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| Photo Credit: WWE.com |
William Regal vs. Dean Ambrose, FCW TV, 7/15 (airdate)
Watch it here!
I can understand watching this match in the moment and getting pissed off at the finish. It had one of the most intolerable things to the WWE fan who remembered what it was like in the days of blade jobs and no-fucks-given, a match stoppage due to blood. However, watching it with the benefit of hindsight, it was clear that the blood that came from Regal’s ear and the trainers coming to the ring were part of the story. Ambrose removed that bottom turnbuckle padding and gnashed any hard part of his body to grind Regal’s head into the exposed steel. And he kept doing it and doing it, presumably as payback for the ruthlessness Regal showed to his chronically injured left shoulder during the first portion of the match. It didn’t have the catharsis or even the definitive finality of their previous encounter. But it was so devious, almost like Regal and Ambrose conspired to be as evil to the fans in attendance as their characters historically and notably have been.
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| Photo Credit: WWE.com |
There are two kinds of wrestlers in the world – those who adapt and those who wrestle the same match against everyone and anyone. Fortunately for us, Punk and Show are both the former. It might be strange to imagine, but Big Show is one of the most versatile wrestlers on the roster, a guy who can have great matches against all styles. Punk meets him in flexibility, which is why this match worked. Show worked over Punk like a giant, and he sold when Punk went on the offensive like a champ. Punk, for his part, did his part to sell his ribs and that flash kick and those knees? Holy shit, awesome. Yeah, the match had a DQ finish, but again, I don't hate those at all.
Davey Richards vs. Fred Yehi, PCW Show, 7/20
Watch it here!
I had fears about this match, mainly because Yehi’s so new to the game, and if Richards is leading you by the nose, you can fall dangerously into his bad habits of move trading with no selling, strike trading ad nauseam, and throwing psychology out the window. I’ll say up front that I HATED the rolling German suplex trading at the end of the match. I blame Kurt Angle and He Who Shall Not Be Named for that nonsense, but you gotta have the good reason not to be trading double Germans like they were wristlocks. However, it wasn’t so offensive that it overwhelmed the rest of what the match was all about. They went into the affair seemingly intending to put on a display of counterwrestling, and I think they succeeded. They slipped out of each other's holds into holds of their own with great aplomb, and their strike and move counters were really effective and well-done also. I was surprised that Yehi didn’t fall into Richards’ game, or that Richards himself held back on his bad, main event habits, but this was a taut, exciting match.
Danny Daniels vs. MsChif, Chicago Street Fight, AAW Scars ‘n Stripes, 7/21
Flat out from jump, this match was one of the finest brawls of the year. The story was built around Daniels, Truth Martini, and Jesse Emerson wanting to put that damn woman in her place, but watching the match didn't make it feel like gender was even an issue. Of course, that's what happens when you have two wrestlers doing a wrestling match using the same kinds of devices to garner crowd reactions that they'd use if both of them had a phallus and two testicles. Another Chicago-based promotion would probably do well to adopt that mindset, but I digress.
Anyway, this was a well-built, nicely-paced brouhaha that was littered with the kinds of things that elevate the no-DQ match to higher levels. They fought on the outside of the ring. The bad guys used a numbers game to their advantage, either 2-on-1 on MsChif or 3-on-2 when Krotch came out to even the odds. My only real complaint was that the biggest spot in the match, Emerson piledriving Krotch on the concrete, was done by two non-participants in the match.
However, they did build up to the use of the Freddy Krueger claw brilliantly. Daniels and Martini wanting no part of it early made it feel important, and when Chif finally busted it out in the cranial claw towards the end, it felt like a moment of catharsis, one that we would need in a contest where she'd end up losing. But if the main story was that Chif was to claim respect through violence and bloodshed, it didn't matter that Daniels pinned her with a Rubik's Cube. She ended up taking more than a pound of flesh from him and his manager.
Player Uno and Stupefied (c) vs. Matt and Nick Jackson vs. Adam Cole and Kyle O’Reilly, PWG World Tag Team Championship Ladder Match, PWG Threemendous III, 7/21
Originally published in my review for Threemendous III
This nominally wasn't a TLC match, but yeah, it was a TLC match. It may have been the best spectacle of a TLC match since the Dudleys, Hardys, and Canadian Blondes were given bountiful resources to create detritus around the ringside area at the turn of the most recent century. That's part of what made this match so great. It was TLC on a budget. Moneyball TLC. They forced fans out of their chairs so they could use them. They destroyed one ladder, trapped Adam Cole in another, and had to pull out the GIANT SIZED painters' ladder for the decision.
