The Parable of the Warrior and the Mountain

Chris Hero vs. Senka WCPW 4/16/26 

Far away, across the sea, there lives a warrior in red. She is small of stature, young in the ways of battle. Yet in such a short time, she has made a fledgling name for herself. While yes, she is known for her great strength, it is not strength of body, but instead strength of will. She is the tip of the spear, a stalwart soul, stubborn, confident, determined, one that refuses to quit even in the face of good sense, of inevitability, of a doom far larger than her compact frame.

She is the student of a legend, and whether she knows it or not, possesses within her the spirit of devil and jaguar both, of the lost generation just before her mentor’s days of glory, when warriors would refuse to let their shoulders sit upon the ground for even a single moment. Likewise, she, knowing or not, channels the memory of the great cowboy, a mighty power focused into a body that can barely contain it: the rising tide of inevitable motion, the personification of striking again and again, pressing ever forward, refusing to be denied. 

One year ago, she traveled across that sea to present herself and prove her merit to the world at a tournament in a battleground full of them, a celebratory time when all of the great and meager warriors gather together. Fearlessly, she faced off against the greatest force of multiple generations, and not only lived to the tell the tale, but, through her refusal to quit, to stop, to stay down, showed all that witnessed it something they had not seen in many a year, something undeniably tangible, visceral, gripping, something real. 

In the year that followed she faced new challenges, grew in her strength and presence, became a champion, and even stared down quite possibly the greatest of her own age, the young warrior stymying and frustrating this great power through her pluck, her daring, her simple refusal to give up and give in. Another battle survived, and is that not the way of this warrior? Every battle survived, victory or vanquish, continues her journey, spurs her growth, makes her stronger. 

So here it was that she traveled once again to the gathering of the combatants, to where all the world’s warriors flock to prove their merit. Through fate and luck, she was to have a worthy foe before her, one that could meet her intensity, iron clashing with iron, strengthening them both. She would go to the mountain, would face a new rival, would grow stronger through combat. This was her path. 

Sometimes life decrees a different path. The rival could not compete. The warrior in red would face a mystery opponent instead. The opponent did not matter, however. The battle was everything.

She entered the arena to a hero’s welcome, one that must have surprised her, even with what she had endured in the last year. This was a foreign land, full of strangers, but they welcomed her back, chanted her name. She stood in the center, her color burning bright, ready for whatever life would throw her way. 

However, as music burst through the air, a tune familiar to the onlookers yet now rarely heard, a stark realization came over her. They had given her a hero’s welcome, but now they stood ready to welcome the Hero. She had not come to the mountain to battle. She had come to battle the mountain. 

The warrior may have been a powerful force contained in a small frame, but the mountain itself was a great force contained in a great frame. While it had been years since it battled regularly, it was still spoken of in whispers, still known to have an eye upon the world, a finger upon the pulse. It was said that one thunderous strike from it, stone crashing across bone, could shatter the resolve of even the strongest fighter. 

Like all young warriors worth witnessing, she ventured into the dark forest to become an adult, as she had many times before. This time, however, she found before her the tallest tree with the deepest roots, even if they had become gnarled with time.

The crowd broke into shocked cheering, surprised chanting, but the warrior stayed resolute. If the mountain had come to her, if she stood before the tallest tree, the two being the same great presence that would now be her opponent, she would climb it nonetheless, would reach its pinnacle and stomp it to dust. Or she would die trying. For who was she if not that?. 

Agitated, eager, chomping at the bits, she remained undaunted. An exhibition. Five minutes simply to survive; five minutes, perhaps, to triumph and bring honor to her name.

With the tolling of the bell, she rushed right in. The unassailable mountain, the tallest foreboding tree, was waiting. Its branches snatched at her wrist, grasped at her arm, twisting as if in a torrential wind. Once, twice, three, four times. Yet the warrior had just begun. She rolled and turned the grasp back upon itself. She reached up and over, wrapping her arm around it, encompassing the great force before her, trying to contain it beside her. With mirth, it hefted her up, placed her in the corner, punctuated the overwhelming show of power with a simple, demeaning pat upon the head. There, there, little warrior. 

Her response? With scream and focused fury, she charged headlong, slamming the full weight of her frame against it. It held still, mocked her. It brushed itself off, showing the crowd that there was no reason to worry, barely any reason to notice. Still the warrior came, crashing in again and again. She would not stop. It was not her way. For the first time, the mountain allowed a crack to form in its visage: annoyance, irritation, disbelief. 

Shoulder tackles turned to forearms. Somehow she moved it, a creaking, strained effort, but one that left a mark on the world nonetheless. And for her trouble? Now truly awoken, the tallest of trees (perhaps a sleeping dragon too?) allowed one root to rise high into the air. The warrior crashed into it, crumbling to the ground. Thus is the fate of all who show insolence. It lifted her up and chopped her down. It hammered down upon her back. The warrior recoiled, rolled, writhed. 

A chop, a hammer? These were not enough. The warrior was daring. The warrior had dared. Yet the only thought the mountain had was this: How dare she? There was no recourse but destruction, to crush down upon her with all of its weight. 

The warrior’s response should not have been possible. It defied physics, defied the natural rules of this world, but then there is one unnatural rule that conquers all others: with enough heart, anything is possible. The warrior channeled her great heart into her knees, putting them up to stave off the crushing force of the mountain. The impossible was made possible. Another crack formed, even at the cost of great damage to her own body.

The mountain staggered back. The warrior, once again, as she is, as she must be, charged forth, forcing herself onward despite the agony obvious in her movements, for what is pain in the face of growth and glory? She crashed into the shaken monolith three times, wielding naught but the weapon that is her own arm. To the witnesses, it felt like the tides of fate were turning just a bit more with every crash.

But there would not be a fourth time. The tallest of trees had staggered backwards. Now it staggered forward once more, branch extended so as to wrap around the warrior’s throat. Without mercy or remorse, it lifted her up, slammed her down. Nature was taking its course. Creaking bark gave way to solid, unyielding stone as tree became mountain and dropped all of its weight upon the warrior. This time, there would be no knees to save her. This time there would be nothing to save her. The impact was such that the mountain shook itself apart in its rage; it needed a moment to put itself back together. 

A moment was all the warrior required, though no one bearing witness could possibly yet know or understand. Just as the warrior’s breath had been squashed out of her, the crowd’s collective breath had been taken as well. A chilled silence had overtaken it. Little did those watching realize that their faith was about to be renewed. The mountain pressed down upon the warrior. The judge began to count. Three seconds was the difference between victory and defeat. Most escapes happened with just one second to go, desperate, fevered survival.

Instead, the warrior forced the mountain off of her after one paltry second. A grave, defiant insult. The crowd erupted in admiration of her strength, her will, her brazenness. Mainly however, it just erupted, feeling, not thinking, living in the moment through the warrior and her accomplishment. A pure and good thing in an age where such things are so very hard to come by.

The mountain, no longer just annoyed but now truly angered, fumed and seethed. With the explosive force of a volcano (erupting in its own way), it heaved her up and crushed her down upon the ground. And yet, once again, she refused to stay down for even one second. Finding new resolve in such defiance, she slapped downwards, rallying her strength. The witnesses chanted her name creating a self-perpetuating circuit of valorous energy. She threw powerful, unrestrained blows, not just stopping the mountain’s eruption, but somehow forcing it back again. Seeing new cracks, smelling blood drawn from stone, she charged forth, ever her way. But she ran into the storm itself. She ran into that fabled thunderclap, into the hardest of rock, and she crumbled once more. 

The true story of humanity is this: our efforts change the world around us. Trying matters. Caring matters. Persisting matters. The warrior’s efforts had changed the world, had chipped away at the impenetrable. The mountain, weakened, manifested once more as that tallest of trees. It wrapped its branches around her, meaning to toss her aside, to throw her into oblivion, into the forgotten annals of history. Its roots were strong, planted. Her heart was stronger. She rooted her own feet to the ground and buoyed by the witnesses, she channeled inner strength enough to reverse the effort, to uproot the tree itself, to create her own miracle and send it overhead and down to the ground. She uprooted the seated masses as well, their hands rising into the air in exultation as she attempted to pin her lofty opponent to the ground. 

With great effort, and not at all a sure thing, it shoved her off. A voice rang from the heavens. 30 seconds remained. The warrior attempted to press her assault, but lightning struck once more, and as the bell tolled again, a weakened warrior found herself driven head first into the ground, seemingly destroyed, yet somehow, still not defeated. The exhibition would instead end without a winner, a draw.

This satisfied no one. The mountain moved to slunk away from the battlefield, exuding unmistakable frustration at the warrior’s defiance, the onlookers’ adulation, and most of all, the simple fact that it had not been able to clearly win the day. The warrior dragged herself front and center in the middle of the battlefield and dropped to a bow, holding within it both respect and a demand. The onlookers? Those who bore witness let their thoughts be heard. They shared in the warrior’s demand. Five more minutes.

With pride bruised, a crowd to silence, and heavenly punishment still to mete out, the mountain agreed. Five more minutes. 

Given a second chance, the warrior, as is, was, and will ever be her want, rushed right in. She crashed hard into the mountain, fell, rose, and kept coming. She staggered it once more, loading that arm as the cowboy once did, a deadly weapon that no one and nothing can withstand. One that could topple even the mightiest tree. That did not mean she could hold it down, however.

She meant to toss it overhead once more, but her moment of advantage had passed. The roots were too strong, even for her heart. It wrenched her up and over instead. This did not mean something was not now and forever different in the world, however. Something had changed through her efforts. The cracks had shown and she had, perhaps, learned from the uprooting. 

The mountain went to drop her on her head once more, but she channeled all of her heart’s resolve into defying physics once more. Now, instead of moving the mountain, she made herself unmovable to it. It took all of its great strength and all of its learned technique to heft her up and plant her down. And then? After all that work? She would again not allow her shoulders to stay down for even one second.

Two familiar eruptions occurred in unison. The witnesses rose to their feet and the mountain spewed its lava, made all the worse by the onlookers’ deafening chants claiming it could not defeat her. Showing petulance beneath its stature, it pushed her to the ground, berated her, demanded to know who she thought she was, and even slapped at her face when she rose. But rise she did nonetheless. 

