at getting into position for moves, and I think Dain is somehow still the worst at it. Dain puts in no effort whatsoever to make it look like Reed is naturally stringing offense, he clearly looks like someone trying to make Reed look as bad as possible by getting to their marks way too early. Watch the sequence where Reed hits a back suplex, and Dain casually crawls into the corner and sets his head against the turnbuckle, eyes watching Reed the entire time to make it clear that he's waiting for Reed. And after Dain takes that hip attack, he just stands up and walks calmly to the position he needs to be in for the next piece of offense. My god Dain is trash. Earlier he hangs Reed out to dry, making Reed drape himself over the middle rope while he took an age to hit a legdrop. Reed wasn't tons better, making constant eye contact with Dain as he scooches into position to take Dain's Vader bomb, but Dain is arguably the worst on the entire roster at this kind of thing. So there may be a highlight video of this, where you can see Reed hitting a nice tope, Reed throwing a suplex, Dain landing a couple sentons and a suplex, and that will all look good. Once you see how every single one of those things was so lazily set up, none of it looks good.


WALTER vs. Dave Mastiff NXT UK 3/5/20 - VERY GOOD

ER: I keep waiting for these UK bog beasts to have an undeniable banger, but keep falling short. Still, I liked a lot of what they did here. The whole match was basically Mastiff throwing every piece of offense at WALTER, splatting him all around the ring. It's cool how little offense WALTER got, really beyond a few big chops, a running dropkick, and the big powerbomb finish, this was all about WALTER either gaining an advantage by dodging Mastiff or not dodging and getting squished. WALTER went for the powerbomb early and wound up with Mastiff plopped on his chest. WALTER got squished with a cannonball, a cool rolling senton, a regular ol' fat guy senton, and generously threw himself into a German suplex (the suplex really felt like it was 95% WALTER). But the match was also about Mastiff being able to survive as long as he did because of big WALTER misses, like a big missed splash and a sidestepped dropkick. Mastiff tired himself throwing out everything he had, misses and all, and by the time WALTER hit that powerbomb he was toast. The strength of the match was some of WALTER's selling, the way he would curl up or drag himself to the ropes after getting squished, and I love how he fell over after hitting the match ending powerbomb. I have no doubt that WALTER could easily powerbomb Mastiff, but it was one of several things he did that made Mastiff feel like a bigger deal than he looked.


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2019 Ongoing MOTY List: WALTER vs. OHNO

Kassius Ohno vs. WALTER NXT UK 1/27 (Aired 2/27/19)

ER: Big man match that goes under 10 minutes, so they get to the point quick and don't abuse nearfalls. Instead they just hit each other, working in rhythm but doing things to break each other's rhythm. We got plenty of big chops, WALTER built to big kicks, Ohno tried to slow him down with a cravat, and occasionally he'd hit a nerve and WALTER would plow him over. Ohno takes a big bump to the floor, and he keeps trying to come back firing, with WALTER absorbing a bit while laying in wait. We get a fun sequence where WALTER grabs for a sleeper but Ohno blocks it by grabbing WALTER's arm; he eventually gets it, Ohno runs to the ropes, but WALTER perseveres and drops Ohno with a German suplex. WALTER-as-weapon is always fun, and it was fortuitous that Nigel was comparing WALTER to young Andre, and not long afterward WALTER ran and flattened Ohno with a bombs away. Ohno's missed moonsault is an impressive spot, made more impressive when a WALTER dropkick sends him the rest of the way across the ring right after, and I am a huge fan of these under 10 minute Ohno matches that end with no overkill. They have a bigger war in them, but I was into these warning shots.

PAS: This was a pretty great TV match. Two guys who really hit hard and one guy in Ohno who really knows how to work a hard hitting match in an interesting way. WALTER is a guy who can be a fun dance partner for someone willing to lead. He isn't going to vary his match much, but Ohno is such a creative thinker that a 10 minute TV scrap between the two is going to be great. Lots of little cool moments, like Ohno hitting a diving elbow to the side of WALTER's head, Ohno breaking the sleeper by manipulating the thumb, WALTER hitting a big flying dropkick which flips Ohno backwards. Really fun stuff which ends right when it should. There is so much WWE to watch, that weirdly matches like this are way more under the radar then something from IWTV or even an indy lucha match. Very WCWish, although most things on Worldwide didn't get this much time to develop.