Yeah, let's ruminate on that for a second. Adam Cole spent the last five minutes or so of this match trapped between the jaws of a ladder stood up in the corner like it was an iron maiden (the torture device, not the British metal band). Uno continued his tradition of rocketing chairs right at the skulls of either Young Buck. There were apron spots, lord were there apron spots too. I'm not sure it would be a high-profile PWG match if guys weren't going hard into the hardest part of the ring.
And yes, the elephant in the room is that the referee was active in the decision, tipping over the ladder with the Young Bucks on it. If you look at it as simulation of an athletic contest, then what the fuck are you doing watching wrestling? For a company that doesn't build longterm stories, when they do, they're pretty darn good. It was only a subplot in a match where six guys simulated a car wreck in human flesh. But then again, mangled body parts are the new market inefficiency.
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| Photo Credit: WWE.com |
A great match doesn't have to have a lot of big bumps to be great. However, it surely helps. When one guy is bumping his ass off, it's okay, but then you have the tendency of it looking like a glorified squash, like some of the Randy Orton/Christian matches from last year after Christian turned. We know Bryan will bump big. That's part of his charm, almost as big as the submission game and the kicks. He certainly brought it, going into guardrails and getting suplexed over them as well.
But Sheamus? The big guy doesn't have to bump to be awesome, but when he does, especially for Bryan, it turns brawls into wars and really accentuates his hooligan spirit. See, soccer hooligans are as famous for how many times they get punched as they do their punches. Sheamus getting kicked off the stage? It dropped my jaw. The best part of the match was towards the end when they played tug of war with the kendo stick. This was a brawl in elemental form.
Sara del Rey vs. Hailey Hatred, AIW Girls’ Night Out 7, 8/4
This was del Rey’s second to last match before leaving for WWE, and the last one that’s probably readily available on tape. It was a hell of a way to go out against an opponent in Hatred who was on her level. They threw everything at each other – stiff strikes, hard throws, big throws into inanimate structures. They both worked with urgency and panache even. I definitely caught Hatred slyly smiling to the camera as she was mockingly clapping before landing a boot right to del Rey’s dome. This was the perfect distillation of the joshi/puroresu oeuvre mixed with American sensibilities. On nearly any other card, this would have been a fine main event.
Allysin Kay (c) vs. Mia Yim, AIW Women’s Championship Steel Cage Match, AIW Girls’ Night Out 7, 8/4
Originally published in my review for Girls' Night Out 7
This match felt like a title match, a feud blowoff, and a steel cage grudge all in the same fell swoop. For an issue that started over a no-show and an accidental kick to the face, both Yim and Kay turned it into one of the best parts of 2012 in any promotion, in large part to the three crazy matches they put on. This one was literally the crowning achievement, mainly because it ended on the crown of said cage.
But before we get to what might be my favorite finish of the year (or maybe even the last two or even three years), the meat of this match provided everything I could have wanted out of two wrestlers who ostensibly loathed each other in the main event of what was the biggest show for the Girls' Night Out brand to date. They scrapped and scraped. Yim had a thirst to close the door on Kay as Champion and rival by punishing her in spots where she refused to escape when she could and where she hung Kay upside down from the top of the case. That interplayed well with Kay's rough exterior flaking off when she figured that not only her title was in jeopardy, but her health as well. I didn't expect to see her try to escape through the door, but when she tried, it worked.
That all led to the finish. There weren't a whole lot of escape attempts from the top, so it made Kay's application of the triangle choke not only cool-looking, but incredibly smart. Why spend another 20 minutes jousting with Yim atop the pink fence structure when she could just grab her by surprise and tap her out in the most precarious spot possible. It was sublime in its brilliance.
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| Photo Credit: WWE.com |
Before the match, I wondered aloud whether we'd get the John Cena who treats mid-to-low carders like common garbage or the Cena who treated guys like CM Punk and Dolph Ziggler like equals even if everyone knew he was winning going away. We got the latter one, and the results were awesome. Bryan got to unload EVERYTHING he had on Cena and had him on the ropes at several points. The best sequences were when Bryan was able to counter out of Cena's signatures and lock in submission holds. I don't know what I liked better – the turning of the AA into the guillotine choke or the STF into the NO! Lock. Cena countering from the NO! Lock into the AA was a nice touch too himself. Yeah, Cena won, but we knew that. The match itself was phenomenal, and that's all I ask.