The warrior rose. She had withstood stone, wood, and thunder. Now she joined with the wind itself. She pulled inwards and exhaled outwards, letting loose a cry. It was heard not just by the onlookers and witnesses, not just by the mountain, not just by the gathering of warriors. The wind spread it to the four corners of this world. She shouted her name and it was heard by all, but the mountain heard it most of all.

SENKA

Thus named and thus known, the warrior continued to press forward, continued to strike, continued to channel the fire inside of her into external force, continued to defy all the natural laws of this world, continued to move the mountain. She could do nothing else but to be who and what she was, no matter the cost and no matter the consequence.

Tragically, she charged forth this last time only for the full brunt of that nature she fought so hard to defy to crash down upon her once and for all: one last rolling clasp of thunder, a lightning strike that would destroy any lesser warrior. And yet, despite that, as the mountain tried to lift her, to end this, to destroy her with finality, it found the task too monumental, the weight of her heart too massive to lift. It took two tries to accomplish it, but once accomplished, she moved no more. There were limitations to the human body, even when the human heart is boundless. The warrior defied nature and nature struck her down.

But even that was not the end of it, not in the face of the warrior’s great heart. She was one to squeeze victory out of every defeat. That was her way. That was, perhaps, her greatest strength. In the striving, in the questing, through the battle, she grew. And she gained. Confidence. Wisdom. Understanding. And perhaps, most of all, respect. 

The mountain raised her up, and then when the onlookers feared that it might strike her down anew, it instead shocked them all by looking eye to eye and sinking down to her level, beneath it, a bow of its own. The very landscape itself had shifted in regard for her bravery, her stubbornness, her resolve, her strength. She dropped down to meet it and the two figures took quiet, celebratory communion together in acknowledgement of the battle they had waged. For she may not have conquered the mountain, but she had done something just as meaningful; she had thawed its icy heart.

Emboldened by the battle, her journey would continue, perhaps an even greater victory just on the horizon. And as for the mountain? It would allow the sun to set upon it once again, waiting, just out of the reach of imagination, for the next challenger to dare attempt an ascent. 

But it would remember her name.

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80s Joshi on Wednesday: Mimi! Yukari! Martel! Martin!

 Volume 3

3. Judy Martin & Sherri Martel vs. Mimi Hagiwara & Yukari Omori (WWWA Tag Team Titles) 

K: I'll forever associate this match with DEAN. It was one of the last matches he reviewed on the DVDVR board before we lost him and in his classic hyperbolic style he declared it the GREATEST MATCH OF THE 80s. 

Before the match starts Sherri steals the tag belts and runs outside with them, apparently thinking the rules in Japan are that the winner is just whichever team is able to physically take possession of the belts. They both act so insane it makes you feel like anything could happen here, this atmosphere is helped along by them getting in the ring and getting immediately ambushed by Hagiwara and Omori and thrown into the crowd to big applause.

When we finally get something you could definitely call 'wrestling' (no value judgement here) Sherri is targeting Hagiwara's throat dropping her on the ropes, and later when she has Hagiwara grounded she's seemingly biting her in the face. She just comes across as a nutcase, and then Devil Masami gets involved on the outside whacking Mimi with her big cane. I should add for a bit of context from matches not on the set that Devil Masami seems to have given herself a personal quest to make Mimi's life a living hell. This is far from the only time Mimi will be wrestling someone else but Devil keeps getting involved in her matches just to torment her. She's obsessed. It's like she had a premonition that after her wrestling career was done Mimi would become a Christian evangelical preacher (not joking that actually happened).

I really like Mimi's selling here. For example the more hurt she is, the more she wobbles/looks a bit unco-ordinated when she's running off an Irish whip.

This is not a famous match, but if it were to become one, it should be famous for the spot where Sherri and Judy put Mimi's head between the ropes, put the middle rope over the top rope, and then swing back and forth with her head stuck like they're trying to break her neck. I'm watching this thinking "why does nobody steal this?", think about it a bit more and decide "ok, this does look legitimately dangerous" so maybe that's why. Still it looks absolutely awesome, brutal and makes the heels look like psychopaths.

Oh also, sick piledriver by Mimi to take the 1st fall. This alone would have been a really good and memorable match. This is for the tag titles so it's 2/3 falls.

In AJW tradition, the babyfaces are 1 fall up, so the heels go crazier, take things to the outside and try causing carnage. It's so wild it's hard to follow what's going on. At one point Devil Masami is on the outside swinging her cane at people. I think Mimi gets a chair up to the protect herself from the shots meanwhile someone else is being thrown into the seats. For whatever reason Devil is so enraged she comes into the ring swinging her cane around, and the heels FOR THE SECOND TIME now put Mimi's head in the rope trap of death like they're trying to kill her. Things are so damn out of control and someone is gonna die so the referee DISQUALIFIES the heel team, which almost never happens in AJW. 

Not the most important thing I know, but there's a 2/3 falls match which ended 2-0.

Is this the greatest match of the 80s? Well no. That’s a little silly. It’s relatively limited in what it’s trying to achieve, that Martel & Martin are homicidal maniacs and Hagiwara and Omori are such heroes for being willing to fight them. It did most of that. The big flaw is I don’t think Omori really got herself over here, in fact I barely remember her doing anything. Devil Masami probably had a better contribution to this than she did. It was certainly entertaining and not one you’ll forget soon.

***1/2

MD: Hey, I’ve seen this one! DEAN gave it to me during a Secret Santo in 2023. 

Here’s what DEAN said about it when giving it to me:

“This match is fucking INSANE.  It's the fucking DREAM tagteam of Sherri Martel and Judy Martin aligning with total lunatic Devil Masami at ringside trying to murder the hell out of Mimi Hagewara and Yukari Omori in 1982.  GREATEST MATCH OF THE 80s!”

Here’s what I said about it then: 

“The big thing I learned from this however was that Martin and Martel were basically Raging and Ravishing. I'm a big Glamour Girls fan, but Kai and Martin were pretty similar, great bullies, incredibly credible offense, big bumps, great pacing. Martin is basically the most credible Moolah-ism wrestler ever. Sherri on the other hand, is wildly over the top. Her punch to the gut may have been goofy, but she was all antics, all the time, starting from stealing the belts and refusing to give them back to just screaming, fighting with fans, heatseeking like wild. Then Martin would come in and just assert control and leave things for Sherri to cause havoc.

After the whole belt stealing thing, the faces got the early offensive advantage, but then Martin/Martel took most of the rest. Whenever the faces tried to comeback it became an absolute gang scene with everything completely breaking down. Devil would interfere liberally. So that meant whenever comebacks actually did take, they ended up being super violent. Structure here ended up being comebacks and quick cutoffs, and then a real comeback for the first fall victory as they switched up on top rope leaps and then hit a kneeling pile driver. There was more heat again right at the start of the second fall and it all broke down into chaos. Mimi and Omori looked fine but it was hard to get much sense out of them other than getting battered around a few moments of fiery comebacks. Sherri, however, came off as a generational heatseeker; obviously she was as a manager but I think she couldn't flex quite as much in the AWA and WWF as a wrestler maybe? Here she had a lot of freedom to just toss poise completely out the window and go wild.”

Here’s what I think about it now:

What I have now that I didn’t back then is a much better understanding of Hagiwara and a much better sense of the chaos in Black Army matches from 78-81 or so. And honestly, even compared to those, this was pretty wild. Sherri is such a natural. She understood pro wrestling so well, bursting out of the ring with the belt and parading around with it, snatching it away when anyone tries to take it from her. What a natural heatseeker, just perfect in her role.

They controlled most of this, and on Mimi for most of it as well. Lots of choking, both naturally and in the ropes which formed a sieve around her neck. Brutal stuff. Lots of beating them around the ringside area too. Whenever they started to fight back for more than a second, everything would break down into chaos. Omori actually got to flex her strength a bit here on comebacks. Eventually, Mimi finally had enough and unloaded fists and neckbreaker drops on Martin, Omori hit a Vader Bomb and Mimi a nasty looking kneeling pile driver, where you could see Martin’s life flash before her eyes. That was the end of the first fall. Second went quite well for Martin and Sherri until Devil accidentally clocked Sherri with the pole. It still went pretty well for them after that though and eventually everything really broke down and they just choked their opponents in the ropes until the ref called for the DQ. I’d say this was pretty clearly the best showing of any American women so far. Martin hit like a truck and ground things down and Sherri was just as over the top as she’d be ten years later. And at least Omori and Hagiwara survived it to stand tall with their belts in the end.

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Will Ospreay is 12

AEW Dynamite 4/17/26

Will Ospreay vs Hechicero

(The fictional character of) Will Ospreay is very, very dumb. 

And that's okay. It fits classic archetypes, the simple, quirky, strong hero with the good heart who can't bear to see injustice done around him. Li'l Abner. Andy Griffith's character in No Time for Sergeants. Maybe Tom Brown in Tom Brown's Schooldays if we want to go the UK route. The gentle giant. The stalwart knight. Galahad in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Gourry in Slayers, to talk about old anime because I don't know any new anime (Goku works, maybe? Everyone knows Goku. He seems dumber than Goku; Luffy? That works, right?). It's an archetype. Pure of heart; so pure that he's not all that bright, for knowledge corrupts and all that. 

The character of Will Ospreay is a basically well-meaning dog who is going to bite at his wound and needs a collar of shame. He is stubborn. He is prideful. He is absolutely assured of his own ability. 

Maybe it's not just okay. Maybe it actually fits the moment we live in. There has been recent  social commentary about how everyone's a twelve year old boy now. The US has a Department of War and argues about the Gulf of America. Hollywood properties are all superhero movies and nostalgic remakes. 

The viral post on bluesky from "Patrick Cosmos" introducing the concept was as follows:

"I'm strong and I want to have like fifty kids and a farm" of course you do. You're twelve. "I don't want to eat vegetables I think steak and French fries is the only meal" hell yeah homie you're twelve. "Maybe if there's crime we should just send the army" bless your heart my twelve year old buddy."

