SUP Swing of the Axe 10/9/20

25. To Infinity and Beyond vs. Violence is Forever

PAS: This was totally killer, TIAB ramped up the violence to meet the potatoes that Ku and Garrini were throwing. Delaney was skin singeing in a chop battle with Ku and Cheech landed some nasty back elbows to Garrini's jaw and the back of his head. Infinity are the best team at the world at cutting off the ring and other old school tricks and I loved how they kept cutting off VIF''s double teams by pulling them out of the ring. They also did a great job of working over Dom leading to a wild Ku hot tag. Great traditional tag structure with moments of gross violence mixed in. Infinity crunched Garrini's neck with a Kudo Driver combo, and VIF obliterated Colin with a Total Elimination. They kept a crazy pace, but nothing felt overdone. Really good stuff, would love to see this be a series. 

ER: When this started out I thought it was going to be one of those inside joke matches, where we were going to get some gags based on something that happened the night before at whatever hotel conference room everyone was hanging out at. And while there is some comedy and Delaney wears a Buzz Lightyear backpack for a bit, once this starts with Cheech rolling with Garrini, Garrini dragging him down into an ankle lock and then each rolling through a series of cool wrenched in armbars, I knew we were running. I love the way To Infinity lays these matches out, and as long as opponents match the pace then the formula is lights out. Their best matches are filled with quick tags and quick set-up, and this had all sorts of complicated double teams and timing spots that never seem to lag or hitch with To Infinity. 

Ku seems like a guy who likes working quick and is a perfect opponent, as he's always running hard into people and sending his legs even harder. He had a sliding knee on the apron that looked an hair away from a broken jaw, and I like that he doesn't always go for style on strikes. He misses some but they always look like they're thrown to land. He takes offense well, will splat head first on a rope hang DDT, and had a couple of late saves that saved Garrini. The double team vertebreaker was disgusting, and it's a frequent reminder of how talented Dom is, while also knowing there will almost always be something this nuts taken in a Dom match. There were a few misses here, didn't love Ku's standing chops to hold of Infinity, and the big head kick as part of the finish looked like it completely whiffed (it's always unfortunate when the finish doesn't look nearly as cool as the rest of the match) but when you go this hard you're going to miss a couple things. 

29. AJ Gray vs. Nolan Edward

PAS: I am fully aboard Gray just becoming Black Stan Hansen (which feels like a secondary nickname for a Griselda crew hanger on, Daringer should totally start calling himself Black Stan Hansen in drops). The story of this match was plucky youngster Nolan Edward proving himself against a veteran, and Gray delivered the asswhipping that match structure needs. He jumps Edwards at the bell and just plasters him with reckless forearms and punishing chops. There was no carefully timed shots in between stares, just blows thrown with no real concern for where they land. Edwards fired back with some stiff shots too, just to let you know he was there, and got a couple of well timed kick outs, but Gray was a Mack Truck and Edwards was the possum who crawled onto the road. 

ER: You're going to do an under 5 minute match, this is how you do it. This is the kind of AJ Gray match that people will talk about when they talk about Gray becoming their favorite wrestler. He doesn't give Nolan Edward time to breathe for the first 2 minutes, fast walking from the back straight into the beginning of his ass kicking. He's throwing full arm shots, just pummeling Edward's body, hard forearms to the jaw, and I swear at one point picks Edward up just to send a forearm straight into his teeth. Edward weathered the storm and managed to send Gray off balance with a high dropkick, then flew into him as hard as he could on a tope (and what a great tope catch by Gray). Edward's missile dropkick believably sends Gray flying across the ring into the corner, and Edward hits a wild spinning heel kick that almost sends him flying to the floor in an unprotected tope con hilo. If that had happened, Edward may have delivered a meaner spinning heel kick to his own head than the one Gray almost decapitated him with earlier. When Gray finally catches him it is a no more fucking around situation, as he lays Edward out with three increasingly brutal clotheslines. That finishing shot has to have the claim for lariat of the year. Nolan Edward came out of this looking like a man for withstanding way more of a beating than most of us could imagine, and Gray came out of this looking like a superstar. 

