As I type this, we are in the very early morning hours of June 3, 2016. This means that it is just a wee bit past the halfway mark of the phony year (Dec. 1 of previous year to Dec. 1 of current year) used for the purposes of Dave Meltzer's Wrestling Observer Newsletter Awards. Setting aside the issue of the odd calendar itself, I figured it might be fun to take a look at the Awards themselves and where my ballot would stand at the halfway point.
Originally I had hoped to include votes on every wrestling category. But what I discovered is that some categories I could not complete in full because there is not a strong enough slate of candidates to vote for (yes I take this, as I take all things wrestling, far too seriously). In part this reflects the antiquated and confusing nature of some of the awards themselves, but it also speaks to significant and substantial changes in the wrestling business that have occurred in recent years. The influence of digital culture and social media in particular seem to be effecting wresting in profound ways that are not really captured by the Awards as they are currently structured. On top of this certain awards create confusion for linguistic reasons (as in Most Overrated meaning Most Overpushed not overhyped per se), and other awards seem to mean radically different things to different voters.
What this means is that this will not quite be a complete ballot. But it will be my ballot as I would submit it today, gaps included.
I thought about including explanations for my votes but decided against it for two reasons. Firstly I am very long winded and it would have taken me forever to write up everything. By the time I finished I likely would be angry or annoyed about the wording of something and just delete the entire thing.
Secondly I'm at a point with some of this stuff where I would rather be engaged than do the engaging. If you think this defeats the purpose of having a blog you are probably right but hear me out - I want this to be picked apart. I would rather people comment with criticism or asking for an explanation (or even hit me up on Twitter @DylanWaco ), then give everything away in a massive, up front, manifesto, that few would read.
With that said here is my ballot, do your worst.
LOU THESZ/RIC FLAIR AWARD
1. AJ Styles
2. Tetsuya Naito
3. Chris Hero
MOST OUTSTANDING WRESTLER
1. Fred Yehi
2. Matt Riddle
3. Chris Hero
BEST BOX OFFICE DRAW
Abstain
FEUD OF THE YEAR
1. A.J. Styles v. Roman Reigns (Usos/The Club as surrogates)
2. Tetsuya Naito v. New Japan Orthodoxy
3. The Carnies v. The Hierarchy
TAG TEAM OF THE YEAR
1. The Revival
2. Johnny Gargano/Tommaso Ciampa
3. Team IOU
MOST IMPROVED
1. Colby Corino
2. Zeus
3. Ethan Page
BEST ON INTERVIEWS
1. Jay Briscoe
2. Jay Lethal
3. Enzo Amore
MOST CHARISMATIC
1. Shinsuke Nakamura
2. Enzo Amore
3. Matt Riddle
BEST TECHNICAL WRESTLER
1. Drew Gulak
2. Fred Yehi
3. Matt Riddle
BRUISER BRODY MEMORIAL AWARD
1. Mil Muertes
2. Team IOU
3. The Island of Puerto Rico
BEST FLYING WRESTLER
1. AR Fox
2. Dragon Lee
3. Fenix
MOST OVERRATED
1. Chris Jericho
2. Brock Lesnar
3. The Young Bucks
MOST UNDERRATED
1. All people of color in Ring of Honor other than Jay Lethal
2. The Bruiserweights (John Skyler and Corey Hollis)
3. Fred Yehi
PROMOTION OF THE YEAR
1. Evolve
2. CWF Mid-Atlantic
3. Atlanta Wrestling Entertainment
BEST WEEKLY TV SHOW
1. CWF Mid-Atlantic
2. The Edge and Christian Show
3. NXT
PRO WRESTlING MATCH OF THE YEAR
1. Chris Hero v. Zack Sabre Jr. - WWN Mercury Rising
2. A.J. Styles v. Roman Reigns - Extreme Rules
3. Sami Callihan v. Chip Day - Atlanta Wrestling Entertainment Homegrown
ROOKIE OF THE YEAR
1. Matt Riddle
2. Lio Rush
BEST NON-WRESTLER PERFORMER
1. So Cal Val/Andrea
2. Maryse
3. Stokely Hathaway
BEST TELEVISION ANNOUNCER
1. The CWF Mid-Atlantic Crew
2. Corey Graves
3. Emil Jay
WORST TELEVISION ANNOUNCER
1. Take your pick
BEST MAJOR SHOW
1. WWNLive - Mercury Rising
2. Atlanta Wrestling Entertainment - Homegrown
3. Empire Wrestling Entertainment - Tooth and Nail V
Thursday, June 2, 2016
Friday, May 27, 2016
Dojo Wars 75 - Intergender Legos Mime Hot Fire
Ah Dojo Wars. A subsidiary of CZW that has been running regularly for two years now, I can honestly say I've had my eye on Dojo Wars from day one. In the early days I was watching because the shows featured wrestlers working almost shoot stylish grappling exchanges, in a training school setting. Aside from the fact that it was literally the only American promotion where I could see such a thing, I also enjoyed this particular aspect of the early shows because it was the closest thing I'll probably ever get to 8mm footage of Verne Gagne's barn training camp.