And... that's perfect for the character of Will Ospreay, right? He's big, dumb, does flips, is going to slam that round peg into the square hole until it fits, dammit. Because he's that determined and that stalwart and that sure of himself. If you do him wrong, he will be hurt and very angry about it, and will punch you, and kick you, and do a back flip at you and look very angry as he does it. If you hurt him, he will be hurt, and sell the hurt, and then hit all of his stuff perfectly, really focusing, really getting it done, and then it will really hurt him, because it was dumb, and he shouldn't have done it that way, but it’s the only way he knows how so he’s not going to let that stop him.

He's a perfect pro wrestling character for our time. 

And this is the lens you have to understand literally everything he does, all of his matches. It's the only way his matches make any coherent, logical sense. They fall apart under carefully examination otherwise. Trust me, I’ve tried. With the lens though… He's Dudley Do-Right. He's George of the Jungle. He's stronger than the average wrestler, faster, slicker, more agile, more resilient, far, far more stubborn. 

His weakness, so much as he has any weakness, is that he is so, so very dumb and stubborn. 

We've not dealt with any sort of wrestling character like this since maybe Henry Godwinn? Hillbilly Jim? Maybe Festus? He's basically playing the classic US country bumpkin but instead he's an Assassin's Creed cloak wearing 12-year old who represents modernity in ways that hit the zeitgeist perfectly.

There will be logic and causality in his matches but it's never going to be the most satisfying when it comes to build and payoff, clear and clean transitions, clean act breaks (Storytelling). Because he's too dumb a character for any of that; he's too stubborn. He's going to run his head into the wall again and again and you can't tell Go Dog Go in that scenario let alone Shakespeare. But that doesn't mean that what you end up seeing isn't exciting, like a fireworks display is exciting, and like fireworks displays, even if the build isn't necessarily there, there's probably going to be a grand finale. 

Just remember at all times that this character is a blistering moron with a heart of gold, and you'll find your way through the jungle of great spots and exciting sequences and absolutely broken causality that starts right before he does something and doesn’t start back up until after. Because he's going to hit you with his broken hand. He'll sell it beforehand and he will sell it afterwards, but he's going to hit you with it anyway, damn it, because he is Will Ospreay, bruv, and because he can. Don’t tell Picasso how to paint, and don’t tell Will Ospreay he can’t punch someone with his broken hand. 

So, with that lens established, here he faced Hechicero. It's a little like super competent bad guys trying to fight Inspector Gadget or Maxwell Smart, right? You can use the best techniques and the best traps, but Ospreay's going to stick that peg into that hole anyway, no matter the shape, and there’s virtually nothing you can do to stop him. 

Instead of going high to start, Hechicero went low, pulling a leg, scoring a takedown, tying Ospreay up. There were a hundred ways for Ospreay to potentially escape; he wasn’t even all that far from the ropes. But no, he had to do a headstand and use a toupie style twisting escape, damaging his own heavily taped neck right from the get go. Because he is a stubborn moron. You get the sense he KNEW it was going to hurt his neck and he did it anyway, just to prove that he could. 

Ospreay, now angry and wanting to get back at Hechicero, eye for an eye style like any good 12 year old, went for one of his legs. Hechicero stepped over, took Will down. Will tried to counter a couple of times, but ended up tied up in a knot again for his trouble. Will finally got out and put on a side headlock takeover, confident, sure of himself, needing to show everyone he was just as good as one of the best technical wrestlers in the world. Hechicero immediately turned it into a headscissors and again, instead of prying the legs open or getting out any other way, Will just had to bridge up and hop around him before vaulting to his feet. He immediately sold his neck. Of course he did. He stupidly hurt it getting out of the hold. Hechicero hadn’t even targeted the neck yet! He was targeting everything else, maybe most of all Ospreay’s 12-year old pride, and then Will was doing all the work for him!

Then, finally, Hechicero started in on the head with a dropkick and a few strikes. Will, seeing red once more, hit a clutch ‘rana to take him over. That made everything fun for him again. He stomped about, hyped up the crowd, and hit a dive. That hurt (he rubbed his shoulder), and he started in with some good old fashioned fisticuffs instead. This was the smartest thing he’d done so far and the lad should be lauded for it. Hechicero tried to fire back but to no avail. Instead of showing off or outwrestling him, Will gave him the what for, stiff upper lip entirely focused on beating Hechicero around the ringside area and then back into the ring. That included a ten punch in the corner, great fun that almost cost him, as Hechicero slipped out. 

Will was able to ping Hechicero with a spin wheel kick though (not sure if that hurt the shoulder since he didn’t sell it), and then went right into a figure four lock of all things. Why that? If you ask me, it was to get back at those leg submissions from before, combined with the animal instinct to keep his head away from Hechicero. Most of all though, it let him look Hechicero in the eyes, let him stare right at him and say “Ha, I got you now, Bruv. Who’s the mat specialist?” Pure id. Hechicero tried a few things but went to the ropes before long, a sensible move from a sensible rudo.

Will stayed on the leg, but quickly got distracted by Marina Shafir sitting in the crowd, allowing Hechicero to come back, and after a few reversal attempts (Ospreay seeming perfectly fine throughout), Hechicero was able to hit the conjuro spinning backbreaker followed up by a step up knee to the back of the head in the corner. Nasty stuff. Hechicero followed it up, tactician that he is, by working the leg up to the shoulder, to finally unlock the neck with a twisting crank of his feet. He was basking in it now, feeling momentum and his own thrill of victory, as he skillfully locked in la tapitia. Will grimaced as Hechicero yanked his hair in the hold, his visage becoming more teeth than face as his neck was pulled back. 

Hechicero moved in for the kill, tossing Will against the ropes once more. It was the worst thing he could do. Any normal, reasonable human being would have bounced back, ducked, hit a clothesline, jumping knee, big boot, anything that wouldn’t hurt himself as well when it absolutely wasn’t necessary. Those were things that Hechicero might expect, might plan for, might be ready to counter. But no, good ol’ Will wasn’t going to do that. Instead he went right onto his head again, bouncing off the ropes with a handspring and hit a flipping kick. You can’t defend against stupidity. The greatest chess master sometimes has more to fear from someone who doesn’t know the rules of the game. 

Ospreay continued on with a springboard elbow (wincing on impact) and a standing sky twister press. That led to Callis and Danielson getting ahead of me and this review and going on about just how dumb Will is, a rare point of agreement between the two. Still, Ospreay pressed his advantage and even though Hechicero fought back, Will was primed, ready to unleash the Hidden Blade. Just not as ready as Hechicero was. Hechicero caught him on the charge with one of his finishers, the twisting headscissors legdrop. That would have been, to any normal person, the end of the match. To Ospreay, dumb but preternaturally tough and resilient, that meant that he actually had to put his foot on the rope to beat the count on a pin. No small thing for such a superheroic figure.

That drew the doctor in to check on him. Will wouldn’t quit, wouldn’t stop. He’d done nothing but take neck damage since he returned from surgery, but he couldn’t even imagine such an eventuality. He can’t even spell “eventuality.” So Hechicero dropped him throat first on the rail. Still, even after the Doctor checked on him more, he refused to throw in the towel. That’s not something to hold against him. Most babyfaces wouldn’t. It’s not exactly the same as doing a headstand when you didn’t need to. Still, it’s consistent; it’s all consistent! That’s the point!

But now, as they came back from their second commercial break, Hechicero had Will in real danger. He had him draped over the rope, yanking on the neck. Will got free and immediately charged right at Hechicero only to get tripped and go sailing over the top. Oh Will. Hechicero hit a dive of his own and followed it up with his diving elbow to a standing opponent but to the back of Will’s head. Again, brutal stuff. 

But it didn’t matter, because in this world that we’re stuck in, you don’t have to be smart. You just have to be incessant. If you don’t give up, and you don’t admit fault, and you just keep on tweeting through it, well… eventually things will go your way. That’s exactly what Will did and as Hechicero went for a suplex, Will turned it into a Stundog Millionaire. He used the distance that earned him to charge at Hechicero (of course he did) and ran right into a foot (of course he did). But he kept the pressure on and caught Hechicero over his shoulder. This time the shoulder gave way. Hechicero went for a small package. Ospreay was able to turn it over and then (again going tit for tat, anything you can do I can do better, in 12 year old fashion) went for a backslide of his own.

That didn’t work and neither did his attempt at the Oscutter, shoulder generally fine for it, by the way; it was just that Hechicero caught him. Hech followed it by turning another pin attempt into his vaulting rear naked choke, but here, maybe the great tactician overthought things and should have just kept it simple himself. He figured Ospreay would be ready for it and turned it into a cross armbreaker. Ospreay was able to tough it out (neck and all) and shove that round hole into the square peg once and for all, lifting him up for a Styles Clash and hitting the Hidden Blade for the pin and the win.

And I have to admit, having this lens in mind, the idea that the kayfabe character of Will Ospreay is a nigh-invulnerable, super powerful, ridiculously athletic blistering idiot meant that a lot of the narrative issues I would have had with the match could be brushed over. That doesn’t mean the drama was really maximized, though I think they got it closer than usual. It does mean that you could draw a throughline from beginning to end. Some side missions like the figure-four that didn’t really have any impact in the match over all? Well that was Will just being a petty idiot. Him doing handsprings perfectly and only selling after the fact? A stubborn idiot. The endless times he just charged into something? Well, that’s just Will, innit? And in the end, Hechicero found himself playing chess against someone playing checkers and instead of taking his king, got crowned on top of his head for his trouble. 

Dudley Do-Right has caught his man. George of the Jungle stopped the poachers. Goku vanquished the … evil Saiyans trying to invade earth? Peace is restored to the land. And thankfully, because everyone is twelve, no one even had to think too hard about it (except for me, I guess), and no one (not even me) even had to learn a moral lesson.

So there we have it. After 54 five star matches from the Observer, moral lesson or no, I think I’ve finally figured out the perfect framework to watch and appreciate Will Ospreay matches. And now, like anyone who stares at a Picasso painting for too long, I have a headache.

