2014 Ongoing MOTY List: Thatcher/Busick in China!

38. Biff Busick vs. Timothy Thatcher WWN Live in China 11/16

PAS: This was the least of their matches against each other this year, although that is a pretty high bar. They were clearly working a little simpler and with more standup, I assume because they were working in a bigger arena in front of an audience unfamiliar with wrestling (for those that don't know, this was worked in Beijing in front of like 8,000 people). This actually felt like what a RAW match between the two guys would look like. Thatcher looked great, with some really nasty arm twisting, and Busick took a big beating, threw some bombs and took a cool looking over the top rope bump. The dive into the uppercut was brutal looking, and seemed to pop the crowd too. So crazy that EVOLVE pulled this tour off, a real a cool bit of history.

ER: I had never seen any footage from the WWN China tour, a genuinely impressive feat for them to pull off and probably a genuine high point for a lot of the wrestlers involved. I thought this was real great, managing to be a broad strokes version of their best material, but worked so stiff that it played all the way to the back row with its realism. Nobody on this card had ever worked a stadium show before, and these two got a large crowd of mostly non-wrestling fans to cheer for matwork and get loud for hard chops and uppercuts. It was great. I'm sure the dark seating and brightly lit ring made it easier on the fans' sightlines, but I would have loved to see shots of the crowd during the match. They clearly got into this and I wish I could have seen those reactions. The match starts with a lot of Thatcher wrecking Busick's arm, cranking different stages of an Americana for the first couple minutes. Busick sells it compellingly for the length of the match, switching up his striking to the other side without being showy about it. They get great reactions off of big loud chops and it really seemed like they fed off those reactions and just kept trying to make louder noise with their bodies. I loved when they had a back and forth battle over ugliest back elbow, the match crescendoing with Thatcher hitting a brick wall of a back elbow leaping into the corner. Busick tumbled off the top rope to the apron and into darkness after getting uppercutted off, and the big suplexes down the stretch played big. Thatcher's delayed gut wrench to set up the finish was so cool, and this all felt like a match that could easily play to any wrestling crowd in history.


2014 MOTY MASTER LIST