2019 Ongoing MOTY List: Cain & Trevor Go Long

4. Cain Justice vs. Trevor Lee CWF Mid-Atlantic 2/16

PAS: This is a match that I have real mixed feelings about. 74 minutes is really long, I get why Lee wanted to go out with a Trevor Lee marathon, especially because he is off to the land of the four minute Noam Dar matches, but they really could have told the same story in 45 minutes, they found interesting things to do to fill the time, but it is a lot of time. I am also very tired of the indy forearm exchanges, and there were a couple of not great ones here.

I try to review matches separate from promotional booking, I want to have matches stand alone. Still having Trevor Lee win this match and walk out of the promotion with the title is really destructive booking. Lee beat everyone in this promotion multiple times, held the belt for three years and needed to drop the title to someone on his way out. How is anyone going to be invested in the next champion after he picks the belt out of the dumpster Lee threw it in on his way to the Performance Center? The promotion seems to want to push Cain as next guy, which makes sense, he is great. Still Lee went 3-0 against him in 2019, in this match he beats him into a ref stoppage, restarts the match, and then beats him again a minute later. There were multiple points in this match it would have made perfect sense to have Cain win, and to have him lose again was just deflating. All of the Ian Rotten speeches by Trevor about how Cain is the future still won't undo the damage of him being unable to get the job done. CWF doesn't seem to be doing Worldwide anymore, and is pulling stuff quickly from Twitch. I am not sure why they are making it harder to watch their product, and add that to a decimated title situation, I am really worried about the future of the promotion.

On the other hand there was a lot to love about this match, and despite my reservations I think it was damn good. This match is Cain's trial by fire, and Trevor does Fuchi style torturing better then anyone, and he really stretches and pounds on Cain in a brutal and impressive ways. It is really one sided for a long time, but they build to some big Cain moments well, and by the end I totally bought into him pulling off the win. There was a couple of really awesome spots, I loved Cain slipping in a flash gogoplata and Trevor breaking it by deadlifting him and hotshotting him on the bottom of the top rope. The last 20 minutes are really dramatic with both guys getting some really great submission based near falls, I loved all of the teases and variations of both the STF and Twist Endings, and the near fall by Cain on the Twist Ending roll up was one of the better 2.9 near falls I can remember. I think the whole crowd thought Cain had won the match. I thought the stomps Trevor did to get the ref stoppage were appropriately brutal looking, and Trevor restarting the match if Cain can beat a 10 count was a cool moment, I just wish it didn't end with another decisive Trevor win, it really was a perfect way to give Cain a win, but still protect Lee, instead it just lets Trevor beat him twice.

ER: This was going to be difficult for me, for multiple reasons. I don't think I'm great at reviewing really long matches, because much of my wrestling fandom revolves around thinking that matches don't need to go long, that most guys don't need to go long, that you should be able to accomplish whatever wrestling narrative you're trying to tell in half the time. But I fully get why this match would go long, it's woven into the CWF Trevor Lee title match narrative, it's something we expect, and going into this match we all knew it was the final Trevor Lee CWF title defense. I wish I didn't know going into this match that it was 75 minutes, as it kind hurts the drama of a long match knowing that it is going that long; but, it's also pretty impossible to not know a match was going this long, unless you watch it as it happens.