Allie Kat vs. Davienne

PAS: US Indy women's wrestling is something I am a real low voter on, however I would much rather watch B- Aja Kong vs. Bull Nakano matches then B- Stardom matches, and that is what we got here. Two thick girls beating on each other until one of them drops. Allie Kat didn't do any of her cringey "I am a human cat" spots, and instead just threw forearms, jabs and sentons. Davienne knows how to use her size well and threw herself into everything. Didn't wear out it's welcome, kept it moving and had some oomph, this gets a thumbs up for me. 

ER: This was good enough for me, and a thing I really like about Allie Cat is her willingness to take a shot. Unfamiliar with Davienne, but liked her willingness to also hang in and let Allie's limbs and body land on her face. I did not like the moments of unnatural set up, like Davienne missing hooks by 3 feet just to set up Allie jabs. There's just got to be a way to make those look like they were actual misses. But there are a lot of hard landings and snug pinfall attempts, and I liked how Davienne really scooped Cat's legs every time she tried to cover. Allie Cat's best offense is when she just runs in and flings herself at her opponent, and she really crushes Davienne in the corner with a hip attack and cannonball. My favorite things in the match were when they twisted a sequence just slightly, like when I thought they were going to do a played out "I hit you in the corner and then you chase me to the other corner" spot, and Allie just drops to all fours and sends Davienne faceplanting over her. Things like Allie sliding on her knees face first into the buckles was cool, and I think plenty here looked cool. 

34. Daniel Makabe vs. Lee Moriarty

PAS: Reversal heavy matches are normally not my thing, but I have to give a lot of credit to all of the cool shit both guys did in this match. Makabe especially looked awesome, although I wish there had been a beat or two more in between spots and reversals. Makabe hits this incredibly awesome La Magistral cradle into a rear naked choke, but Moriarty is on to the reversal before it even gets locked fully in. Give me a beat, let me soak in that move a bit before you move on. The finish was a much better example of what works better: Moriarty puts the Makabe lock on Makabe, and we watch Makabe move Moriarty's legs into position before spinning him into a sort of a reverse Cattle Mutilation for the pin.  There were also some cool big impact moves, Makabe's top rope rana looked moments away from killing both guys )which made it great), and there was a couple of nasty suplexes too. This is Makabe's only pandemic match, and he made it count. 

ER: I thought this was great, while also thinking that Moriarty was kind of playing the Angle to Makabe's Eddy. Moriarty is very smooth and has some slick maneuverings, but there were several things I wish he let breathe. What's perhaps most impressive is that while a lot of things were moved into and out of very smoothly, this never had a big cooperative feel to it, and it's hard to get to this level of smooth without feeling and looking entirely mapped out. I think there were a couple times where Moriarty kind of left Makabe hanging on a couple spots, requiring him to sell in place while Lee set up the next bit of offense, but mostly this was seamless. And while I also wish there were a couple beats and I was allowed more time to ruminate on certain things, I was at all times impressed by the pace. This whole show has felt like a real "pace" show, and these two filled the most time of anyone, and it's not easy to make an 18 minute match feel like a 9 minute blur. 

The match felt like one cool reversal after another, far too many (and far too pointless) to list here, but they all looked great and only a couple times did it look like Makabe was intentionally leaving a limb out for Moriarty (there were also clearly Makabe playing possum sells, so they all easily could be chalked up to that). Moriarty targeted Makabe's left arm, and I like how Makabe had this desire to land his big right hand, and the more it appeared Moriarty had scouted it the more it made Makabe want to land it. Makabe's roll through reversals are one of my absolute favorite things in wrestling, the way he springs his legs back over his head to wind up in a position nobody was expecting to grab a limb or snag a pinfall that nobody was expecting, it's insane to me he manages to do it around his opponent. It never once feels like his opponent is adjusting their momentum or trajectory just to make his slick rolling reversal work, and that's wild to me. He has a great sense of where he needs to be to make a spot or submission work, and I dig the way he gets to that spot. Reversing direction on a magistral to drop into a rear naked choke would be a contender for spot of the year, and I hate that Moriarty basically slipped right out of it into something new. There's value to adding rope struggle or positional struggle to things, but this felt like the most interesting match that could happen while showing both guys almost exclusively neutralizing each other.