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Thursday Shoot Indy Show: WXW Ambition 8/8/19

Timothy Thatcher vs. Alexander James

PAS: James couldn't really hang with Thatcher on the mat here, but they made up for that by focusing the match around hard sharp forearms and upkicks. James really blasts Thatcher with some shots, including some nasty spinning back elbow to the throat. Kept it short and kept it stiff.

ER: This felt pretty base level for an Ambition show. We had some nice uppercuts from both, and a killer back elbow from James (my favorite part of the match), but the matwork was pretty lacking. James felt a little fish out of water off his back, and things felt fairly inevitable because of that. The standing strikes were as snug as the triangle was loose, and that's fine. I do like Thatcher's awesome single crab being used as an actual finisher. I bought it as a potential finish in Thatcher/Makabe 3, looks great.

Daniel Makabe vs. Bobby Gunns

PAS: This was fun stuff, with Makabe constantly attacking the back and limbs and Gunns trying to keep up. The constant motion is one of the things I like the most about Makabe, he never stops looking for an advantage. Gunns goes for a kneebar, and Makabe is attacking his ankle and foot, he tries for the back and Makabe is spinning away. I liked the finish, with Makabe landing an uppercut to the ribs, which Gunn's sells like a KO body shot, with Makabe able to sink the rear naked choke for the tap.

ER: I agree with Phil about Makabe's constant motion being a great part of his game. I've never watched one of his matches and thought he was ever resting on his laurels. Here he looked like he was really wearing Gunns out, and I especially loved the deadweight struggle over a waistlock, with Gunns trying to lift him into a German, shifting hips, eventually kind of getting a forward trip, but being completely surprised by Makabe's go behind into a quick German. That uppercut to the body was such an awesome spot. I loved how Gunns sold it, like he instinctively flinched to dodge it but then wound up taking it worse, like he just absorbed it with his whole torso and left him stunned, a sitting duck for Makabe to sink in the choke.

Daniel Garcia vs. Buck Gunderson

PAS: This had some cool moments and some stuff which didn't work as well, I thought both Gunderson and Garcia had cool looking takedowns, Gunderson lands a calf slicer out of nowhere, and Garcia finishes with a scissors kick takedown into a sharpshooter he just wrenches back. Still a match like this is make or break based on the strikes, and neither guy was throwing with much oomph. Garcia threw some stinker slaps, and you got to slap the shit out of someone in an Ambition fight.

WALTER vs. Mike Bailey

PAS: Short but energetic, Bailey tries to dance his way away from the charging Rhino. He even gets a knockdown with a nasty shot to the liver, but WALTER is just too big and and eventually overwhelms Bailey and gets him to tap to a boston crab. A little dry for two guys who are normally full of flash, but it was fun while it lasted.

ER: This was a little underwhelming for me, mainly because it felt like WALTER kept going down relatively easy on some strikes that didn't look great. He went down for practically every flurry from go, didn't feel like we built to any kind of surprise knockdown since we established early that anything was going to knock him down. The good shots were good, and the Boston crab finish was great, easily the best part of the match. It's like WALTER decided he didn't want to be hit anymore and just bumrushed his way into grabbing the first couple limbs he could and leaned wayyyy into it.

Timothy Thatcher vs. Daniel Makabe

ER: I really liked how this paralleled their third match from a couple weeks prior, but also had some cool shoe on other foot moments. I thought Thatcher's half crab in their match was really nasty, and now Thatcher won his first round match with that crab, and here he goes right back to it. And much like that prior match he works for Makabe's leg, grabs a heel hook after Makabe blocks the single crab attempt, lands a couple of vicious heel thrusts to Makabe's ribs while working that angle, and even goes back to his ankle lock he used in that prior match. Makabe went for the arm and the series of the two of them sinking holds and grabbing desperately for ropes was exciting as hell. Makabe's armbar looked sunk and I thought for sure it was going to finish things, but I really liked the way they moved from one mat strategy to the next. Thatcher even grabs him at one point and dishes a headbutt to just flatten both. It felt like they threw in some callbacks to that last 3-2-1 match, with Thatcher going for an enziguiri but Makabe blocking (Makabe had hit an enziguiri that lead to him hitting a snap German) and here Makabe hits an enziguiri to Thatcher's face. I did think the finish needed more mustard to be a TKO, as they ended on a couple Thatcher slaps that may have hurt but didn't really read well, and really Thatcher's running dropkick and slap were his weakest looking offense of the match. I don't want my dude out there eating a disgusting beating to make the finish look better, but it was a bit of a letdown after providing so many plausible submission finishes just a few minutes earlier.

