MLJ: Volador Jr. vs Yoshitatsu Was Not Actually the Worst Match I've Ever Seen

2017-03-03 @ Arena México
Volador Jr. vs Yoshitatsu

I don't go out of my way looking for bad Volador matches. I hadn't seen any of Tatsu's run up until this. I'm behind in general. I haven't seen the Volador/Cavernario vs Guerrero/Valiente match yet, for instance. This had so much negative buzz, however, that I wanted to check it out.

The complaints, as I heard them were thus: Tatsu was careless/incompetent in taking spots/dives. Tatsu was lazy and Volador was hard working. Tatsu was just trying to figure out his new character and not have a good match. Tirantes did something beyond the pale stupid and inexplicable, presumably because he didn't have faith in Tatsu to get the finish right. Here, let me give a quick reminder on my Volador thoughts. He is excellent at hitting spots/dives. He's very hard working. His matches tend to have a lot of bloat/go on too long. He's wretched at transitions (even reusing the same one multiple times in a match in a non-story driven way), highlighting athleticism and spot over stories. So I can see how this might be horrible. You have someone in there who theoretically can't work to any of Volador's strengths and can't do anything to hide his weaknesses.

And it wasn't very good. You know what, though? I think compared to the general CMLL main event output it wasn't all that terrible either. This is a company that has Ultimo Guerrero basically having the same singles match ten times a year. It's a company that carts out Niebla in big places all the time. Very little of Tatsu's shtick was worse than that. He certainly wasn't mailing that element of his game in. If anything, he did way too much. Thanks to Volador caring enough to react to it, however, it worked decently enough within the match and they balanced it with more spots than I was expecting (though not all of them hit certainly).

There was a story. It was pretty straightforward. Tatsu was out there with the mind games, coming out and ambushing Volador. He hit a couple of big moves quickly and took an early fall. Mascara helped out a bit. Then he ended up goofing too much and stomping too little. He put his hands up to stop a potential Volador comeback across the ropes, which is a CMLL thing. It's something guys like Mascara or Sombra or Marco do all the time. It's a common CMLL trope. Then, when Tatsu went to goof on that and turned to take his shirt off, Volador rolled him up. Hell, the sheer joy on Volador's face after he got the pin was probably the most tecnico character that I've ever seen out of Volador. Moreover, I thought they did a decent job of delaying Volador hitting much here. Tatsu slipped back in to avoid/delay the dive and there was a roll up, so Volador's revenge was more comedy oriented which fit the match and frankly was a little bit refreshing in modern CMLL. This is a tradition which has tecnicos often clowning rudos at length. It's nice to see it now and again on top. We get so many matches a year streaming that it's okay for them to run one that's a little bit different now and again.

The tercera was a goofier and sloppier version of what you'd normally get out of a Volador match. There were superkicks and no selling. There were a few less spots than normal and a bit more shtick. I kind of liked the handshake stuff. I think the crowd wasn't shitting on it in the least. It was different enough and Volador, while a little exasperated, was also committed to selling it. He was having fun with it and that's a different sort of engagement than just "working hard" and hitting stuff well. There were even a couple of transitions/spots (like Tatsu missing the big boot in the ropes and then back body dropping Volador over) that I thought were pretty imaginative. Were there some bad points of execution? Sure. There was one pump kick which was terrible, but I'm not sure whose fault that was. And of course, there was Tatsu absolutely failing to catch Volador on the second dive. Volador probably didn't need to go for that second dive in the first place. In a match like this, the tope (which Tatsu took well enough) would have been fine. He could have leaned into the comedy a bit more and the crowd (who tends to like that sort of thing anyway) wouldn't have complained. Maybe it'd get a half star less from people on the internet who only care about spots and dives and not other elements of working. As it was, they hit a decent amount of stuff, maybe 2/3rds of what might normally get hit in a singles match with no stakes like this.

Then there's the finish. It wasn't good, certainly, but it kind of fit. You can logic it fairly easily, with Tirantes going into business for himself. This sort of thing happens a few times a year and people get up in arms about it. So long as it's not happening every week like in indy LA Park matches or something, it's less of a big deal. So long as it's not destroying great matches, it's less of a big deal. This was the perfect match for Tirantes to do something ridiculous in. What impressed me the most (and full credit to Volador here), was how natural the reactions seemed, and how well they recovered. This wasn't the sort of match which needed six finisher kick outs. Tatsu got distracted by the culture clash and the strangeness of what was going on. Volador was the more poised wrestler and took advantage of it. One finisher later and this was over. The lack of protection on the dive was a disaster. Tirantes was absurd.