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Found Footage Friday: Universal Pro Wrestling 1992~!

Bulldog KT (Gedo)/Pat Tanaka/Villano IV vs. Coolie SZ (Jado)/Lightning Kid/Jerry Lynn Universal Pro 8/18/92

MD: It's important you know that Lynn and co. come out to Don't Cry by Asia. Also that Pat Tanaka is a huge jerk in this match and I'm all for it. They did a lot in 20+ minutes over three falls. It was fun to see Villano work with Lynn (bounding fast exchanges) and Kid (hitting him really, really hard and then taking all of Waltman's karate bs). The heels worked together well, lots of setting a babyface up for a double team or single shot. There were some nice pushes by Tanaka, on a suplex to give it extra oomph and then to set up the finish by basically shoving a victory rolling Lynn and Villano out of the ring. Gedo and Jado generally worked together but their stuff looked practiced, solid, and usually pretty mean. After coming back from a relatively long, cycled beatdown, Lynn broke up a hold on Kid and they hit a tandem missile dropkick/Northern Lights. Second fall had some funnier stuff from Lynn as he tossed Tanaka into the corner and Tanaka twisted twice on the way and then got down on his hands and knees and dog barked Gedo out of the ring. But it came back together for the fireworks down the stretch. 

ER: I was pretty blown away by this, a frenetically based long three falls match where every guy is working fast and hitting harder. Everyone had standout moments, with Jerry Lynn being the guy who blew me away the most. Lynn looked ready to work any promotion in the world, breezing into Japan and working smoking hot dodging and tumbling sequences with Villano IV, throwing perfect snug execution on everything he attempted. His offense makes extravagant bumps look necessary. When he hits a dropkick to Villano IV, it makes sense that it sends him flying out of the ring; when he blasts Pat Tanaka with a clothesline, he swings it so hard that it makes Tanaka's inside out flip bump seem like the natural way to get eaten by that clothesline. Everything Lynn did was crisp, established the pacing of the match, and followed through to logical match building conclusions. When I say I was blown away, I mean it. Jerry Lynn is a guy who I view as a known quantity. We've all seen many JL matches, we all know he's talented, the industry respects him, he's worked everywhere, etc. But seeing Lynn here is like seeing him for the first time, seeing things he was capable of that never defined his style. Lynn really could do it all...but I don't know how often I've seen him doing It better than he does here. 

The thing is, everyone kind of comes off that way. Jado and Gedo as beefed up Mr. Perfect Singlet Boys is the most interesting version of them in the 90s. I love the wave of T&C Surf Designs inspired Japanese indy wrestlers of the late 80s/early 90s, from the surf punks surrounding the ring in the most violent late 80s FMW Different Style bouts, to these two beefy Malibu boys in their mullets and surf suits. It's unfathomable to me that 1992 Jado and Gedo had great clotheslines, but video doesn't lie. Jado throws a top rope clothesline as hard as Ikeda ever threw, and that's arguably the toughest clothesline to throw well. Gedo blows up Jado with a clothesline that would get Tenryu's attention, and it's a wildly more interesting version of themselves than all their bad juniors wrestling the rest of the decade. 

If Pat Tanaka was a real jerk - he was! - then Villano IV might have been an outright sadist. This man was in his late 20s and a physical danger. If I praised Lynn's execution, then V4 deserves the same praise. Everything he does has such force behind it. He has these cool kneedrops, where he starts from a kneeling position and drives a knee into his opponent's temple, and I'm not sure I've ever seen legdrops thrown with more force. I didn't think you could get such impact from a standing legdrop, but Villano made them look like real finishers. 

But the thing that really stood out in a match filled with standouts, was Villano IV and Lightning Kid starting off the third fall with a literal shoot fight on the floor. I couldn't tell why it escalated, but they clearly start throwing increasingly harder and harder shots during a routine sequence. I don't know the exact moment it turned unprofessional, but Villano knocked Kid to the floor and Kid came up throwing elbows meant to crack jaws, and Villano recognized the intent behind those elbows immediately and landed five straight punches to Kid's face and head. This all happened within 15 seconds, where a hard Villano club to the back turned into a Kid shoot elbow, and suddenly Kid was fleeing while wisely shielding his face as Villano finds every uncovered part and lands every punch he throws. No idea what happened, but there's no mistaking those punches for worked, and whatever might have happened didn't affect Kid's big comeback in the tercera, which played as great retribution. Villano IV stood in for spin kicks and cooperated to make it look like a strong comeback, taking all of his kicks and making the decision to not punch him directly in the face, again. 

Gran Hamada/Panterita del Ring vs. Shu el Guerrero/Scorpio Jr. Universal Pro 8/18/92

MD: Shu and Scorpio come out to Simply Irresistible. Good for them. Anyway, I struggle a little with matches like this. There's just not a ton to say. There were 12+ minutes of bits/spots to start, and they were good! A lot of them were really good. But do I just list them? There wasn't a lot of rhyme or reason to them. There was a little bit of progression with early matwork, but after that, it was off into bit-land. Yes, Shu based well. Yes, Scorpio had some moments of stooging, including a great one where Pandrita was able to roll through on something, drive him out, and force him to walk down the ramp hands up in retreat so there was no dive. There was a great bit where Shu swiped away a Panterita dropkick and slapped his chest repeatedly only to end up in the corner for a knee driving headscissors takeover. Hamada in general looked like a million bucks. Then they had a few minutes of beatdown which was, again good (really liked a catapult where Shu choked Hamada down onto Scorpio's knees), and a comeback with a strike exchange and some big dives, before Shu scored a clutch powerbomb and a pretty swank tied up pin. Definitely good action. A lot of character and personality. Super entertaining. I'm sure DEAN would have been able to write the hell out of this. But all I can do is bear witness.

Kendo/Great Sasuke vs. Rocky Santana/Super Delfin Universal Pro 8/18/92

MD: This was the main event, 2/3 falls. By the way, the first match on the show, that we don't have, is Black Magic vs Rey Bucanero. Though it's 92 Bucanero so he was like 12. Ah well. Kendo comes out with a soccer type shirt with himself on it. The fans are immediately behind him.

The initial Kendo vs. Santana and Sasuke vs. Delfin exchanges (two times) are a lot of fun. Nice tricked out back and forth with Kendo and Santana where they both hit the mat hard and Sasuke being insanely flexible against Delfin. Some nice comedic bits in there as well, like Santana getting skidded out and Kendo sliding out to invite him back in and Santana faceplanting a few times. It's mostly friendly though Delfin takes (and misses) a swipe at one point. The fall ends with the pairings getting switched up and Sasuke flying off the top on both Santana and Delfin leading to a funny bit where they toss Kendo off and Sasuke tosses him back on until he finally sits on all of them for the pin.

Second fall switches the pairings for real, with Delfin falling for all of Kendo's tricks and Santana feeding for Sasuke. The rudos take over though and run a beatdown on one than the other than the first again. They tease a comeback but Delfin gets a tornado DDT and locks up Kendo for the pin. After that, Kendo gets rolled out of the ring hurt, and I thought this was going to turn into a different sort of match. It lets the de facto rudos control for a bit but Kendo just comes back in pissed a few minutes later and he gets into the most ridiculous kneeling strike exchange with Santana that I've ever seen. They whack each other, then fall over backwards then get counted and pop back up and do it some more. It goes on for quite a while and it is a crowd pleaser. After that, they pop right into dives with Sasuke knocking everyone out with the Space Flying Tiger Drop to get the countout win. Definitely fun. Might have been interesting to see it take a more grisly turn but that's not what they were doing here. 

ER: I love these proto-MPro matches where you can see the style almost fully gestated, the lightheartedness with the stiffness, the innovative movement with the strong lucha inspiration. I love Rocky Santana within this world. He understood the kind of regional lucha comedy that would crossover well to Japanese Indies, while also working stiff enough to capture the attention of the rest of the crowd. They laughed when Santana charged into the ring and tripped on the bottom rope, face planting into the ring and crying to the ref for support. When he did the exact same thing in the second fall, they ate it up, fully understanding his vibe. He bases as well as Hamada and moves the same, but he'll also break down and start punching people. The whole match building to a long stretch where Kendo and Santana kneel in front of each other and do several minutes of stiff punches, comedy punches, and exhausted punches, is brilliant. We've all seen enough "two men throwing strikes with no defense" at this point, but it's crazy how many innovative versions of that exist on small lucha shows and Japanese Indies. This exchange starts normal...until the strikes start becoming unexpected, sometimes silly, sometimes mean, thrown in a totally unpredictable rhythm. It looked like Kendo and Santana were playing some kind of memory game that nobody else knew the rules to, and this memory game involved being punched in the jaw, ear, and neck. I've never seen an exchange like it, one that had multiple goals and just kept going until everyone in the building was on board. That's wrestling, baby. 

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80s Joshi on Wednesday: Jaguar! Masami!

Volume 3

2. Devil Masami vs. Jaguar Yokota 1/26/82 

K: This is the first time on the set we get to see the company top babyface vs. top heel in a singles match. So much has changed since we last saw these two against each other wrestling for the Junior Title. Jaguar's the World Champion here, but this match is non-title (world title defences are rare and saved for big shows).

At the start Devil Masami seems unaware that bringing a weapon into the ring is illegal when the referee ushers her to remove it. This doesn't do much good as one of her seconds just passes her a chair instead, which Devil immediately uses to swing wilding at Yokota's head. But this backfires as Jaguar is too fast and one time Devil swings it so wildly her momentum takes her over the top rope and Jaguar chases after her. The opening makes Devil look very villainous and wild, but also a bit dumb. The brawl continues on the outside until Jaguar takes a big bump into the announcers after Devil banged her head on their table. So far, so good. Devil comes across as almost out of control.

Devil can't match Jaguar for wrestling skill. An interesting thing about the structure of this is the 'slow down' parts are actually when the babyface is in control, as Jaguar's mostly just keeping Devil trapped on the match and applying holds, whereas when Devil escapes everything gets wild again, but she can't do that without outside help/using her cane. Devil also tries to get a win by countout a couple of times, she'll take anything to get a win here.