As time went on I started to watch Dojo Wars both to take a look at some of the talent being developed in the CZW system, but also because the show became a place where you could see guys like Joe Gacy, Tracy Williams, or Drew Gulak go twenty plus minutes against each other or up and coming guys who wouldn't normally get that sort of opportunity. For several months now the promotion has been run by senior matchmaker Emil Jay, who also does ring announcing and commentary for the shows, and has ushered in an era of Memphis inspired storytelling without completely abandoning the other staples that have become associated with the Dojo Wars brand.
The promotion's 2 year anniversary show - Dojo Wars 75 - is available in full for free on YouTube (as are all of their shows since the end of January on this channel). I have been threatening to review one of their shows for a while, and as a mark for milestones this felt like the obvious one to go with. And so...here we are.
Dojo Wars 75
Conor Claxton v. Frankie Pickard
If I'm not mistaken the first Dojo Wars match I ever saw was these two in a sub-five minute grappling heavy bout, that came across like a sparring session that was getting a little bit out of hand. As a matter of fact I think that was the first match Dojo Wars ever ran period. In any case these guys are homegrown DW guys, and it was cool to see them open the show. I think both guys are really underrated, though Claxton is someone who's profile seems to have grown quite a bit in the last year.
I was expecting to see at least some of the grappling that had defined the early bouts I saw between these two, but instead they decided to lay each other to waste with strikes. It's not so much that the match was based around them, and not all of them looked brutal, but this felt more Futen inspired than RINGS inspired to the extent that it was shootstyle inspired at all. There were some vicious seated kicks in this, and a cool spot where Pickard did a kip up right into a brutal looking forearm, but my absolute favorite part was when things started to break down late and Claxton resorted to these wild forearms to whatever part of the downed Pickard he could hit. Dojo Wars has a tradition of time limit draws (they are the only promotion I can think of where that is a finish that is actually something that seems possible when any match starts), so it actually felt like a likelihood when Jay started talking about it on commentary, which made Pickard's last second win off of a coast-to-coast overhead belly-to-belly superplex a cool surprise. Clunky but enjoyable match.
Rayo v. Ace Austin
This match was set up as a way for Austin to avenge an arm injury that Rayo had inflicted to him on a previous show. I have seen Rayo twice before at Atlanta Wrestling Entertainment where he does a soccer player gimmick that is pretty much the perfect heel act for the AWE crowd to collectively shit on. For Dojo Wars he leaves his ball at home and he looked fine here, targeting the injury some, before tapping out to an Austin arm submission. Decent match, explosive in parts, and the babyface got revenge. It served its role on the card.
Billy Danvers v. Cannonball
Cannonball is a big dude, who I don't think had ever been knocked off his feet coming into this. Danvers looks like Trevor Lee's socially awkward little brother. The idea here was to recreate the 1-2-3 Kid win over Razor Ramon on the near anniversary of it, and it was effective in that regard. Yeah the moonsault press didn't exactly connect the way you would ideally want it to, but the reactions of Danvers, Cannonball, the live crowd, and Emil Jay to Danvers flash pin all made it work as a moment. I especially loved the camera shot of Cannonball's "Oh my god" face, and Jay scrambling to find out what the official time of the match was because he couldn't believe what he'd just seen. Fun.
Sozio v. Blackwater
I don't even know how to describe the Blackwater gimmick so I won't. Just google him, or better yet watch this show, because he's pretty much the epitome of a capital c wrestling Character. This wasn't even really a match. I think the intended angle was Blackwater burning Sozio with a fireball. Instead we got something that looked like Blackwater lighting his hand on fire and punching Sozio in the face. Now to some people that might sound lame, but I actually loved it because it reminded me of this kid in high school who scheduled a fight with a tougher kid who he knew could beat his ass. His master plan to offset the advantage was to wrap his hands in tin foil and set them on fire. The tin foil started melting into his flesh and his adversary had to come over and stomp out the flames, breaking one of his hands in the process. Blackwater stayed away from the tinfoil and fucked up Sozio just like he intended, leading to chaos in the Dojo, including referees and Emil Jay in full panic mode. For an angle that's execution was slightly off, this was well done.
Max Caster, Josh Adams, Robert Locke & Kit Osbourne v. Isaac Atrox, Lloyd Jameson, Alexander James & Laszlo Arpad
This was basically your 1997 Nitro match featuring random third tier luchadors where the crowd and Tony Schiavone spend a chunk of it focusing on the previous segment where the NWO smashed Jim Powers and Hugh Morrus with a leadpipe backstage. I don't mean that as a knock on any of these guys, but when you are coming after two big angles, and right before the marquee matches what are you gonna do? To be fair the crowd largely stayed with them as they stayed with everything all night, and I enjoy matches like this as a sort pro wrestling version of a Punk-O-Rama Compilation where you can get just enough of a taste to know that Millencolin is awesome and that you never want to hear The Humpers again. I won't say whether anyone in this was The Humpers of the match, but I am partial to Robert Locke as the Millencolin because of his hair and because he's a good carny who hustled me into buying a t-shirt for the tag team he was managing at the Smoky Mountain Cup. Good job brother. The best exchanges in this were between Adams and Jameson, and I think setting up a match with those two was really the point of this, so I'd say this did it's job.