Judging it on certain metrics, it was actually kind of okay. Not every match, and not even every Volador, Jr. match, needs to look the same. I liked this a lot more than I would have probably liked Tatsu trying to do a straight up Sombra vs Volador style spotfest (they had the most difficulty when they tried to be that) and there were elements in here that I wish I saw out of 2016-2017 Volador a little more. I think someone like Maximo or Casas or Marco could have a pretty fun match with Tatsu actually.

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NXT Episode 215 4/3/14 Review

1. Emma vs. Sasha Banks

Good match but I don't like their trend of squeezing 5 matches into a show, as they would be much better off doing 4 matches and allotting more time. Sasha was really good here, kind of a one woman show. I liked all of the little things she did like sell her butt cheek and shake out her leg after a missed leg drop, and especially loved when she actually tried to trip Emma on a drop down. YES! More tripping on drop downs please. She really flew right at Emma's ankles. Her smack talking is always great as well, and she really flew into Charlotte on a (purposely) miscommunicated drop toehold. It was set up the way Rey sets up a 619, and Sasha really committed right into the ropes/Charlotte. Emma didn't really have much of a hand in the good parts of this, but they keep telling me that everybody likes her, so....

They make Mojo Rawley look really good in an exciting 30 second video. Now I'm curious to see what other wrestlers they can work 30 second highlight video magic with. What can they do with the Godfather? Or Scott Putski?

2. The Ascension vs. Jack Hurley & John Vandal

It's surprising to me just how much I like the Ascension as a squash tag team. My introduction to them was their WWE debut and I don't think many people would disagree when I say their WWE run has been extremely underwhelming. And seeing as how they're so good at working squashes - and keep in mind I don't think that's a backhanded compliment. It takes certain skill to do cool stuff in a concise way. There's a little art to it. But seeing how good they are at working squashes, it's like they got brought up to WWE and were told "So all of that cool stuff you did in NXT? Don't do any of that." One of those classic things where they took away the one thing that might have set them apart. So seeing them in NXT is surprising. They still look like cosplay goofs going to a Venture Bros. Con as part of the Guild of Calamitous Intent, but they know how to beat up jobbers. And in this case, jobbers who seemingly got their names chosen out of 1994 Thrasher magazines. Kelly Ripper! Street Slasher Tracy Slater! Hurley and Vandal (their buddies Burton and Quicksilver were waiting in the car outside) take a nice beating, but Ascension are like Faces of Fear nasty, peaking with Hurley getting bodyslammed twice into the ropes. The first time he gets body slammed into the top and middle rope, so he ends up bouncing to the mat on the back of his head, and it's like Konnor heard that old jazz adage of "If you hit a bad note, hit it again so the crowd thinks it was on purpose", so he picks up Hurley and dangerously does the same thing. Their legsweep/flying back elbow finish looks really great, and yeah, I look forward to Ascension squash matches. This is a development I was not expecting.

3. Xavier Woods vs. Brodus Clay

This is odd as Woods comes out using Brodus Clay's Funkasaurus music, and Clay just comes out to some drum beats and shouting sounds while wearing jogging pants. There haven't really been many guys who've fallen off the WWE map faster than Clay. This is not even two years ago, and he was being advertised as being part of the WWE Scooby Doo movie, which means as that movie was made he seemed like a guy who should be in it, and the ad for the movie runs right before a match where he's been demoted to NXT. The match is plenty fun as Woods jumps him with a bunch of nice kicks and keeps outrunning him, and once Clay catches him the match never turns back. Clay does a couple nice bombs away variations, hits a nice shoulder tackle, big powerbomb, nasty little scoop brainbuster; It was constructed nicely, with Woods not getting any comebacks, but there being moments where you *thought* he might get one, like Clay going up for a splash and taking a bit too long, making you think Woods will move. But it would have been silly for him to do so after what he had taken. Brodus cuts a nice short promo after about how WWE took his dignity, took his girls, took his music, took his pride, so now he's just left with Brodus, and he wants the NXT belt.

And I really liked Neville's promo about how guys from Raw and Smackdown couldn't just come down and be big fish anymore, saying Brodus must have been living in a cave the last couple years, how NXT guys are as good as any of the Raw/Smackdown guys, and he'd need to do more to prove himself worthy of a shot. Nice stuff.

4. Yoshi Tatsu vs. Tyler Breeze

Poor little Yoshi. He's so good at making offense look nice, which can be a kiss of death. He doesn't get one move in during this short not-even-two-minute match. Breeze is a guy I like though, I notice him doing new things I like in almost every match. Here I noticed his great side headlock, just a perfect grounded headlock, with Tatsu on his side and Breeze on his back, pushing up with his legs for leverage while squeezing hard on Tatsu's neck. Tatsu sold it great but it also looked like he was being choked out. Breeze has a nice enough side headlock that it looked better than his spin kick finisher.