I noticed the commentary shout out Mami Kumano when Devil gave us a big pendulum swing on the apron.

Towards the end is when we get the more classic exciting babyface segment. Jaguar begins her comeback with her spectacular handstand through an Irish Whip and into her flashiest offense to send Devil into retreat. She goes for 1 high-flying move too much though misses Devil with a crossbody to the outside and instead hits Masked Yu (a Black Devils crony). She looks very cool doing it though, however Devil can only capitalise on this by bludgeoning her with her cane over and over again until it looks like Jaguar has been injured. That's basically your finish. Devil rolls her into the ring, hits her with a big military press and actually pins her with it. They show Jaguar reach for the ropes, but actually Devil clearly got the 3 count before Jaguar had the ropes. Huge win for Devil.

Very good match. Devil vs. Jaguar is on.

***1/2

MD: This was pretty well constructed, actually. On top of it being Devil vs Yokota with both of them more or less formed. The openings that Masami got were because of interference, or feints, or decisions Yokota made. But it didn’t feel as haphazard or random as the Black Army sprawls of a couple of years earlier. It felt more measured and intentional. A tighter narrative.

Early on that meant that Masami was prevented from using the cane but swung the chair. Yokota dodged it (and they were big swings to dodge) but ended up getting thrashed on the outside. Masami pressed by attacking the throat and having a lot of mean, borderline illegal offense, but Yokota came back with the sunset flip reversal and then leaned in hard with the figure-four and then the nasty single leg version. That was broken up by Yu. That distraction allows Masami to use the cane and then the Kumano Swing. Yokota comes back with her dynamic handspring (which is up there with Fiera’s spinning kick as one of the best comeback moves ever), but she chooses to hit a dive on Yu instead of Masami. Good revenge but it clears the way for Masami’s last assault with the cane and the press back into the ring and the one in the ring for the win.

Previously there was just as sense all of that was happening almost at random or as part of the chaos and carnage of the Black Army. Here though, there was much more of a method to the madness and it made for a stronger match.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 4/6 - 4/12 Part 2

AEW Dynasty 4/12/26

Darby Allin vs Andrade

MD: There's something to say for implicit storytelling in pro wrestling. You find it in Stan Hansen matches. You see it in shoot-style. Two characters. Two sets of attributes. Two histories. Two motivations. Two styles. One ring. A chemical reaction where things make sense because of two wrestlers being absolutely true to who they are, because things could not possibly play out any other way. You're not looking at conventional storytelling, but instead at fate, at nature playing its inevitable course. 

You're not going to learn who Andrade and Darby are from promos. You won't learn from video packages or media appearances. You won't even learn from Darby's artistically produced stunt films. With these two, you learn everything you need to know from watching them in the ring.

So who are they? They are two men whose greatest strengths are also their greatest weaknesses and their greatest weaknesses are also their greatest strengths.

Darby is undersized, but his shadow looms. You might say he's brave. You might say he's fearless. You might say he lacks common sense. Were you to say that he lacks substance, you might not be far off, but maybe, just maybe, that's what makes him constantly exist on the edge. Maybe he's never found anything else to make him feel alive. While he's a skilled and clever wrestler, that wouldn't be enough to survive in a world of relative giants, so he turns his body into a weapon and relies, bolstered by both experience and blind faith (contradictory as that may be) that his body will withstand whatever the world throws at it, even himself.

Andrade is a third-generation wrestler. He's been everywhere and done so many things. He doesn't have to push up against the darkness to feel alive; he's life incarnate, brash, bold, confident. He started his career as Brillante, Jr., and then made his career as Sombra. Light and darkness, he's seen it all. He carries himself that way, swagger driving his offense, dynamic and explosive. He would not be half the wrestler if he didn't lean so thoroughly into it, even if that means he pauses to hang in the ropes, even if that means he extracts himself from the action to take a picture with a fan in the first row. 

So that's who they are, a little of what they need in life, but what do they want here? The winner gets a title shot. What does that mean to them? 

Darby came into this claiming that he cared more than anyone. I don't actually think that's true, but I think, to the character of Darby Allin, it needs to be true, and the only way for it to be true, is for him to make it real. Everyone else cares about Everest (well, not wrestling fans), so if he climbed it, obviously he cared too right? Everyone cares about the world title, so if he claims it, then he must care too. He must care about something other than that momentary thrill. He must be a real boy. There must be substance to him. Unable to tap into the journey, all he can do is cling to the destination. 

And then there's Andrade. He's always been one for association, and here he's associated with Don Callis. A mouthpiece. I don't think he's looking for brotherhood in the way Kyle Fletcher does. But having been burned before, having been underutilized and unable to prove himself, he was looking for representation. It came at a cost. And now he was being used as a bargaining chip, as a mercenary, to keep Darby away from MJF. It chafes. It's not enough for Andrade to succeed; he must succeed as himself, leaning into the swagger, embracing the role, to prove to everyone that he can be the person he wants to be, that he wants to see in a selfie, if not a mirror, and still be a champion. 

Like any other form of fiction (and wrestling is a form of fiction even if it has athletic elements and live interactive qualities), structures and frameworks can help pro wrestling feel coherent and meaningful. Things work very well if you have a heel and a babyface, a shine with moments of heel triumph before comeuppance, heat with hope spots and cutoffs, and a comeback leading into a finishing stretch. But if the characters are strong enough, consistent enough, committed enough, compelling enough, a match can be carried without these things.

That meant that while this was close to 50-50, or at least 60-40 (Andrade), and had elements of your move/my move, the momentum shifts between your move and my move tended to be character driven, organic, meaningful, resonant. They were based on the opportunities created by the wrestlers' attributes and skill and likewise created by the weaknesses tied to them.

Andrade dodged Darby early by hitting a tranquilo pose in the ropes. Darby crashed right into him like a wrecking ball in response. He couldn't capitalize because of the damage done to him in that process and Andrade reversed a whip into the barricade. Instead of following up, Andrade took a selfie, letting Darby hit a dive off the top. Darby followed it by hitting a dropkick down the arena stairs, but he hurt himself and thus, when back in the ring, when he slammed his own body into Andrade, he faltered and buckled (selling in a meaningful way, not a performative, box checking one; this both was consequence and created consequence), and Andrade was able to take over.

The match continued on like that. Where it became 60-40 instead of 50-50 was because of Andrade's strength advantage and a chess move here or there. Andrade took an extra few seconds to pull his pants off before going for the moonsault, but he was ready for Darby to move (one of the few times where his double moonsault, unfortunately done in every match, felt organic). That meant Darby had to try all the harder, including hitting a crazy crucifix takeover off the top as a reversal, right into a hold. 

They continued on like this, Andrade locking in, Darby battered but undaunted, until Darby was able to survive Andrade's abrupt spinning back elbow and sneak out a "Last Supper" bridging pin to win. Post-match, pride bruised but undiminished, Andrade went back to shake Darby's hand. He had more to prove but nothing to be ashamed of. Darby, on the other hand, now has to live with the burden of success, of being the number one contender. Now he has to show both the world and himself just what is truly inside of him. Is he just a mindlessly determined crash test dummy or is there a fully fleshed out human being capable of caring and worthy of regard and admiration inside of him after all? The stories that pro wrestling can tell.

It was almost seventeen minutes that felt like a brisk ten. They teased finishers but didn't truly hit them. They left with mutual respect for one another, Andrade refusing to do anyone else's dirty work, wrestling only for himself. There's more left on the bone for a rematch. There were big spots and huge bumps, but this was character-driven and tightly-focused, especially for a match that was so evenly fought. You don't think of a Darby Allin match as showing discipline and restraint but this did. There wasn't a single spot which felt out of place, contrived, or worked back from instead of worked towards. Which meant, of course, that it worked brilliantly, both despite itself and because of itself.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (And Friends) 4/6 - 4/12

AEW Collision 4/11/26

RUSH vs Anthony Bowens

MD: I'll get to the PPV in a couple of days, at least Darby vs Andrade, but I wanted to take a quick stop over here first because this was interesting and Rush is RUSH.

I complained a couple of weeks ago about how Bowens vs Moxley was a bit like mud, something where the alignments and the objectives didn't seem all that clear, something where having disparate, unrelated, conflicted characters interact with one another didn't make the world feel richer necessarily, but instead more confusing.

Yet this, which really wasn't all that different, worked for me, and that just shows you that sometimes art doesn't follow rules and patterns exactly how you'd expect. That's part of why you actually engage with it. 

This match was to determine the number 2 position for the Casino Gauntlet for the vacant TNT title; a chance for a chance. Bowens is still coming off a pretty rough year where he had a strong but overstuffed babyface presentation, where some plan (which we will never know) failed to work out, where they glommed him on to Caster again, and where it all fizzled out. Now he's trying to audition for what's basically a two man stable in the Opps, and the Opps really ought to just take him all things considered. I have no idea where this will land. Hook/Shibata/Owens vs the Conglomeration sounds fun. Who knows? But it means that while he's never really done anything overly heelish (just annoying, not evil) and he sort of presents himself as a babyface with babyface trappings; he can still be sympathetic due to his size and fire, but his current motivation is to become a heel. Sort of. 

And Rush is RUSH, right? He's recently back from injury. He's in the heel locker room, but he's more of a force of nature. You can argue Moxley is a force of nature too, but he's one that tries to explain himself, even if it's in mysterious and arcane ways. Rush doesn't try to explain himself. If you mess with the bull, you get the horns. He's there to run through people, to espouse the value of brotherhood, to cause as much destruction as possible. Cheer him? Boo him? Fight him? He doesn't care. He's Rush. He's an attraction, the personification of violence. 

But still, he's almost always up against babyfaces, right?

There was a moment, right when the split first happened, when I saw Bowens as a potential Kenta Kobashi type figure. There was something about his size, his likability off-camera, his presence, his fire. And you could see him fighting Mox again and again, just like Kobashi fought Hansen, getting a little closer each time. You could see him battling Joe, or Big Bill, or yes, absolutely, Rush, and he would build himself up into someone that the crowd could get behind, could believe in. 

