Lawler vs. Steen! Piledriver vs. Piledriver!

Jerry Lawler vs. Kevin Steen NEW 8/2/14 - FUN

ER: NEW is an indy that gets mostly ignored by people who devour indy wrestling, while drawing bigger paying crowds than any of those other indies. This was one of their biggest shows of 2014, outdoors in a minor league baseball stadium in Fishkill, NY. They know how to book a show with something for everyone, from little kids on up to weird pervert adults. This show had a surprisingly good Mike Bennett/Matt Taven match (I'm pretty sure every single NEW show has a Mike Bennett/Matt Taven match, they worked each other constantly there), Reby Sky when she was working matches with her entire ass out, a 50 year old man former MLB player who pitched approximately 50 middle relief innings for the Yankees right before they started winning World Series again (20 YEARS before his wrestling "career"), and a main event Hardy Boys/Young Bucks tag that is legitimately one of the greatest tag matches of the 2010s. This Lawler/Steen match was on right before the Bucks/Hardys match, and was Steen's literal last indy match before debuting on an NXT TakeOver a few months later. It's a Piledriver vs. Piledriver match, which is the kind of gimmick match I love. I love when only a specific kind of move can be done to finish the match, or a specific kind of move CAN'T be done to win a match. Lawler had only done the Piledriver match a handful of times in his career and I certainly didn't realize he had done on in 2014. 

Lawler is 65, and yet Steen is the one working this like a guy who doesn't want to get injured on a minor league baseball stadium indy show. Lawler's belly here was the biggest it ever got, I mean he and Steen looked nearly identical. This could have, nay, should have been worked as a father vs. son piledriver vs. piledriver match, all Lawler would have had to do was talk about his son Kevin. Nobody in Fishkill knows who Kevin Lawler is, it would have worked. The NEW commentary guy sounds exactly like Eugene Mirman, and he points out that Steen has offense that "isn't typical of a man his size". Kevin Steen is 5'10 and has a big belly, so the idea of "a man his size" is a pretty hilarious thing to say in a match against his size equal Jerry Lawler, in a match that Steen works as if he was the 65 year old man. Lawler even takes two backdrop bumps in this match, and gets bigger height than Steen does on his one. Whatever Steen is capable of doing "at his size" did not come into play here, and it didn't really need to. 

This is a piledriver match, meaning that obviously there will be backdrop bumps from guys standing up out of piledrivers, but a lot of this match was just Lawler punching Steen in the face. Steen is really good at staggering into place, and Lawler is good at throwing 40+ punches in a match and making all of them interesting. He throws a lot of left jabs, at one point throwing 15 straight, like he was golf course Bob Barker. They're good at building sequences up to the people at the back of the bleachers, like Lawler running at Steen with KO fists, staggering him more with each running punch, building fire for a knockdown but getting his foot picked by Mike Bennett at ringside; when Steen hits a series of weak axe handles off the middle turnbuckle, it builds to him getting punched in the stomach on his third, taking the Arn somersault bump. My favorite part of the whole thing was Lawler punching Steen in the corner, going face/stomach/face/stomach to punch wherever Steen's hands weren't, before throwing a big flurry to drop him, adding in a little horizontal fistdrop as the cherry. Matt Taven, in cargo shorts and general goof troop attitude and stupid American Volador face, was there as Lawler's second, a person to take the package piledriver so Steen could get one off before Lawler wins with his own. This match was fun, but could have been really great if Steen was in there to work. But he knew what kind of show he was on, and knew what the match was, and I respect that. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE JERRY LAWLER