Paige cuts an unfortunate promo saying she "expected people to want her title, expected people to come in her face." I would say that's worse than getting your leg kicked out of your leg.

5. Corey Graves vs. Sami Zayn

Not quite the match I was expecting, but interesting for what they tried to do and overall well executed by Zayn. Graves ended up controlling most of this match, and the match got about 13 minutes. I like Graves a lot but his stuff wasn't looking as violent here as it was supposed to look, part of that being that it's hard to make mounted punches look good while still making it look realistic that Zayn wouldn't be unconscious. But anyway, Graves controls for a long time, and amusingly does that same nice side headlock that I praised Breeze for. Like the same exact one. Somebody at NXT is teaching everybody a real nice headlock. Graves also does another nice one where he lies on his stomach and wrenches it in. Regal on commentary is just about the best at putting over why a headlock like this is so damaging. Zayn's comeback is nice with some flash roll ups, but then they end up bumping heads and Zayn starts selling concussion symptoms. It was weird as the back of Graves' head bumped Zayn's forehead, but Graves didn't sell a bunch and the announce crew immediately acted like something was seriously wrong with Zayn. Zayn manages to fight off Graves a bit, hits a nice back elbow, a good punch, but then tries to go up top for something and starts wobbling on the ropes, losing his balance, trying again. His acting is really good throughout, but once you start doing the concussion stuff you're walking kind of a fine line of taste within a worked wrestling context. So the announcers are going into Owen voice and asking for the match to be stopped, then Graves locks on his submission for the win. So yeah, I get what they were going for, and Zayn honestly could not have done a better job, but portraying concussions in a match is a real slippery slope and it would have definitely been better if they had just worked an actual match with a finish.


NXT EPISODE GUIDE

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NXT Episode 214 3/27/14 Review

1. Mojo Rawley vs. CJ Parker

Still can't believe they were dumb enough to have Parker cut a promo wearing a nice suit the other week. You might as well wear a shirt that says NARC when you go on your Umphrey's Mcgee cruise. And man Mojo stinks. He doesn't take an interesting beating, and this whole match was CJ dominating with nice offense, until the go home sign gets lit and Mojo hits his two pieces of offense (butt butt and a light as a feather Bombs Away) for the win. Terrible structure. Parker looks good in the ring though, and knows how to carry himself and somehow not seem phony. He hits a nice standing spin kick (think Booker T's old standing leg lariat) and throws decent punches, had a nice immediacy to things while he was putting the boots and fists to Mojo. But they seem pretty committed to making Mojo "a thing" sooooo...I mean it looks good when Gronk is sitting in the crowd with his family all wearing your shirts, but as far as defensive linemen making a transition to wrestling he doesn't appear to be quite as good as Steve McMichael. They talk up his freakish strength but none of that strength comes across in his matches. I don't think he's been doing this too terribly long and he's obviously a high level athlete, so there's obviously room for improvement, I just wish he was doing his improving off TV.

2. Xavier Woods vs. Tyler Breeze

Fun match. The more I see Breeze the more I really like him. He's really smart in the ring and lays out spots in a fun Finlay type of way. He's not an ass kicker like Finlay obviously, but he's creative in similar ways. He has cool fake outs and comes up with neat ways to play possum, plus he does a lot of little things really well like hold snug headlocks and bump appropriately for the move being delivered. He's a big bumper, but he doesn't go big on every single bump. He and Xavier match up nicely but watching the two of them it's clear how much Breeze outclasses him.

3. Corey Graves vs. Yoshi Tatsu

Poor Yoshi Tatsu. Knocked down to losing 3 minute matches on NXT. So much for his revenge for the Graves attack on him a few weeks ago. Although I suppose him getting paid by WWE for 5+ years is something nobody would have predicted, so good for him! Tatsu is fun here keeping Graves off balance, with hard chops and neat things like kidney punches and leg kicks to the front of Graves' thighs. Graves starts targeting Tatsu's knee and Tatsu sells it well enough to make it look like an actual injury. Graves has cool leg whips, like when Mike Modest would whip a guy's arm into the mat, but with Tatsu's leg. He ends the match by doing a sliding tackle into Tatsu's patella which is just gross. Never seen a guy do a chop block to the FRONT of someone's leg before. Yikes. Graves gets the tap but this was tragically short, like 3 minutes. I'd love to see what these two could do with 9 minutes. Shame. Guess we all needed that Mojo Rawley match.