Vordell Walker (c) vs. Jon Davis, Pro Wrestling Rage Championship Match, PWR Show, 8/11
Watch it here!
HOSS FIGHT ALERT. This Florida promotion pitted two of the best clubberin' big guys on the indies today in a hard-hitting title match that featured two ref bumps and several attempts at using a title belt as a weapon without feeling overbooked. It was funny for me to see Davis exposed to an extended heat segment because I'm used to seeing him in DGUSA as the resident rampaging bully, but Walker has the size to pull that off. This wasn't all just big strikes and big bombs either. There was some crisp, cagey wrestling. At one point, Walker dropped the leg across Davis out of the wishbone, and Davis segued from that into a sharpshooter. Davis won the title with DAT LARIAT, but the real winners were the fans in attendance. Yes, I just made a cliché reference. Shoot me now.
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| Photo Credit: Scott Finkelstein |
The Young Lions Cup is the quintessential Chikara Championship, it could be argued. So, to celebrate its grand return to America after a year’s sojourn in Japan in the clutches of Tadasuke, it was appropriate that the final was the quintessential Chikara match. Strangely enough, the finalists were a guy who was pretty much still in his infancy as a Chikara roster member in Mr. Touchdown and a wrestler who was in only his third ever match for the company, ACH.
The first act of the match was purely stylized comedy centered around ACH wanting to get a handshake from Angelosetti so bad that he tricked him into the sportsmanship (which raises the question, is it really sportsmanship if it’s done under duress?). Then, they moved onto some football antics, which hearkened back to the early days of Chikara. It felt like I was watching an old Warner Bros. Looney Tunes short, with ACH as the devious Bugs Bunny-like character and Angelosetti as Yosemite Sam. In short, it was for the kids, but not in a way that Wu-Tang was for the kids. I remember you, Ol’ Dirty Bastard.
But once the match hit into overdrive, it really hit warp speed. Angelosetti got his bully on, and ACH not only absorbed the punishment, but he converted it into sheer kinetic energy in the form of acrobatics and athletics. Maybe the match in a microcosm was when they were brawling on the outside. Angelosetti went to throw ACH into the wall, but ACH wall-walked his way out of it. Of course, when he went to run into Angelosetti, Touchdown tossed ACH into the wall for his troubles, causing a 19-count where ACH needed to be helped back into the ring by fans. The ending came as a slight surprise given that Touchdown was the one who kicked out of two finishers and reversed a top rope move into a super variant of his own, but in a way, it worked. The final subversion was a satisfying end to a fantastic match, even if the good guy didn’t win.
Fred Yehi vs. Jimmy Rave, PCW Show, 8/24
Watch it here!
When you go to the mat a lot, you get points from me. When you go to the mat and it looks stiff and hard, well, you pretty much have won my heart. Yehi has an amateur background who uses it liberally in his matches. Rave raised his game... well maybe that's not the right term. He adapted to Yehi's strong-style amateur style, which actually made his liberal stalling that he's known for make too much sense. They moved into the actual "let's hit moves" portion of the match, and it got even better. My favorite spot in the whole match was probably Yehi hitting a stall-clutch deadlift belly to belly suplex. Yehi is just a freak of nature, I don't know why more people don't know about him.
Kyle Matthews (c) vs. Big LG (Luke Gallows), Rampage Pro Wrestling Heavyweight Championship, RPW Sizzlin' Summer Bash, 8/26
Watch it here!
Dylan Hales told me that the reason why he loved Luke Gallows as a wrestler was because he was good at working "big." I never got a sense of that in his time in WWE, but in this match, I saw it. Obviously, he had a great dance partner here, as Kyle Matthews is one of the best bump machines going. Gallows, working under a hood with a mystery man gimmick, was huge all match, punctuated early on by him clotheslining Matthews WITH AUTHORITAH from his knees. Matthews, in addition to his selling and bumping, worked the scrappy underdog offense really well here too.