Makabe finally catches the Big Unit punch (if we're naming it after guys who have had at least one good season as a Mariner, I think that punch should now be called the Doug Fister) while Moriarty was up top, and eventually hit a crazy LATE rotation rana that I was not expecting at all. The trap leg bridged suplex looked outstanding, and I dug how commentary pointed out how high end Makabe's bridge work is. It's an important thing to note, as he has several different important spots where the leverage is made all the more painful with his bridging. Moriarty was eel slick getting into and out of everything, and that really did make me appreciate the home stretch where Makabe kept getting better and better at trapping him, before finally trapping him. 

O'Shay Edwards vs. Jake Something

PAS: I like that indy wrestling has gotten more legit big dudes lately who wrestle like big dudes and just hit each other. This wasn't a Lee vs. Dijak rana fest, this was all forearms and clotheslines and big slams. I especially liked the early section where Something taunted Edwards into going for a running shoulderblock, and as he turned his back cracked him in the back of the neck with a forearm. I do wish Edwards was like 15% stiffer for what he is trying to achieve. On this card you have guys like Gray, Ku, Garrini and Manders and Henry absolutely obliterating people with strikes and there are some forearms in this match that look pulled. Structure was cool, but I wanted it cranked up a bit.

ER: I thought this was cool, and keeping with the theme of the night of people running into each other as hard as possible. Jake Something really laid into O'Shay with everything he threw, including three different brutal shots to the back of the head. He nailed him once early in the match after a missed shoulderblock, then late in the match ducked a clothesline to nail his own to the back of Edwards' neck, then ran off the ropes to lay him out with the hardest lariat of the match to that same spot on the back of O'Shay's neck. I'm pretty tired of standing elbow exchanges, but loved how much of their body they were putting into these shots. You could see both of them following all the way through with their weight, and they looked like the kind of shots that at best would break my jaw and send me flying 8 feet backward. They didn't linger on them (always weird to me when people put long strike exchange spots in their matches, effectively making none of their strikes mean anything) and moved quickly into standing lariats, and there haven't been many times in pro wrestling this year where full arms landed hard on chests. 

We quickly went into a home stretch of big moves, like that diving lariat of Something's I mentioned, a Thesz press/Vader bear attack from Something, or O'Shay hitting a sick over the shoulder piledriver, and we wrapped up with another economical ass kicking. Although, at this point it's obvious that this match would have stood out so much more on a show that had a lot more variety. Given the choice, I'd rather see a show like this with a ton of matches filled with stiff beatings - a style I love - rather than a few bad cooperative flipper matches leading to a match like this. But having 6 different "people laying in the shots" matches is going to mean some excellent things blend into the background. 

52. Anthony Henry vs. Jaden Newman

PAS: This was our second young guy gets beaten by a veteran match, and Henry lays in an appropriate beating. I liked the early section with Newman using his speed to frustrate and taunt Henry. When Henry takes over he really laces into the kid, including some whip kicks to the torso which were Akitoshi Saito level nasty. Newman got a couple of nice comebacks before being put away with an absolutely vicious looking trapped arm dragon sleeper, one of the cooler new submissions I can remember seeing. 

ER: This one really didn't land as with me as some of the other big bangers, even though I liked just about every single thing Henry did. This is another example of a match that probably would have stood out on a bunch of other shows, but not really on this one. I've been to plenty of indy shows in my life where this match would have easily been the best on the card, but it has some stiff competition just 90 minutes into this show. I also think that you can't really go 12 minutes doing an underdog match on the same show where you had an amazing underdog match that didn't even go 5 minutes, and I didn't really think some of Newman's comeback offense fit into what they were going for. 

Henry can be really nasty and that's where this match was at its best, and you knock half the time off the match I think you end up with something far more memorable. The opening exchanges were really good, as Newman stayed a half step ahead of Henry while everyone knew it would last, leading to Henry dishing some good punishment. Henry gets a ton of force on his kicks, and at one point is just standing and walking on Newman's face in the corner, later he somehow pulls off a double dragon screw without making it look the least bit implausible. Henry is great at taking Newman's offense, landing on the top of his head to sell a rolling cravat snapmare, has no problem banging his chin on the mat taking an F5. The finish run was really cool, loved how Henry anticipated Newman lunging at him from behind and ducked, Newman going sprawling, and Henry going after his arm to go after his leg to trap both arm and leg while throwing a capture German. The ending of match trap arm dragon sleeper was sick, made me need to see Makabe vs. Henry in a battle of that dragon sleeper and Makabe's magistral RNC. I think I'm actually really liking this match a lot more, the more I think about it. 