4. Charlotte vs. Natalya

Hey this was quite good as well! And again, they seemed to really be going places with it until the inevitable run in finish. Charlotte works sort of sloppy but here it works for her as it makes her strikes feel dangerous in an untrained way. She throws a few elbows that seem to land hard, and a big lariat with full follow through. The mat stuff is really engaging too, Nattie getting to break out some tricks she doesn't really get to break out on the main brand. There were a couple of spots with Charlotte attempting to lock on a poor figure 4 which lead to nice Nattie reversals, including a small package that I thought was the finish. I was getting ready to include this in my list of recommendable NXT matches before the finish.

5. Bo Dallas vs. Adrian Neville

Eh, pretty disappointing for the time allotted. They didn't make very good use of the early minutes, and then when Neville hit a moonsault to the floor Alex Riley and Tensai acted like it was something they had never seen before. Neville does some things that most people can't do, but it's like they were dying to talk about Neville's flying and just couldn't wait to use the line for something more uncommon. Things pick up when Dallas hits a big clothesline which, naturally, Neville bumps all haywire for. But the pacing just never quite clicked and Riley/Tensai kept trying to make it sound like they were going through an EPIC WAR, with stuff like "how are both men even on their FEET right now!?!?" even though it was about 6 minutes into the match. Neville hits a nice kick from the apron and then goes for the Red Arrow, but Dallas gets knees up and you know Neville planted right into those knees. That looked like a finish right there. It's not, and that's fine, but then they lose me by having both men knocked out and struggling to get to their feet, as I guess Neville landing gut first on Dallas' knees really took it out of Dallas. And mere moments after just being barely able to beat that count back to their feet, Neville has found the strength to hit his inverted 450. Okay. This was very disappointing coming off their good ladder match from Arrival. That match was laid out really nicely but perhaps I gave them too much credit for that. It's possible that show had more hands on match layout from agents, and they leave guys more up to their own devices on the regular shows. That's probably too broad and I'm sure it's not totally that way, but it doesn't sound that crazy.

If they had divvied up the allotted match time a bit better this could have been a very good week of TV. But they did not and so it was not. This week it became more apparent just how lousy Alex Riley is on commentary, and Tensai isn't much better. Both come off incredibly insincere and often come off like total shills. It's not a shock to hear a bunch of worthless platitudes being spouted on WWE TV, but people like Regal and Renee Young sound so natural and genuine on commentary that it's tough listening to these hacks.


NXT EPISODE GUIDE

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NXT Episode 211 3/6/14 Review

1. Adrian Neville vs. Camacho

Oh yeahhhhh I forgot about the Camacho/Hunico tag team. And this whole thing was more of a victory lap for Neville after winning the title. Camacho gets a couple forearms to start, but the rest is Neville throwing some nice dropkicks and easily setting up the Red Arrow. Camacho doesn't get talked about during the match, but amusingly right after losing Regal says "and this was a good win for Neville, as Camacho is no joke". Seems like something you'd say before a guy gets steamrolled. Rachel comments that Neville looks like a hobbit without any SFX makeup, and moments later he says in a promo that he looks like "a crazy elf man".

Bo Dallas cuts a nice heel promo on Neville postmatch, congratulating him, but saying he didn't actually pin him, he just climbed a ladder "like a dad cleaning out the gutters" (awesome line), and cashed in his rematch clause.

We also get a couple backstage segments with Flair and Charlotte confronting Emma and Paige. Flair comes off like a leery creep and Charlotte can't really talk well. She talks like Lenny James doing his awful American accent. But one thing is obvious is that people handle their NXT promos very calm, as opposed to in big booming "promo voice" and it works so much better. Bo Dallas was nice and calm in his segment, and it got over his intentions much better. Just a few short sentences. You don't really need much more. So even though Charlotte doesn't talk well, she easily got over that she was gunning for the belt, and really that's all that's needed.

2. Emma vs. Charlotte

Short match but decent. Emma hits a nice thrust kick to Charlotte's throat on a corner charge. Charlotte goes down with a convincing ankle injury after a landing, Banks distracts Emma from the apron, and then Charlotte does a nice cocky kip up behind Emma's back before hitting a nasty flipping DDT/Blockbuster.

3. Yoshi Tatsu vs. Corey Graves

Match doesn't happen as Graves gets on the mic, runs down Sami Zayn for having a lot of heart, but never actually winning matches. Graves walks out on the match, Tatsu follows and gets leveled with a clothesline, then feebly counted out. Graves rolls him back in and locks on his really nasty looking inverted figure 4/heel hook that's apparently called Lucky 13.

In a backstage promo Xavier Woods calls himself Creed and calls Rusev an Ivan Drago looking mother. I assume Woods has never in his life seen a Rocky film, as nothing about Rusev looks like Ivan Drago. There are about 20 guys in NXT who are closer matches to Drago.