PAS: I thought this was the least of their matches against each other, although they have set a pretty high bar. This being sort of a touring version of their 3-2-1 battle matches it missed some of the nuance and history that Makabe has with that crowd. Plenty of neat moments, lots of leglocks, and a really good example of what people can bring to the leglock table. Loved Makabe figure fouring his own legs around Thatcher's knee cap, and how Thatcher brought Makabe into his body to relieve the pressure. The finish was disappointing. I have seen Thatcher hit much harder and Makabe get hit much harder for me to buy that as a KO. Just felt pulled and weaker than it should be for that kind of finish. Cool to get to see these guys work their stuff in a different atmosphere though. They both deserve this spotlight.

Daniel Garcia vs. WALTER

PAS: They sure weren't paying WALTER by the minute here, as this was another quick one. I really like Garcia's energy and he has a meathead charisma, but man he needs to throw with more force. Him jumping WALTER at the bell would have worked way better if his stuff landed with some thud. I liked Garcia meatheading up only to get kicked in the mouth, and this was overall a fun two minutes, I just want to like Garcia more then I do.

ER: This was a much cooler short WALTER match. I dug Garcia's scrambly aggression, just swarming WALTER in an attempt to overwhelm him. And of course I love how WALTER put an immediate stop to that with a boot right to the face, then a couple to the chest for good measure. Those three kicks were arguably the nastiest three strikes thrown on the show up to this point. The finish was fantastic, with Garcia rushing in for a desperation double leg, and WALTER not budging an inch as he graciously accepts Garcia's invitation to "please, sir, please powerbomb me" and then sinks that backbreaking crab. Short but dynamite.

47. Yuki Ishikawa vs. Tyson Dux

PAS: God what a pleasure it is to watch Ishikawa work his magic. He is so slick on the mat, just finding multiple parts of the body to grip and twist, and always finding a way to reverse whatever Dux tries. Dux is fun as a jacked strong guy who would try to use his power to counter Ishikawa's technique. I was a little disappointed with his standing, he was throwing these big demonstrative elbows with a big foot stomp, this is Ishikawa you have to bring it more. That was pretty much the only flaw of this match though,  Dux hung well on the mat, and Ishikawa looked as skilled as ever. I loved this finish with Yuki dragged Dux to the mat and incredibly quickly reversing a choke into a grounded chicken wing crossface. The speed of that reversal was crazy for a guy that old, Ishikawa doesn't seem to have lost any of his pop, which is incredible.

ER: I love that Yuki Ishikawa is still putting out some of my favorite work of his illustrious career, into his 50s. His transitions look as quick as ever, which breaks my brain. This is a guy who would be fun as hell working the Champions Tour, and yet here he is still capable of wowing. I was expecting Dux to be a tomato can on the mat, but he looked more capable than a lot of people on this card. He definitely tried to brute his way through some of Ishikawa's game, and sometimes it worked. His mounted elbows looked good, but Ishikawa is a guy who has taken some grounded elbows. This whole thing was just a Yuki mat clinic. He was going to find any opening he could, and was clearly able to tap Dux in any number of ways, and it continues this cool trend of old man Ishikawa being the aggressor in fights. So many of his best matches during his "prime" saw him as the Fujiwara-esque underdog who would hang in fights long enough to catch his opponent and finish it quick. Now he's just a dude outclassing guys and forcing them to survive. That sequence of Dux working a body vice, thinking he finally had the advantage, only for Yuki to apply pressure to Dux's ankles with his thighs, allowing him to pass into a gnarly ankle lock? Brilliant. That felt like the biggest moment on the card, with Dux appropriately panicking and trying to get to the ropes while Ishikawa kept shifting wait to drag him and that bent ankle back to center. And I love when this kind of match hits that narrow escape, only for a pro like Yuki to sweep effortlessly into a killer body vice chickenwing. Ishikawa vs. Tyson Dux was not a match-up I ever expected to happen, but I'm certainly glad it did.

13. WALTER vs. Timothy Thatcher

PAS: Now that is how you do a KO finish. Thatcher barely makes it up from the powerbomb while selling paralysis in his arms, only to get met with a cricket bat swing of a clothesline for the direct KO. I really though this was Thatcher's match to win. He was able to sneak in some cool counters into Fujiwara armbars, including one while in guard after Walter punched the mat, and I also liked Thatcher wailing away at his organs with bodyshots. Still WALTER ended up being too big and strong and was able to put him down. This lacked some of the structural problems of their individual matches earlier in the show, and was a really banger way to end a tourney.