Brett Ison vs. Erick Stevens

PAS: This didn't do a ton for me. I think this card really needed another tag or trios match, outside of Makabe vs. Moriarty every match on this card was some variation of a stiff slugfest. This was worked very similar to the rest of the card, but was the least of those matches. I have the same issues with Ison I have with O'Shay except even more, they announcers kept selling those forearms as monster shots, when we just watched Henry in the previous match. This wasn't an actively bad match, but I can't recommend it. 

ER: This was pretty easily the weakest match on the card, not just because of the same-y feel it had, but there seemed to be no real strong rhyme or reason to kickout vs. power up, and Ison's offense seemed to get weaker as the match went on (and the match was only 6 minutes). I liked Stevens trying to tie Ison up with subs, and some of the early stuff looked really good. That Ison face wash is a killer, even though it always looks like he half asses the lead up back elbow to focus on the face wash. He leans a bit far out of the double underhook piledriver, and the arm unroll backfist did not work as a finisher for me, especially on a show that's been filled with a couple dozen gnarlier strikes. Stevens came off much more impressive, and either Ison comes off smaller than he really is or Stevens works bigger than he really is, because Stevens worked this as if he was Ison's strength equal and pulled it off. This also would have played better on a different show, but the flaws here were more real. 

48. Manders vs. AC Mack

PAS: This was a really fun main event, with Mack playing the role of the sneaky heel champ faced with a powerhouse babyface. Manders hits a ton of big time offense, big lariat, Iowa Stampede, Doctor Bomb, second rope powerslam. Mack found a bunch of different ways to weasel his way out of loss, and give a big Un Foul to get the pin after escaping Manders. I would have rather seen Mack hit the Mack 10 after the low blow, as it felt like one low blow was a little weak to put down Manders, but this was classic Flair stuff, Nikita does everything but win the title, and you sell the ticket for the rematch. 

ER: Manders came off of this one like an out and out badass, maybe the guy I would least want to be hit by, on a card populated by nothing but people who I wouldn't want to be hit by. Manders got that heavy low end that grounds all his big strikes, makes every charge explode. Really the only problem with the match was I don't think a lot of Mack's stuff looked like it should fell Manders. There were two different kicks that were supposed to be big exclamation points to completely stop the beast, but both were grazing shots at best, coming right after Manders did nothing but waste Mack. It kind of felt like a babyface Shawn Michaels or Macho Man performance during some portions, the kind where they would eat a tough beating and then the heel would have to sell a Michaels bodyslam while he took forever to climb to the top rope. It threw the dynamic off when the babyface was just destroying Mack and half of Mack's entries into the match looked like shots that shouldn't have been sold. 

Manders has some of my favorite offense in modern wrestling, those running shoulderblocks and avalanches are full bore, his lariats and chops hit super hard (love how he throws missed clotheslines with the same ferocity), got a great powerslam, great Iowa Stampede, great Doctor Bomb, really I'm not sure he has any offense I even remotely dislike. He even makes things that could look silly - like his 3 point stance running chop - look devastating. I've seen several people try to pull off the running chop, and it never works. It goes against your bodies own momentum, you have to throw across yourself while also running, just doesn't work. And here Manders makes everyone else who's ever tried it look like a real dummy. Mack did have some great stuff, so it wasn't completely one sided. His Liger bomb out of the corner was a great surprise, he throws a couple of punches throughout the match that appear to target Manders' ear, neck, and jaw, and he hits a yakuza kick that really mashes the sole of his boot into Manders' teeth. I also wasn't a fan of the finish, even though I LOVED Mack grapevining the bottom rope to prevent the kickout. It made me want to see Manders wreck Mack for the title. 

Which, well, considering AJ Gray comes out after the match, eats a kick to the balls and just wastes Mack with a lariat for the title anyway, I am not sure when we're actually going to get that title match. Curious to see how they book the Bonestorm title going forward, but AJ Gray's lariat going up against Manders' um...everything? Also, Gray/Manders is a match that's happened a few times, and I need to seek those matches out pronto. 

ER: There are still some Collective shows I need to see, but it's going to be tough to beat this show. It's not often the weakest match on your show still stands out as a fun match, and this show landed a ton of matches on our 2020 Ongoing MOTY List. This made me want to see more of just about every single person on the card, and there aren't many better ways to leave a show than that.