4. Adam Rose vs. Wesley Blake

Blake is working a cowboy gimmick but just has shiny black boots, not even the sweet Windham cowboy wrestling boots. This is Rose's debut (as Rose) and Byron Saxton and Tensai are unbearable at putting over just how much of a fun guy Rose is. This gimmick had small time written all over it. Saxton honestly says the phrase "This guy's fun!" six different times in this match. It's so desperate. Rose has a nice stiff shoulderblock, bad mounted MMA downward elbows, and a decent falling clothesline.

5. Corey Graves vs. Sami Zayn

Good match. These NXT main events have been delivering. Graves works a good ground game and really any time these two are in close it's good. There's a lot of detail to their headlocks, scraping ears, clawing at mouths, grabbing at jaws, wrenching necks; all of it felt like actual nastiness and not just grabbing a perfunctory headlock to start. Graves is really good at smothering Zayn, locking in a snug quarter nelson. It's fun listening to Regal on commentary as he's practically giddy with Graves' submissions. Graves doesn't even work over Zayn's surgically repaired knee, and Regal puts over how Graves already knows the knee is bugging him, so he's using that to his advantage to work over the rest of Zayn's body. Once they get up things stay good as Zayn fights back and eventually goes for his nice running boot in the corner, but Graves cuts him off with an exclamation point elbow, then hits an awesome backbreaker from a samoan drop, kinda rolling Zayn off his shoulders and onto his knee. Graves goes to lock on Lucky 13 and Zayn gets a quick, smart roll-up that I thought was the end but was pleased when Graves kicked out. The end sequence is nice with Zayn going for his tornado DDT, Graves catching him and going for that awesome backbreaker, but Zayn reversing that with another really great roll up. Match was probably only 6 minutes but I really loved it.


Nice show that set up some things for the future, had a nice main, and a dorky Sami Callihan as Adam Rose's DJ. Adam Rose has always come off really cringeworthy to me, so I'm not looking forward to his NXT run. I'm avoiding looking timelines up so I'm more surprised by things, but I'm REALLY hoping Rose got a main roster call up quick into the gimmick.  They were already desperately putting over just how much fun he is in his debut, instead of just letting it happen. When Michael Cole was doing that stuff during Rose's WWE run I assumed that was classic WWE micromanaging, but they were doing it right from the first second of the gimmick.


NXT COLLECTED REVIEWS

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WWECW Workrate Report 8/11/09

1. Zack Ryder vs. Shelton Benjamin

This feud was set up last week when Ryder jumped Shelton while Shelton was singing a Hootie & the Blowfish song. Although Matt Stryker explains that it's all about the traditionalist throwback wrestler in Shelton Benjamin taking on the modern style of Ryder. Yep, the first thing I think about when I watch Shelton Benjamin matches is how much of a throwback he is, just he and Ole Anderson bitching about when guys REALLY knew how to cut off a ring. I do think Ryder works better as a heel, but we have problems as Benjamin doesn't really know how to work as a face. Ryder hits a nice dropkick off the 2nd rope and we hit a weird moment in the match where both guys start selling like they've been in a war 90 seconds in, even though only 3 moves have been done. Then a neckbreaker happens and I genuinely can't tell who was giving the neckbreaker and who was taking it, and I don't know if they know either as they sell it exactly the same. This seems to be something that happens in Shelton Benjamin matches, where I rewind moves and I can't tell who is supposed to be taking what, and who is doing what to whom. Ryder did a vertical suplex, Shelton flipped over and landed on his feet...and then they both fell to their backs and sold. I have zero fucking idea who did what to whom. Match only goes like 3 minutes so it's not like that was the one thing holding this back from being good.

2. Vladimir Kozlov vs. Kevin Brooks

Fans chant "You Can't Wrestle" at Kozlov and boy is that still really annoying. Kozlov and Zeke continue to try and shatter jobber vertebrae and slam the poor little guy around a bunch, whipping the back of his head off the mat in the process. These really need some Chris Nowinski "The More You Know" type stats comparing back bumps to car accidents.

3. Paul Burchill vs. Yoshi Tatsu

This was really fun but then ended 2 minutes in when Katie Lea interfered. It was a really fun 2 minutes and they squeezed a whole lot of damn moves into 2 minutes, but a 2 minute match ending in interference is what it is. Burchill had an awesome double knee drop, Tatsu threw some nice kicks and a cool elbow drop, and then it all stopped. Hurricane returned and attacked Burchill post-match. I totally forgot he came back and was still in WWE this late.

4. Tyler Reks vs. Tom James

This match gets 75 seconds, so we've had 4 matches that have been given a total of 7 minutes on this episode. Fuck that noise.