And while that's a hint of a memory now, dust floating in the ether, this match almost feels like a proof of concept for something that now will never be. 

They went to strikes immediately, and Bowens, wanting to prove something to Hook, to himself, to TK, to the crowd, to history, stood up and fired back. You could tell that Rush was a little surprised, more amused than bemused, probably. But you're not going to beat Rush striking, and Bowens didn't. He got swept under immediately, dumped like trash in the corner for the Horns dropkick fakeout, had to endure the Tranquilo pose and then was goaded right into a power slam. 

Business as usual then, despite a little spark. Bowens isn't just someone who received a pep talk or ate a beatdown. He's a guy with his back against the wall, at the end of his rope. He's volatile. And as Rush pushed him too far and took him too lightly, he exploded ramming blows up and down Rush's head and face repeatedly. He tossed him to the floor and rebounded him off the rail. This was Rush's domain, but Bowens wasn't hearing it. Nothing was going his way, life itself had turned against him, and if he was going to have to shout into the wind, then he would shout. Yet still, he found time to scissor someone in the crowd, found a moment to toss a catch phrase at the camera. Even in the midst of brutalizing not just a opponent, but THE opponent, he still didn't know who he was, who he should be, who he could be, save for that he was the hero of his own story. 

Thankfully, Rush was there to keep him focused, spitting in his face (and drawing a kick). Bowens ground down on him with a cobra clutch, and the crowd, unsure of who to cheer for and unable to treat Bowens as an underdog given how the match was playing out, started to back Rush. He's an attraction after all, and if they can't cheer anything else, they will cheer violence above all. 

Rush escaped, hit a front dropkick and pressed Bowens, but, perhaps to his surprise, Bowens pressed back. The fire, once awoken, wasn't ready to go out quite yet. That's the strength of Rush, his ability to draw that out of someone in that Hansen-ian way. They went back and forth. Rush snuck in a winding back suplex. Bowens charged forward to stop the Horns and hit his twisting DDT in the ropes. They crashed into one another in a way you'd expect out of Rush but not out of Bowens. 

And through no real fault of his own, Bowens came up short. The gas tank couldn't outrun the storm, especially after spending so much of the match driving headlong into it. Rush took things back outside, got some revenge against those barricades, and rolled him in to lay in the Horns.

It was a testament to what Rush is and has always been and a testament to what Bowens could have possibly been and could, maybe, somehow, someday be. And even though it was as full of grey shades as the Mox vs Bowens match, it worked far better nonetheless. 

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Found Footage Friday: GIANT GONZALEZ SPEAKS~! LAWLER'S FANS SHRIEK~! HURACAN RAMIREZ RETREATS~!

Huracan Ramirez/Huracan Ramirez Jr./Kung Fu vs. Bestia Salvaje/Indomito/Killer Arena Naucalpan 1/10/88

MD: A farewell match for Huracan Ramirez and the oldest footage of Arena Naucalpan we have. We come in with a media discussion of Ramirez, but quickly get to the match. This is handcam and as blurry as can be but we can tell who everyone is (the hardest being between Ramirez and Ramirez, Jr. but there are clear differences to their bodies). 

And footage like this is a gift. Who knew that we'd ever get it, right? Yes, it's a little hard to watch but we're pros and it's worth it every time. The Ramirez' did well on early exchanges and then Kung Fu got to play into some very fun rudo communication including some scrambling and tripping that felt novel and interesting. Everything took a turn once Killer was able to get his hands on him, however, all the way to hitting a tombstone on the floor in the midst of the chaos.

That wasn't quite the match ender that you'd think it'd be but it let the rudos really take over. Ramirez got a big moment of shine here where he stood tall against all of them and did well for a while, but it was down to Kung Fu recovering and coming back in with nunchucks to turn things around. That was basically the end of the match but not the end of the beating as Indomito, bloody face contrasting with blonde hair, took an absolute thrashing from Ramirez around ringside. The match was thrown out or the rudos won by DQ but it hardly mattered as the crowd burst in the ring to celebrate with Ramirez. It's clear how much this mattered to them and to the wrestlers and shaky cam or no, it's a joy to get to be a fly on the wall to history like this. 

Jerry Lawler vs. Doink the Clown Pro Wrestling Shenandoah 3/19/94

MD: Indie match between Lawler and a Doink that the internet thinks is Steve Keirn and I believe it. We get maybe the first two thirds of this, as clearly the person filming was running out of tape from capturing the entire Damian Demento match that preceded it. But what we get is pretty great. All minimalist shtick in front of a crowd that was made up of kids happy to chant Burger King for twenty minutes. Basically the best crowd you could get for a thing like this.

When Lawler finally did engage, he got clowned (literally) again and again. He'd miss a punch in the corner and get tagged. He'd miss a punch, duck Doink's punch, miss another punch, and get tagged. The building, timing, and payoff were all wonderful. Exactly what you'd want. Eventually he started to play hide the object, never actually using it but hiding it over and over as the ref checked the hand then the singlet again and again. Finally, Doink got fed up, took the ring bell, and put it under his own singlet and it was a beautiful piece of pro wrestling hilarity I'd never seen before. The match cuts out shortly thereafter but that was well worth the YouTube click.

ER: 15 minutes of 90s indy wrestling Metal Machine Music in the form of shrill children tirelessly screaming maniacally at Jerry Lawler. Lawler doesn't land any offense for those 15 minutes. He takes one great back body drop, and takes two punches. It's what he fills in the spaces between those moments of impact with that draw enough heat to keep waves of high pitched ambient sound ricocheting off the walls of a packed to the rafters gymnasium. Shenandoah is a town with less than 5,000 people and it looked and sounded like every resident was there. Lawler could have worked this match with anyone - no offense to Keirn - such were his powers in 1994. I love the way he throws his over-confident missed punches. The two he throws to miss here are a comic book version of Lawler's normal punch style, reared back and thrown straight as an arrow to exaggerate his full body lunge when fist finds no face. I wish we could have watched 15 full minutes of him pretending to have a weapon. I wish we could have had 15 full minutes of him selling his balls after Doink pulled the middle rope into them. I wish we could have seen the Johnny Gunn/Damien DeMento semi-main that used up the rest of our cameraman's battery. The ending is lost forever, but Lawler made small town ears ring on a Saturday night, same as it ever was. 

Mr. Perfect/Randy Savage vs. Mr. Hughes/Giant Gonzalez WWF Dark Match 8/17/93

ER: I've wanted to see this match for so long. There were not actually that many Giant Gonzalez matches in WWF. 60 matches across 1993, 85% of them happening on house shows or TV taping dark matches. We've seen all of the other possible Giant Gonzalez combinations, of which there are far too few. He was mostly married to Undertaker and Randy Savage on house shows during his run, kept him away from most of the roster, offering no opportunities for him to break out of his comfort zone. I would have loved to see what Bret could have done with him in a singles match, hell in half a dozen singles matches. I'm confident we would have gotten Giant's best matches, until we get the Lawler match footage from USWA. But there's a roster of people I'd love to see interacting with him. Let's see what Tito could have done, or Mr. Perfect. Let's turn him on other heels so we can see freak show dreams like Gonzalez vs. Yokozuna. No, we got mostly Undertaker or Savage, meaning there weren't any unique one off matches that could potentially show up on handhelds. 

This match is the most unique of the 60 Giant Gonzalez WWF matches. It's one of his only tag matches, and it's an intriguing on paper pairing. I'm a big fan of Mr. Hughes and his 60-something match WWF run. He and Gonzalez are a cool team of freakshow giants, and while the match itself isn't some kind of hidden gem, there are moments featured that we don't see ever again and I always love that. The Mr. Hughes/Mr. Perfect sections are genuinely good. Perfect was on a strong run in '93 and I love the way his body reacted to Hughes. There's a Hughes back elbow and big boot that Perfect sets up and leans into so well, his bumping style more reactive than athletic, and it's one of the things that made his later work so good. Hughes was a real physical specimen that should have been a bigger deal. His size and look are awesome, and he takes an incredible Jerry Estrada style back body drop during Perfect's comeback, leaping his knees into Perfect's shoulder so he's several feet higher in the air when Perfect flips him. It's an impressive visual and you can probably count on one hand the men that size who could have done the same. 

But, while it's not a very adventurous offensive performance from Gonzalez - he limits himself exclusively to some of his worst overhand clubbing shots to the back - it gives us what is our only glimpse of something different. This match gives us Giant Gonzalez: Vocal Showboat, a completely different look at the largest man in wrestling. I've never seen him more vocal during a match. He trash talks the crowd, trash talks his opponent - both in the ring and actively from the apron - and he shows personality that was lacking in his TV footage. The camera catches him doing something so funny, and it more than anything makes me wonder what might have been, had they kept him around and used him as a tag partner of other monsters. The moment comes when he tags out, as he makes eye contact with a ringside fan. As he's walking to grab the tag rope, he waves a large hand down over his airbrushed ab muscles, smirk on his face like he's displaying his body for some taken girl, confidently showing off his muscles that are just as fake as his airbrushed pubes. It's such an amusing piece of heel comedy, something we otherwise didn't see him attempt. That's why I find these matches so valuable. All it takes is one quick gesture, otherwise unseen, giving us a glimpse of a different past.   

MD: I watched this before reading Eric's comments (usually I get places before he does so I can't cheat off of him but this time he got there first), and was thinking to myself that I was going to have to come down real hard on Gonzalez' offense. Real hard. You don't want to compare him to Andre but you do have to sort of compare a giant to a giant and late era Andre was immobile but he made every shot seem credible, while you got the sense Gonzalez, who was more mobile, was just afraid to hurt the people he was in the ring with. His kicks barely extended. His shots were just so so soft, and that's ok on some level, but there was no way to sell them as anything but. He didn't have any idea how to use his size to inspire imagination. Thankfully, the one shot that did look great was the one that counted, towards the end when he caught Perfect coming off the ropes while on the outside, which distracted the ref and allowed Savage to get his illegal shot in to set up the finish. That one looked quite good.