Sami Callihan vs. Willie Mack, Battle of Los Angeles First Round Match, PWG Battle of Los Angeles Night 1, 9/1
This was a match I was particularly looking forward to, a HOSS FIGHT in a scene that didn’t have a whole lot of hoss fights to offer. It did not disappoint, outside a particularly egregious offense of the “You hit me, I hit you” thing that happens in seemingly every match nowadays. However, the rest of this match was just sublime. Mack got it started right away, putting Callihan on his ass with a pounce that knocked him out of the ring and following it up with a big tope con hilo to the outside. Callihan answered back shortly with a floor exploder and stompin’ a mudhole and walkin’ it dry, and this was all within the first couple of minutes. They went at a breakneck pace which included super exploders and DDTs and thigh superkicks on the top rope and kip up moonsaults. Whereas I thought Michael Elgin suffered a bit during the weekend ALWAYS finishing his matches with a set sequence, Callihan’s unpredictability was his best asset. It showed in this match when he hit Mack with an Everest Saito suplex before bashing him into submission with lariats.
Adam Cole vs. El Generico, Battle of Los Angeles First Round Match, PWG Battle of Los Angeles Night 1, 9/1
You wanna get people to hate you in Reseda? Well, anywhere, but especially in Reseda? Pearl Harbor El Generico and then tell him to suck your dick. Adam Cole, after spending most of his non-CZW life as a wrestler as a clean-cut good guy, came out of the gates with his dick in his hand right from jump, and it set such a great tone not just for this match, but his entire weekend. Again, it didn’t hurt that he was in there against GOAT and best babyface ever Generico, but man, this was a really fun match where both guys were dropping bombs on each other. It was appropriate that the bombastic Cole escaped not with his own big head drops but by absorbing a half-’n-half suplex and countering a brainbuster into an inside cradle.
TJ Perkins vs. Sami Callihan, Battle of Los Angeles Quarterfinal, PWG Battle of Los Angeles Night 2, 9/2
In retrospect, I should’ve expected this match to be awesome. Really, Callihan was the weekend’s MVP to me, and Perkins is a guy who should be bigger than he is, even if most of the reason why he isn’t is due to his own undoing. Callihan started the match by planting a smooch right on Perkins’ kisser (which Kevin Steen noted was one of his moves from commentary), and the tone was set. It was a matchup between two frenetically-paced masters in different areas. Callihan had fists flailing, while Perkins went in and out of technical counters and exchanges like he was born with encyclopedic knowledge of every hold imbued in his brain (and with the age he started wrestling, that might be the case). Although he’s more known for his Tasmanian Devil-style of throwing fists and boots at you, Callihan showed off some technical chops of his own, countering Perkins’ modified Go 2 Sleep into the Stretch Muffler. It was probably my favorite finish in a weekend of slick match endings.
Adam Cole vs. Sami Callihan, Battle of Los Angeles Semifinal, PWG Battle of Los Angeles Night 2, 9/2
Callihan and Cole renewed their pleasantries from CZW, and of course, it played just as well on the left coast as it did on the right. For those who didn’t know, Callihan let everyone know by mauling Cole right from the bell, and whenever he could, he tried to bash Cole’s head in good, he did. Of course, Cole did nothing to help his cause because he verbally goaded Callihan into rage by calling him a piece of shit at every turn as well. They scrapped and jawed and jacked all around the ring, but at the end, it was Cole taking a page out of Callihan’s playbook, blasting his quad with a superkick while he was on the top rope as a set up for the Figure 4. Ric Flair would’ve been proud.
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| Photo Credit: Scott Finkelstein |
Satomura came to America with the reputation of being one of the best in the world. Though she didn't have the name cache of Manami Toyota or the previous visits to America like Aja Kong to back her up, the people who were in the know vouched for her credentials. Five matches in Chikara proved this rep and then some, as she may have been the best guest star from Japan to visit America all year. This match was basically the cult of personality of the ROH team against Satomura leading her plucky twin sister tag partners into an unlikely run to the final day of tournament action.
I'm not downplaying Chisako or Sachiko here. They played their roles well, and they were necessary, especially to set up the final frame. But I'd be kidding you if the match didn't absolutely need to come down to the younger wrestlers broken and battered on the outside of the ring with Satomura doing her best to shorthandedly fend off the rising tide of cocky, brash, possibly misogynistic assailants, only to be consumed in the most honorable of deaths. IF this were a real field of battle, Satomura would have certainly punched her ticket to Valhalla. However, since it's wrestling, she rose to her feet after taking the fall to the well-deserved adulation and glowing love from an Easton crowd that had grown attached to her for an entire weekend.