5. William Regal vs. Tommy Dreamer

Once I saw the match announced I immediately assumed it was the infamous elbow match, but this was actually a different yet also completely awesome match. I'll level with you, this may have been the single greatest individual Tommy Dreamer performance I've ever seen. The whole match I was waiting for and expecting the moment where his elbow starts to swell to alarming levels, cringing every time Regal would slam Dreamer's arm into the post or stomp on it or whip it into the mat, knowing that Dreamer's selling wasn't *really* as good as it looked since his arm was going to blow up at any moment. But when it never did I was faced with the realization that Tommy Dreamer just sold his arm better than most human beings have ever sold an arm. The match really is incredible. Dreamer comes in with a taped up arm and Regal just goes off on that fucking thing. He yanks it and twists it in all sorts of gross ways, stomps on it, works a bunch of cool holds on it (some of Regal's best matwork in his WWE career). Things roll to the floor and Regal kicks it against the ring post and good lord did that look painful. Dreamer fights back in really nice, convincing ways, as Regal is fixated on putting him away with the Knee Trembler but Dreamer keeps ducking out of the way of it. Every time Regal misses it allows Dreamer to control for a bit, until Regal invariably grabs him by that arm and tries to dislocate it from Dreamer's body. There was a great punch exchange towards the end that was real quick with really nice shots from both guys, with Dreamer even mixing it up with right hands and body shots!! This match was just incredible. Really a career performance from Dreamer, and one of Regal's absolute best career performances. Something you could show anybody with a passing interest in either guy, and they'd then be convinced each was an awesome worker.


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WWECW Workrate Report, 7/21/09

1. Yoshi Tatsu vs. William Regal

This starts out being all about Tatsu eating a beating, with Regal dishing elbows all over, kicks to the chest, uppercuts, big suplexes (standing exploder and delayed butterfly), straightjacket choke...and also all about Striker being an annoying prick on commentary ("the modified Kanemoto strong style of Tatsu" "this is just the opportunity Piston Honda needs" seriously fuuuuuuuck you). This is basically 4 straight minutes of Regal stiffing Tatsu until Tatsu hits a nice Pele kick, and then a whole barrage of other kicks that were too fast for Regal. Regal catches Tatsu up top, and I *LOVE* Regal pulling his kneepad down before he goes for his running knee finish. I thought Greg Valentine moving his shin guard before he used the figure 4 was cool when I was a kid, and that kinda shit is still awesome. But Regal gets caught with a high kick running in and Tatsu gets the surprise win. Real fun match.

2. Ezekiel Jackson vs. Mike Williams

45 seconds, 3 moves, but they were all pretty great. Williams runs into a big boot, Zeke runs him over with a giant clothesline, and then spikes him with his brutal standing urunage. Kozlov comes in afterwards to hit his chokeslam/spinebuster on poor, poor Mike Williams.

3. Goldust vs. Shelton Benjamin

Man Goldust has a beautiful right hand. I think I like the uppercut more than the overhand but I can't decide. Shelton pusses out of taking the butt butt and we'll see if I enjoy 3 straight Benjamin matches in 3 straight weeks of TV. Shelton does do a cool neckbreaker cravate so I can get behind that. Goldust has such a cool run of offense with his snap powerslam, nasty kick to a prone Shelton, hard atomic drop and an honest to god proper bulldog. All of his classic offense sure makes a lot of Benjamin's indied up offense look ridiculous. Who started the idiotic trend where moves involve pulling or dropping a guy onto your own knee? All that shit looks stupid. Benjamin does some sort of springboard...something...into a Goldust uppercut, but it looked really bad. Shelton did his springboard and just landed on his feet in front of Dustin, as if he were supposed to miss a move, but he just jumped in and landed flat on his feet. He then does one of those horrible bits of Marufuji offense where he flings himself over the top to the floor while at the same time kinda sorta vaguely pulling Goldust neck first into the top rope. It just looked like Goldust's face bounced off the ropes while Benjamin went flying out of control and spilled nastily onto the floor. I'm not sure what viewer would get the impression that Goldust got the worst of that move. And then Benjamin wins with his "grab guy and pull them down to the mat, landing much harder than my opponent". Boy this was really bad. Really awesome Dustin offense interspersed with him having to get into position for Benjamin's weird masochistic offense. The whole thing just looked like Benjamin taking moves, and then doing moves to himself. Crowd was dead and confused. So Benjamin had two glorious weeks, and EVERY SINGLE THING that made him cool those last couple weeks was completely absent here. It's really hard to put into words how detrimental he was to this match.