BUT that said, I am totally aligned with Eric on the idea that trash talking Gonzalez is something special. With no commentary, you heard everything, and he'd just bellow in from off screen and you'd more or less make it out, would make it out enough, and that guy was alive and feeling the moment. It made me think that he probably did have some pretty entertaining house show performances towards the end, especially if you shut your eyes.

Otherwise, the moments that stood out to me were right at the start, Hughes taking Harvey's hand in a sort of sensitive gesture of friendship as the match started. And the crowd going up for Perfect and chanting for him and Hennig letting it sink in and basking. Otherwise, he and Savage really got almost nothing, a couple of chops at the start. Even when Perfect went through the legs for a tag, Savage got swept right under almost instantly. Interesting match along those lines, one that really protected the heels even in a loss, but that still gave the fans that moment of basking at the beginning and moment of triumph at the end.

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2024 Ongoing MOTY List: Darby vs. Brody

I wrote this 15 months ago and never posted it. Another love letter to Darby Allin. 

 

Darby Allin vs. Brody King AEW Dynamite 11/27/24

ER: It feels like a bit of a visual cheat to send Darby out there covered in bandages and tape. I understand selling a beating but I also love the idea of Darby's injuries all accumulating internally, his bones sounding like a wrench in a cement mixer when he moves. I don't need him biting into blood filled condoms every other week like Ken Shamrock, but I like the quiet dignity of a nutcase who has to be compiling injuries and refuses to show them. Now, Darby is showing all of them! His head is bandaged, his ribs are wrapped, his thigh is wrapped so visibly that it's wrapped over his leggings! In my day, men used to start wrestling in chaps or trash bag pants to hide their knee braces, but Darby is now wrapping his legs over his leggings.  Darby, I want you to hide your physical pain eternally, and to only let us in by way of screams and panicked writhing after a crash. I don't think I've ever seen a Darby match where he was doing this much physical selling before the bell, already holding his ribs and hopping around on one leg, and I don't know if I needed it. Not now. Don't tell us.  

I don't think the extra visible tape made this match any better than it was already going to be. But it is great, and Darby is provided hardly any openings. Brody catches the first kick thrown and chucks Darby into a reverse 450, then starts hitting full weight sentons, chops Darby off the apron to the floor, and introduces Darby to various areas of the floor and railing. 

There are two great missed spots by Brody that really move this match - excellently capped under the 10 minute mark - to another level: first, he misses a chop into the ringpost. I'm kind of over the missed chop into the ringpost as it's more expected than ever, but Brody is smart enough to not make it the singular miss. He swings hard and misses painfully in a way that easily could have broken his tibia, but the miss only drives him to set up something more risky, which leads to his second miss, a cannonball into the guardrail. One miss led to the bigger miss, and a twist of fate made that second miss even more special because it caused the production to short circuit. The TV screen went momentarily white, and when picture returned the commentary booth was disconnected. I really like the Excalibur/Schiavone team, but this match instantly felt different and special with no commentary, only the sounds of Darby's guttural moans and the impact of Brody's body. I wish the audio stayed unrestored for the entire home stretch. 

Where the considerable body tape continues to not work for me is during Darby's small comeback. Am I to believe his body is now in worse condition than ever before, as he does his tope and his two awesome Coffin Drops? Part of the big joy of Darby is not seeing how much pain he is going through to deliver these crash landings. I do not need visual clues beyond his own selling that Darby's skeleton is in pain. We all know he has to be in pain, and the imagination is a more powerful visual than any wrapped body part could be. I don't know if I've ever seen Darby come into a match selling damage before the bell, and it's kind of a foolish exercise as you knew those injuries were going to take a backseat once he got the chance to get moving, which is what we all wanted. The tape is not necessary for Darby. Leave that for other wrestlers. He transcends it. 

The finish rocked. They did a great job hinting at the double count out without milking drama from it, and then they just went straight to the end, playing off more than one classic plausible Darby finish in just 20 seconds. Darby is poised on the top rope, waiting for King to roll back in, waiting for that Coffin Drop. But if Brody had a miss so big that it sent the production truck scrambling, Darby had a miss so big it led to his near instant defeat. Darby trust falls straight back into Brody's big waiting arms. When Darby flipped back over into a pin, I thought my boy was going to sneak out with another one. But Brody dragged himself to his feet while never letting go of that hangman's sleeper. That sleeper also could have finished the match. Darby's eyes said that he knew it was going to finish him. He had no answer to two huge arms locked in tight around his neck and head with his feet not touching earth. Maybe Brody didn't want to chance it, maybe he didn't want to risk Darby lasting longer than his arms...so he finishes it so decisively with an over the shoulder piledriver so violent that anything other than a firm 1-2-3 would have proven Darby's T-1000 identity. He is mortal. He just shouldn't need tape. 

2024 MOTY MASTER LIST

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80s Joshi on Wednesday: Chigusa! Nancy! Jumbo! Lioness!

Volume 3

1. Chigusa Nagayo & Nancy Kumi vs. Jumbo Hori & Lioness Asuka 1/26/82 

K: It’s a bit flukey that there ended up being ended up being three matches from this show on the set. The reasons for including the next two matches we’re covering should be clear from watching them. This one was a late inclusion though, it’s relatively run of the mill match. It’s mainly here so we can get another look at Nancy Kumi (who will be retiring soon), and so we can track the development of Chigusa Nagayo and Lioness Asuka, who otherwise would have only had 1 appearance each in 1982.

I hadn’t really noticed this move until Matt pointed it out previously, but in the first minute we see Nancy’s Kumi fake-out crossbody move, but this time instead of a suplex she turns in the momentum into a bodyslam. It’s good that she’s got something unique to her now, on the whole she’s not a very memorable wrestler.

You really see Chigusa’s enthusiasm and drive on display here. As soon as she tags in for the first time she’s shouting at her opponent and makes the crowd laugh, which probably wasn’t the intention, she’s just so hyped up! Especially when she’s predictably going to get beaten up. Chigusa debuted in 1980, so she’s in the same class as Lioness Asuka, but she’s pushed like she’s class of 1981. The reason for this is Chigusa barely wrestled in 1980-81. The class of 1979 was a disaster, only three wrestlers debuted, and all of them quit within a year. This is why the class of 1980 was especially big, they essentially had to produce two years worth of wrestlers, but it also meant there wasn’t room for the under-performing members of the class (which Chigusa definitely was initially) to wrestle often. 

Chigusa actually hits a pretty good top rope elbow drop when she tags in the second time, and follows this up with even more excitable shouting. Not to be outdone, Lioness Asuka goes for a sunset flip cover from the corner and still manages to apply it despite landing on her head! I like watching this as these two competing with each other to showcase themselves. I find them more interesting than the two veterans here, who aren’t treating this like an important match (to be fair it isn’t). Asuka later hits a really good backbreaker, the move, it’s a bit confusing because the commentary calls that and the ‘Canadian backbreaker’ submission as a ‘backbreaker’ and Asuka did one after the other.

Jumbo Hori tags in, and Chigusa does one of the funniest botches I’ve ever seen. Hori appears to be going for a sidewalk slam, but Chigusa jumps over he and just bizarrely does a sidewards roll over her back and falls onto the mat while shouting. I can’t figure out what she was even going for but her ambition was endearing. Jumbo just stomps on her. Chigusa soon gets herself back together and does her biggest showcase yet with a series of karate kicks on both her opponents in a fighting hot tag to Nancy. The crowd actually audibly gets behind her for this. The next audible reaction from the crowd is when Jumbo Hori gets in and flattens Chigusa with two big hard powerbombs to wrap this up.

This isn’t a particularly good match. I think seeing stuff like this will enhance your appreciation for good matches to follow though.

**1/4

MD: On to Disc 3 and a little deeper into 1982. This disc will take us halfway through the year or so. By April we’ll get our first look at Kaoru Matsumoto, but for now Jumbo Hori is Jumbo Hori and Lioness Asuka is Lioness Asuka and here they are up against Chigusa and Nancy and the Crush Gals are pre-exploding. 

This was all action in somewhat less than fifteen minutes. You can tell Kumi from Nagayo because Nagayo has a kneebrace. Obviously Jumbo is bigger so that’s not so hard. I’d say that Hori had more come into her own and was working to her size here. She threw around her opponents more and did the drop down body scissors for instance, and she certainly asserted herself at the end with a couple of power bombs to win it. Nagayo felt plucky and persistent, just constantly coming at you. Towards the end she unloaded on a bunch of wild spinning kicks. I had less of a sense of Asuka though she chained together some back based offense towards the end and was able to dump Kumi with an atomic drop over the top rope to set up the finish. 

In general I guess that Hori and Asuka controlled a little more, mainly due to Hori’s size, but it was still back and forth. Kumi got in all of her stuff for instance, though more towards the end. I think I was feeling the lack of contrast overall in this one, though the energy was good; when Nayago was facing Asuka, it was a little rough around the edges but the spirit carried it through.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (And Friends) 3/30 - 4/5 - Part 2

AEW Dynamite 4/1/26

MJF vs Speedball Mike Bailey

Contrast makes the world go round.

There are some great bases in AEW, guys like Claudio and Mortos. Look, a base vs flyer match is almost always better than a flyer vs flyer match, because that contrast gives you something to latch on to. It creates narrative friction, opens the door to easier, more direct, more primal storytelling. It becomes less about oneupsmanship and counterwrestling and the tendency for my move/your move and (which can work but take much more effort when they specifically tend to get so much less) allows for more ebbs and flows.

To me, Max is something else entirely though. He comes from a different school, a different timeline even. If the evolution of most of AEW is ROH and PWG and CHIKARA (and 2010s NJPW and Nitro-era lucha and a bit of CZW), he wears his territory heart on his territory sleeve. 

That doesn't mean he can't do the other things. In fact, he's at his most frustrating when he puts the Max in maximalist either to try to claim the "best" of something or just to show he can hang. He feels the need to remind the audience that he's as "much" as those around him once or twice as year (maybe a necessary evil, but at this point, I don't think so) and while he almost always manages to do so, it comes at a cost of purity and tends to make for matches that are rated highly but that don't hold up relative to what else he has to offer.