I really loved the first 60 of this, and it lost me somewhat in the last 15. As with many long matches, it's that type of thing that makes me question why it had to be this long. But what was impressive is how one-sided the first 50 minutes were, without it ever seeming like the match was going too long. It was one-sided, but the % split was just right, so that Cain never felt out of it even while he wasn't actually on top that much. Every time Cain got aggressive Trevor was right there expecting it; when Trevor was aggressive Cain wasn't always as quick on the trigger. Trevor can come off real sadistic, and I love these long matches where Trevor works slightly heel, a guy who is in control who is also rudely wiping his hand on Cain's face and working condescending holds. Trevor really big brothers Cain around the ring, and it wasn't like he wasn't treating Cain as a threat, it was more like he knew Cain was a threat but knew he was better...which admittedly makes a lot more sense if Cain was actually winning the match. Nobody likes cocky guy who definitively backs up what he says. But I like Trevor's brand of torture, and it's awesome to see someone barely old enough to rent a car look *this* comfortable in a ring. Lee wrestles like he knows exactly where he's at in there at all times, but that doesn't guarantee an engaging beatdown. The longer this Cain torture went, the more into it I got, and the more excited I got at how exciting the fans were for it. This is a crowd that ran all age ranges and genders, and there was honest to god excitement coming from the crowd every minute of this match. Do you know how special that is? Once a crowd is burnt out, it's almost impossible to get them back. Imagine starting a 75 minute match, losing them 30 in (and I would wager most indy wrestling crowds would get burnt after 30 minutes) and knowing you still had 45 minutes to gut this thing out. At that point you'd have to realize that you were only working a long match for yourself, and not for the fans. But with these fans along for the ride it felt every step of the way that this was what they wanted to see.

At first Cain's only breaks came from Trevor being too aggressive, and I liked things like Trevor kicking the ringpost to give Cain a breather. And you know the first time Cain gets chippy and one-ups Trevor, that's when Trevor utilizes the finger break. Perfect placement in the match. And I was so into all the mat scrambles and nasty work (Lee hyperextending Cain's left leg, or that absolutely brutal combo where Lee was basically working a stump puller while forcing Cain's head down by sitting on it, or violently and suddenly turning a knucklelock into a Boston crab) that I didn't want them to go into the strike exchange portion. It was ramping up that way, but I didn't totally want it to, and I think some of the striking came off lesser than the mat stuff. Now, since a lot of the striking came an hour into the match, that's kind of an acceptable reason for it to look off in spots. But we got some great nearfalls and some convincing near finishes out of it, like every time Cain went for a Twist Ending. Every reversal out of the TE was exciting, and I honestly thought Cain won it on that roll up (I knew the match went long, but didn't know the result).

I'm 100% with Phil that I just don't understand the ending. I'm a fan of restarts, and you could hear the wind get sucked out of the room when Redd stopped the match, no matter how much a stoppage made sense in that scenario. Cain wasn't defending, Redd was doing his job, the fans were quiet but it made sense. It would have been such a perfect way to get the belt on Cain, to have Trevor sense the fans' disappointment and not want to go out that way, to give the fans a true 3 count or tap out finish that they clearly wanted, to boldly declare that if Cain could answer the 10 count, he would continue the match. And when I heard that my feet started running in place where I sat, excited for Cain to fight to his feet and tap Lee.......and then Lee just beat him right after the restart. What a crushing and confusing finish. I can't think of a better way to finally beat Trevor, for him to demand a match he won be restarted - a combination of cockiness and pleasing the fans that he loved - and then getting beat because of it. But instead he beats Cain twice, and now the title I guess gets decided from some sort of tournament among guys who all couldn't ever beat Trevor Lee, some multiple times. That just feels like a shocking, major misstep to me. If I look at this match as "how many total minutes did I love?" then this match would have a super high %. But it's really hard to love something for much of its runtime and then only be able to think about how it ended.

Separately, I want to say how much I loved Cecil Miller and CL Party's commentary during this whole spectacle. I think it was pretty unquestionable before this match that Cecil is the best active wrestling commentator going, and after this match it's not even close. CL Party has grown confidently into her role and her genuine reactions are believable and welcoming to the brand. The two of them together kept me invested in every minute of this. CWF is a promotion that is big on internal history, and without Cecil and CL there organically working in historical information, I don't think the match comes off as well as it did. It's exciting to hear feud history, personal insight, no snark, commentary that doesn't sound like it's too inside or reading prepared copy; it's two people who know these two wrestlers, who have been there the entire time for everything leading up to this match, and that warmth and personal knowledge shined through the entire way. Seeing the Twist Ending get locked in on Trevor and hearing Cecil scream about how it's never been broken before made me pull my laptop closer in anticipation. CWF wouldn't be as good without these two welcoming fans to the product, and I'm glad I got to listen to them for 75 minutes.


2019 MOTY MASTER LIST