4. Tyler Reks vs. Paul Burchill

I gotta root for my boy Reks here, now that he is a resident of my little 7,000 population town of Cotati, CA. If you see a tall jacked dude with dreadlocks down at Oliver's Market, the odds are favorable that it's Tyler Reks. This was apparently Reks' TV debut. And as much as I want to root for Reks here, this match is a pretty incredible match to showcase how great Burchill had gotten before being released. He has these cool punches to Reks' chest, really made Reks duck on some missed clotheslines that would have just leveled Reks, awesome running double knee spot in the corner, super high bump on a backdrop, etc. He even made the chinlock sequence look good as he lied down with it and really made it look like he was choking the life out of Reks. Reks' offense at least tries to be clever, but it all lands pretty soft. Nothing he did was bad in context, it just really didn't have much oomph. Any time a guy his size does springboard dropkicks and springboard crossbodies it can't help but look impressive, but I found myself being more impressed by his ability than the actual moves. Still the match was the proper length and peaked at the right spots, so all in all this was good.


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WWECW Workrate Report: 7/14/09

1. Christian vs. Shelton Benjamin

Well this makes two straight shows and two straight Shelton Benjamin performances I really liked. I watched very little ECW at the time (didn't have SyFy) so most of this I'm seeing years removed, but I still watched PPVs and Superstars and all that stuff and I didn't ever remember thinking "Hey Shelton is looking GOOD lately!" But damn if he hasn't been looking awesome in July '09 ECW. This was another trademark good Christian TV match with Shelton working over Christian's left arm in all sorts of cool ways, like hyperextending it over his knee and dropping knees on it while prone. Christian is a champ and sells it great throughout the whole match. Shelton is a real stand out here with his offense and overall viciousness that I've never seen him display at all. He hits a running knee lift here that looks just painful, and also finally utilizes his amateur wrestling that always gets talked about but never actually gets used in his matches. He had a couple cool takedowns and a rad Oklahoma roll that really felt like he could have shoot pinned Christian if he wanted to. His big leap to the buckles spot actually gets built to perfectly, with the first attempt failing and allowing Christian to transition back to offense, and the 2nd seeing him hit a great single arm DDT off the top on Christian's bum wing. Christian also is the only guy who knows how to take Shelton's goofy finisher, as Christian is always great at spiking himself on DDT-type moves. Color me a Shelton Benjamin fan. Who woulda thunk.

2. Paul Burchill vs. Yoshi Tatsu

I remember Burchill when he started as a pirate, when he wasn't very good and the only thing that people online hyped him for was his indyrageous Spanish Fly finisher. But somewhere along the way he apparently got really good and started wrestling like a Regal/Finlay hybrid. He drops a GREAT elbow, hits a mean senton and then starts choking and fish hooking Tatsu. Good lord. Yoshi blows a springboard spot and Burchill doesn't miss a beat by picking him up and planting him with a nasty Saito suplex. Ending is both disappointing and satisfying, with Yoshi reeling and hitting a flash head kick. The kick looked good and I like them pushing his kicks as lethal, but I wanted more than the 3.5 minutes they gave me. Bittersweet.

3. Goldust vs. Zack Ryder

Yessss. I'm been jonesin for some Dustin lately (one of the reasons I popped in some ECW discs) and he looks every bit as great as you would expect. The surprise is that Ryder looks pretty good, too. His stuff works much better as a heel than as a goofball face. He went over super clean and that's pretty lame, as if you thought Benjamin's finisher was silly then Ryder's is just ridiculous. It takes forever for him to set it up, holding his shin to the back of a guy's neck and then taking a back bump. It's like he saw an old Murdoch match and dug the Cattle Branding, and then thought "How can I take that concept, but make it look like absolute dogshit?" And man did he succeed. Rest of the match was cool with tons of great Dustin punches and a tremendous butt-butt. Way too short (barely over 4 minutes) but any Dustin on my TV is a very good thing.

4. Sheamus vs. Roman Cornell

This has to be pretty soon after Sheamus' debut as nobody seems to know who he is. Whoever Roman Cornell is/was, he looks better than Sheamus in this match. He threw some pretty nice punches and leaned way into the (not yet named) Brogue Kick. This was short and inoffensive.

5. Vladimir Kozlov vs. Tommy Dreamer

This will be a good test to see how good Kozlov got at this point. And you know? The match kinda works. Dreamer obviously tries and sometimes his stuff doesn't look good but he throws a bunch of shit at the wall. It's actually kind of funny how much different moves he busts out here, like a super chubby Rocky Romero. I like a lot of individual spots in this one though they don't totally add up to much. Great spot on the floor with Koslov dishing kicks at Dreamer, and then missing a high kick and nailing a ringpost. It made a real satisfying clang and Kozlov didn't hold back on it. It didn't really lead to anything, but in a vacuum it looked cool. Kozlov goes over nice and clean which was a shock as Dreamer was still champ and Christian won the #1 contender last week. Sets up a decent feud I suppose.