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| Photo Credit: Scott Finkelstein |
Originally published in my review for King of Trios Night 3
The 2012 final was the best of the three King of Trios finals I had seen by far. BY FAR. Maybe it was that I was the most emotionally invested in the team I was rooting for. Maybe it was that, more than the BDK in '10 and even more than FIST last year, Team ROH were effective as heel foils. Either way, from the point when the Spectral Envoy made their entrance to the moment Bennett's hand slapped the mat to submit, I was made to feel like I was a kid again.Drake Younger vs. Mustafa Saed, SPW Show, 9/16
Unlike in other years, I almost felt like this match could have gone either way. Obviously, the match wasn't going to be won in the beginning of it, but Frightmare did the face in peril thing so well. It was awesome when he finally got to his corner to make the hot tag to both 'Wicked and Mantis. There were some really big spots doled out by both sides too, really giving the match a bigtime feel. Again, I gotta give Mantis MAJOR props for taking that spike tombstone on the ramp. That was, ouch, just ouch.
The final act of the match was just there for us to lose our voices. Crossbones coming out to shoo the Batiri/Ophidian/Delirious bloc caused me to lose my poop personally. I wasn't paying too much attention to those around me, a testament to the moment. When he threw Delirious into the pole, I just lost it. When Bennett finally tapped to the Chikara Special, I jumped up and down like a little kid. Any good match can have the nuts and bolts and the big moves. Chikara goes above and beyond because they and their performers know how to present them with the pitch-perfect emotion.
Watch it here!
Man, did you know Mustafa of the Gangstas is still active? Did you know he was actually still somewhat decent? Compared to New Jack, he’s in pristine condition, but yeah, that’s not saying a whole lot given New Jack’s current state. Still, getting aside the overall shock of him being alive let alone cromulent, he went against one of the neophytes of the hardcore scene, Younger, who was making his promotional debut. He didn’t waste much time either, blading within three minutes. It was a bit jarring to see Younger with a crimson mask for three-eighths of a match, but once I got past that, I got a romping, rollicking brawl that went all over the gym it was held at. Younger actually threw Saed, who is surprisingly hulking, into the gym wall, which is what more people should do if they can actually get to the wall.
It also featured gratuitous chair use, a suplex onto a rickety ramp, and Younger doing a half-gainer from the top into a chair that Saed had gotten up from moments earlier. This match doesn’t have a finish as much as it devolved into both guys beating the crap out of referees, security, and other wrestlers finding their way to the ring to help ease the chaos. It wasn’t coherent, and I probably would’ve lambasted Saed for not selling enough in another setting, but in this case, I’ll give it a pass because I had so much fun watching two sociopaths not give anything resembling a fuck about their own bodies or each other’s.
Honorable Mentions:
- Shane Hollister vs. Louis Lyndon, AAW Scars 'n Stripes, 7/21
- Kevin Steen (c) vs. Willie Mack, PWG World Championship Match, PWG Threemendous III, 7/21
- AJ Styles vs. James Storm, Impact, 7/26
- Jivin' Jimmy vs. Cameron Matthews vs. Kobold vs. Anthony Stone, Young Lions Cup Qualifying Eliminator, Chikara The Great Escape, 7/28
- Tim Donst and Jakob Hammermeier vs. Obariyon and Kodama, Chikara The Great Escape, 7/28
- Eddie Kingston (c) vs. Sara del Rey, Chikara Grand Championship Match, Chikara The Great Escape, 7/28
- Crazy Mary Dobson vs. Lil' Naughty, Pondo Rules Match, AIW Girls' Night Out 7, 8/4
- The Miz vs. Dolph Ziggler vs. Chris Jericho, RAW, 8/13
- Lancelot Bravado vs. The Mysterious and Handsome Stranger, Chikara Ring of Wax, 8/18
- Eddie Kingston vs. Harlem Bravado, Chikara Ring of Wax, 8/18
- CM Punk vs. Jerry Lawler, Steel Cage Match, RAW, 8/27
- Samoa Joe vs. AJ Styles, Impact, 8/30
- Damien Sandow vs. Sheamus, Smackdown, 8/31 (airdate)
- Tsubasa Kurigaki and Commando Bolshoi vs. Manami Toyota and Kaori Yoneyama, Chikara King of Trios Night 3, 9/16