ER: Hell yeahhhhhhh THIS was what I wanted from these two. Yes yes yes yes yes. This kicked too much ass. It was 10 minutes of brutal strikes and sick twisting, and I was here for all of it. It's odd within context of the show that WALTER got weirdly overwhelmed by Mike Bailey, because the WALTER in this match was the best version of WALTER. I dug the story of WALTER coming into the match far fresher due to quicker finishes, as he looked like a guy who had saved all his strength to exact unholy punishment on Thatcher, and Thatcher was still the guy smart enough to pick his spots and hope he could hang on long enough to catch an arm. Thatcher's Fujiwaras looked finish worthy, and I loved the times he would sucker WALTER into throwing a downward strike only to grab the arm and yank, and Thatcher was throwing some absolute shots in mount, really raining down on him. I really dug the callbacks to the earlier matches, Thatcher twice going for that great single crab and WALTER aiming to snap Thatcher in half with that full crab (that I thought for sure would finish). And we got the best suplexes of the night, WALTER just chucking Thatcher in sick fashion with a killer butterfly suplex and a downright EVIL throw using only Thatcher's head. That was not a vertical suplex, that was WALTER locking in a quick guillotine choke and muscling Thatcher most of the way over by only his head and neck. Good god. WALTER was such a raging bull, really throwing full weight behind everything, and the finish was really disgusting. WALTER hits a couple powerbombs and Thatcher does this great sell where his arms straighten out and his neck strains forward, unable to sit up but sorta able to roll over, and as he staggers to his feet you see WALTER already angling off the ropes, and just wrecks Thatcher with an instant KO lariat. This was all I wanted, and it ended the show on the highest high possible.


2019 MOTY MASTER LIST

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2019 Ongoing MOTY List: Kingston vs. WALTER

20. Eddie Kingston vs. WALTER Progress Wrestling 7/6

PAS: If Eddie Kingston is retiring this year, he is going out as the best wrestler in the world. This is another absolute corker and exactly what you want from this match up on paper. Kingston is going try to stand up and fist fight with a bigger stronger guy, and going to fail in a spectacular way. This is a perfect combination of a guy who chops super hard, and a guy who sells chops better then anyone. They have a chop exchange, like every other indy match ever, but in this one Kingston does this incredible delayed sell of the chop, he rears back to crack WALTER and all of the synapse in his body collapse. I loved how both guys adjusted their normal offense as they got deeper in the weeds, Kingston can't drop WALTER with normal backfist, so he switches up to a fucking spinning straight punch, and instead of the slap down German, WALTER slaps down one arm and does a head and neck suplex which straightens Kingston's toes. I really loved this, heavyweight professional wrestling at its absolute best. Don't go Eddie, don't go.

ER: I like the different Kingston approaches to matches depending on his opponent. Here he comes in like a guy who knows odds are not on his side against a opponent who outguns him in nearly every category. WALTER hits harder, he's bigger, and he's got less injuries; Kingston is going to stand with WALTER, and Kingston knows more than anyone that is likely a losing gambit. Kingston's selling was great here - great enough that it seems almost too obvious to bring up - and I loved all of his reactions to WALTER's chops. I love when the pain hits him at different times, love when he crumbles and feebly slaps at WALTER's leg to keep him at bay, love him playing possum since he knew he was at WALTER's mercy at a couple points, love him wiggling his fingers to get some feeling going in his arm, love how he holds back midway through a chop as his shoulder flares up, etc. 

WALTER crushes as WALTER will crush, caving Kingston with chops to the chest and kicks to the head, and is right there when King starts throwing brutal backfists (not sure if intentional, but I loved that when King threw three backfists the third was lighter than the other two, like he used up "the good backfist energy" on the first two and his body was naturally holding back because his hand was hurting by the third) and a brutal rolling elbow which was arguably the nastiest shot of the match. The finish was pretty sick, Kingston getting tossed right onto his head and shoulders with a savage trap suplex, then floating over to sink in the choke on an already passed out King. I didn't love King getting thrown rudely and violently off his shoulder and popping up to hit a lariat, felt a little too on the nose 1999 All Japan (and the suplex was arguably the meanest part of the match up to that point, though little did I know what the finish would be), but that was really the only time that kind of moment was used, so the restraint actually made the other nasty throws mean a bit more. Kingston is the best in the world in 2019, the pure master of a competitive and timely losing match.


2019 MOTY MASTER LIST

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