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WWECW Workrate Report: 7/9/09

So there seems to be some nostalgia lately for WWECW and I totally get it. Any fed that throws out weekly Finlay, Goldust, Mark Henry, Regal, Christian, and Matt Hardy matches and gives them plenty of time to work is something that I definitely miss. I liked that WWECW was booked in a vacuum as it gave it more of a WCW Sat. Night feel. I like Main Event, and I enjoy Saturday Morning Slam, but ECW had a real awesome feel and really did feel like it was booked separately from the other shows. That is pretty important because the matches have a little more weight than other syndie matches. You get the feel that weird things can happen like Yoshi Tatsu getting a push without Vince noticing. It brings me back to odd things like Stevie Night Heat with Stevie Richards coming up with a gimmick without office approval because nobody watched his show. In a day of micro-managed wrestling this is an important thing.

1.  Nikki Bella vs. Katie Lea Burchill

Seems like kind of a horrible show to start off on when this is the match that leads things off, but then Nikki takes a giant bump to the floor to start and I shut my mouth. Nikki doesn't seem to be very good but it works for her as it makes her bumps way more dangerous (one spot sees her supposed to land on the apron but she ends up tumbling all the way to the floor), making Katie's backbreaker seem more brutal and taking a neckbreaker more painfully than most girls would take it. The match was only 3 minutes long but you've seen way worse Diva's matches than this.

2. Yoshi Tatsu vs. Shelton Benjamin

So...when did Shelton Benjamin get good? I don't remember liking his stuff around this time, and I know I didn't like his ROH stuff, but he was pretty great here as a smug methodical heel (as opposed to his usual role of black guy who jumps high, which has since been filled by Kofi Kingston). I mean there are not many 8 minute Shelton singles matches that I enjoy, but this was really good. Tatsu's comebacks were peppered in nicely and Shelton had a cool fighter's way of trying to block Yoshi's kicks. And when Shelton would cut Yoshi's offense off it was always followed by him actually selling prior damage! The fans were getting way behind Tatsu here and that's just further evidence that Shelton was working as an effective heel. Match was also worked in a way that whenever Shelton tried any of his high jumping antics, they would always backfire and would lead to Tatsu getting the advantage, but when he stuck to clubbing and throwing Tatsu around he stayed in control (he hit a vicious standing overhead belly to belly which is like something Dave Taylor would pull out). Only complaint was with his finisher, which was that awful jumping leaping DDT-ish faceplant-y sort of thing that always looks like he's taking the move and the other guy is not sure how to land. That needs to go.

3. Ezekiel Jackson vs. Jack Meridol

AWESOME squash match. Jackson just beat the snot out of this kid. All his clubbing shots sounded like Meridol was getting hit with a 2x4 and Zeke was tossing this guy around recklesssly and it looked awesome. He just plants Meridol with a urunage and my spine ached. Is Zeke even still employed by WWE? I haven't heard his name in over a year.

4. Vladimir Kozlov vs. Christian

Boy not quite 4 years later and this show is just a total graveyard of past WWE talent. Is Christian still with WWE? I don't remember the last time I saw him. This is a number one contenders match for Tommy Dreamer's title (boy the ECW title looks awful), and boy this match was awesome. I know Kozlov has been involved in matches I liked, but it seems like he had become a genuine good worker at this point (although Christian was really great at working TV matches during this period). The opening mat exchanges are all really good, and then Kozlov takes a great bump over the top to the floor after missing a charge. Christian was never one to allow somebody to top him with stupid over the top bumping, so a minute later Kozlov knocks him off the apron and Christian lands on his side in a nasty way. All Kozlov's offense looks cool and painful, especially his sit out torture rack that ragdolled Christian. Kozlov also leans into a missile dropkick head first and that's awesome. Match was really good.


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Wednesday Night Bootleg- Regal v. Yoshi Tatsu

William Regal v. Yoshi Tatsu 11/7/09 Dusseldorf Germany



Anytime you get to see Regal stretch it out on a house show it is worth it. Tatsu isn't the most dynamic wrestler in the world, but the New Japan guys are well trained and all of the early arm work and knuckle lock stuff is solid. They work early part of this match around a full nelson, with Tatsu trying to escape and Regal locking it on. Tatsu even tries the Johnny Saint reversal and Regal responds with a forearm to the back of his head. Regal sold the fuck out of all of Tatsu's dicey looking offense. The finish run of this match was a blast, Tatsu misses a dive from the top, Regal hits a exploder, misses a running knee and gets wasted with a high kick. I love Regal's sell of the high kick with a 3 stooges spin which was awesome. Fun stuff.

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