He's best when he's out there not just as a base to enable guys to hit their spots, and not as some sort of outright troll, not as a Miz pastiche that's somehow anti-Elite to get heat. When he's best is when he sticks to a sense of vision that is more than what spots might be cool or what false finishes might get the crowd going. He's best as an alternate evolutionary imperative, the idea that what was a champion in the 60s, 70s, 80s, into the 90s is somehow a timelines force, something that can win through hook and crook, through dogged persistence and sheer confidence, that can balance an entirely different sort of earnest and genuine clowning, stooging performance with that of begrudging martial dominance... 

At his best, he stands for the idea that wrestling can still be a moral play, that it still tell universal, human stories about class and faith and hope and grit and heroism and villainy. Like I said, vision, in an artform that's gone away from it towards fireworks stacked on top of fireworks wearing a hat of "evolution."

Wrestling today is what it is. So much of it is judged on a rubric based on "awesomeness", on the number of spots and kickouts and false finishes and counter-sequences, on going as quick as you can go, and fitting in as much as humanly possible. 

Max operates best not as someone who can spit upon that OR enable it, but someone who can meet it halfway, to show that if things are twisted just so, contorted, strained, pulled, held to certain values, that the best of both worlds is still possible. Just like Gagne could against the flamboyant characters of the 50s or Flair against the muscleheads of the 80s.

He's contrast, and as contrast, he has any number of interesting opponents to face, and he can highlight what makes them special.

And he meshed well with Bailey here. Why? Because he didn't blink. Look at the opening. He came out as the American Hero, flag and all. He immediately attacks Bailey from behind. When Bailey fires right back and goes for their charging kick flurry in the corner, Max gets the ref in the way. He's quick to go to the eyes, to portray strength and gain advantages in weakness. But it's still balanced with one or two legitimate counters (the power bomb onto the knee and then catching Bailey later with a Liger bomb), just enough to give him legitimacy, to frustrate you all the more that he resorts to cheating and antics when he doesn't have to. He's the champion. You need a glimpse of him being able to go but for the sake of the vision, it can only ever be a glimpse. 

And of course, part of that vision is Max getting his comeuppance. He survived mocking Bailey's comeback attempts once or twice but going full crane kick pose left him open to a prone Bailey sweeping the leg out. That's part of the appeal (part of the vision). You don't get the confidence without the arrogance. He can't help himself. There's so much strength for a heel in that vulnerable consistency.

Even so, Omega was every effective in putting MJF over (instead of tearing him down and thus tearing the match down) on commentary. When he gets his foot on the ropes or rolls away from an opponent from the top rope, it's frustrating, but you also have to give it to him and note his ring awareness and the overall effectiveness of the strategy. Everything in balance, everything driven by vision. The horse leads the cart and the driver drives the horse and the crowd gets to where it needs to be. That's wrestling.

If you're not going to have a thousand firework spots, then you need to make the most of those that you have and set them up and pay the off well. That meant callbacks and repetition, foreshadowing and payoff. Max went for the Heatseeker, got shrugged off, and took out Bailey's leg with a baseball slide, cutting off whatever high flying counter they might have went for. Max went for it again but this time Bailey was ready, dodged the baseball slide and hit Max with a moonsault. Very smart stuff. Likewise with all of the rolls and avoidance leading to a second rope Ultima Weapon. In that regard, they were able to doubly protect Bailey's finisher. It was just off the second rope AND Max had to get a foot on the ropes instead of kicking out. That stuff matters. It matters for the character of MJF and it matters to protect Bailey and help elevate them even in a loss. Details matter. Details are what allow a vision to become a reality.

Max ultimately won this because Bailey went back to the well once too often. They went for a second moonsault knee on the apron. Max was ready and turned it into a tombstone. That was an opportunistic moment for Bailey but it also speaks to the consistency of vision. Max had frustrated them so. He had survived that far. He had driven Bailey to desperation and an emotional need to mete out retribution and justice. That created an opening but it also protects Bailey, even in the lost. It's human. We sympathize. We would have wanted to drop a knee on Max too. Strength in vulnerability; it works for babyfaces too. 

When you sum it all up: contrast, consistency, foreshadowing, payoff, vulnerability... you get vision and you get a match that works, one that stands out from the rest of the card, one that puts over both wrestlers and leaves them stronger than they came in, one which only increases the ongoing story threads and the narrative pressure for Max to get what's coming to him. It works. Storytelling works. Pro wrestling works. It can include comedic moments, breathtaking spots, teeth-gritting frustration, wild action, and character moments that bring everything to a halt in the best way.

All it takes is the bravery to have a vision and commit to it, and that, when he can fight the tides of crowds, critics, management, and even, sometimes, his own heart, is what Max offers pro wrestling in 2026. And god do we need it more than ever.

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Deranged Wrestled 3 Way Dances Worth Watching

Deranged vs. Azrieal vs. Grim Reefer USA Pro 10/19/02 - GREAT

ER: This would have been better as Deranged vs. either in a singles match, but that's not what USA Pro was about and it wasn't what it would ever be about! You get the full flavor by running this three card monte and it only highlights how amazing Deranged was at the style. Seeing Deranged in three ways made his skills stand out more, made it more clear he was a step above the other small fliers. 

Grim Reefer's execution and timing wasn't as good as the others. He has good ideas on his bumps but sometimes takes them a bit early or mapped out. But his chops hit hard, and a guy like Deranged can build some special sequences around a guy with good ideas who hits hard. Reefer is wearing his snapback through half the match, and the Elk's Lodge crowd boos Azrieal when the hat comes off (after Reefer took some kind of crazy arm clutch brainbuster). To get the booing to stop, Azrieal expertly starts kicking Reefer in the back as hard as he can, and it works! 

But Deranged won't be upstaged in a three way. Impossible. Piling onto Azrieal's kicks, Deranged shows how good HE can kick backs, getting then into position with nicely executed snapmares and punctuating them both with kicks. It's kind of shocking how good Deranged's basics were. He knew how to glue flashy spots together, had great punches, had a snapmare that Bret Hart would have to rate, a strong sense of how to get from A to B. The key to his greatness is how he used all these basics to build to wild shit like a hiptoss facebuster slam, or breaking up a pinfall with a double stomp off the top. If you have to break up a pin anyway, why not do so as painfully as possible? His pop up rana is as smooth as any luchador's, and he can take a full backflip selling a facebuster without making it look ridiculous. I mean, it looks ridiculous, but he's great at making it look like that's just what his body does in response to offense. 

Azrieal is eliminated first and it gives us a chance to see Reefer alone with Deranged, see what they could cook up. I don't remember ever seeing a Deranged/Reefer singles (it must have happened but I sure don't remember seeing one) and it's cool. Deranged does more of his Great Basics when he misses a clothesline thrown like he thought it would hit, and thrown hard. If Reefer had somehow gotten crossed up, Deranged would have broken his face with it. He uses that miss to set up a spinning headscissors that at first looks like Reefer messed something up, but then I see he was intentionally laying out flat while taking it to get Deranged into a sick crossface. When Deranged gets to the ropes, Reefer abandons the crossface and runs across the top rope to hit a swanton. One of Deranged's greatest skills is the way he facilitated everyone's whims and ideas, an amazing canvas for guys with playground death wish creativity. 

Deranged vs. Jay Lethal vs. Tony Lazaro JAPW 11/8/02 - VERY GOOD

ER: As part of his entrance, Deranged flips himself into several unprompted bumps, including a cannonball into the guardrail. He wasn't putting himself through tables, but he's like if Sabu had been part of a breakin' crew. It rules. This man is truly deranged! I liked everyone in this match, but it's another instance of Deranged giving two guys a canvas to do some of their best work. You watch something like this and ask "Did Jay Lethal have a really great spinebuster...or was Deranged great at elevating everyone's offense? Did Yeyo have a really great clothesline...or does Deranged make me think it hits like a truck? Does Deranged snap off huracanranas better than anyone...or is every New Jersey resident great at taking pop up ranas?" Lethal and Lazaro do work really well with him, and with each other, and everyone in 2002 New Jersey probably did take huracanranas really well. Except for Slyk Wagner Brown, I guess. 

Early in the match Deranged backdrops Lethal to the floor, sending him pretty far away from the ring, and Lazaro saves Lethal's life with a catch. Lethal would have been busted over the guardrail without a guy like Yeyo out there catching dives like a pro. Lazaro can catch dives, and he can take a mean bump. I think every time I've ever seen Deranged throw Lazaro into the corners with an overhead belly to belly, into another opponent, it has led to Lazaro landing on his head. Lazaro will fall on his head, but he also solos over the bridge with some out of nowhere Chris Hamrick bullshit. He stops the whole match for two minutes selling an ankle injury after taking a pancake. There is not a soul in Bayonne buying it, so Lazaro just keeps it going, long enough that the crowd gets audibly annoyed when he's being helped up by referees and runs through Deranged and Lethal with a clothesline. The man points at his head after, which means we must officially Stan 4 Yeyo. I love when a guy eats up that much match time with bullshit, especially in a match that's designed to be nothing but fast action. 

There are some ideas that don't quite work due to fudged timing, but they are good ideas! My favorite - in concept - was Lazaro  trying a low dropkick to break up a sunset flip, but Deranged flattens out and Lazaro flies over him into a Fuerza bump. It doesn't quite get pulled off, the timing was off, either Deranged flattened out early or Lazaro came in late, but I've never seen a Fuerza bump set up by a guy trying to break up a pin. Speaking of breaking up pins, Deranged hits a senton onto both Lazaro and Lethal while Lethal is holding a surfboard, leading to Lazaro's elimination, and it's disgusting. Lethal kicks out of one of Deranged's sickest Code Reds, landing Lethal high up on his shoulders, and Lethal wins with a crazy pumphandle Gotch piledriver. As with every crazy move, I love how Deranged set it up. Lethal caught a Deranged clothesline then ducked a high kick, Deranged a master at spinning and twisting himself into someone else's brutal offense while making it look like he organically wound up in an impossible physical position. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE SPECIAL K

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