Rory Gulak v. Curt Robinson
Robinson's boyish look is well complimented by his yellow amateur wrestling singlet which looks like the sort of thing that you'd have seen Corey wear if he'd had a rematch of his shoot fight with Vader's kid when he was an upperclassman. Gulak is doing the "Amazing" gimmick that he does with his brother on the CZW main roster. This was kind of a weird match in that the more difficult a spot seemed the better it seemed to be executed, while some of the seemingly simpler stuff felt a bit rough around the edges. I did like the finish a lot which was a Gulak Octopus stretch into a pinning combination. Post-match Curt snapped and put the female ref in the cross faced chickenwing. You could argue this was one too many mid-90s WWF tribute angles on the show, but I thought it worked well in furthering the Robinson character as we've all known a babyfaced, sore loser, jock, who reacts to personal failure by beating up women.
Joey Janela v. Penelope Ford
This was a surprise addition to the show as Janela - who has been trying to get a kiss from Ford for some time - had lost a Loser Leaves Town match some time back. Janela banters heavily with the crowd pre-match, at one point hamming it up so much that he falls off the ropes to the laughter of everyone, himself included. Emil Jay agrees to make this match, the stipulation being that Janela gets a kiss from Ford if he wins, and if he loses he has to leave town again. One could argue that there is something regressive about the stipulations, but a woman fighting to evict her stalker from the universe in which they are operating in, and avoiding his unwanted sexual advances in the process, is actually a story I can get behind at least on some level.
I honestly didn't know what to expect once the bell rang, but what we got was a match that saw Janela's "Bad Boy" act countered by the really dynamic and athletic spots of Ford. Usually when I use the term "gymnastics" in the context of a pro wrestling review it's as a pejorative, but here Ford's spots actually came across as gymnastic-y in a good way, as she was using her flexibility, athleticism, and body control to offset Janela's more direct heelish work. I thought her bridging back to avoid a clothesline and then hitting a headscissors came across about as good as I've ever seen that kind of spot come across which is a testament to both Janela and Ford. I also dug the battle over position for a suplex, the handspring elbow being teased early and delivered later as a comeback spot, and the bit on the apron where Ford fell into a split opening her up to a series of Janela kicks. There was also a brutal powerbomb spot in this and a really good looking strike exchange that somehow managed to not be uncomfortable while still looking violent. The finish was a bit abrupt, but the bridging roll up Ford won with looked completely believable as something that would keep someones shoulders to the mat for three seconds. Comedy, big spots, stiff strikes, and stakes behind it - this was a really good wrestling match and my match of the night.
Storm of Entrails & Joe Gacy v. Business Casual & George Gatton (NO DQ)
If you haven't seen Shlak's promo for this match check it out. The pre-match introductions here were really long but they also kind of set the stage for the absurdity that was to follow. This was a show that had already seen a man get punched by a flaming hand, so the standard for violence was really high. I was kind of wondering where they would go with this as a result, and where they went was a weird hybrid of comedy and savagery.
I'm not even going to try and do a play-by-play on this but in this match you saw dudes getting slammed on those little things that are filled with gun powder but look like sperm, an 8X10 of George Gatton stapled into someones flesh, a woman get attacked...with silly string, garbage cans, crutches, a Van Terminator tease that led to a man punching a chair instead, keyboard warriors everywhere symbolically demolished, and legos used as a legit weapon of mass destruction as we all know they most certainly can be. Business Casual and Gatton end up scoring the win and it is sold as a huge upset. That kind of made the match to me as I was able to project a certain psychology backwards onto the bout where Gatton and Business Casual were basically the Denver Broncos dragging the more skilled in the setting team of Storm of Entrails and Joe Gacy into their gutter and beating them on those terms like the Broncos did to the Panthers this year.
Brittany Blake v. Qefka The Quiet (2/3 Falls; Medal of Valor)
Blake is someone I am all in on as an up-and-comer, who I think could end up being really fucking good when it's all said and done. I think Dojo Wars has clearly helped her a ton and she entered this show with the Medal of Valor (the top honor in the promotion). Her challenger, Qefka The Quiet, is an insane looking mime character who had the grandest of all entrances on this show which I won't spoil.
Qefka took the first fall quickly with a schoolboy. I tend to think early flash falls are overdone in 2/3 falls matches these days, but this was actually executed so well that I thought it worked.
As I mentioned above, I am a Brittany Blake fan, and one thing I really liked about her in this match is that even after dropping a fall she still comes across as a rightfully cocky champion. She's defended the Medal of Valor a bunch of times, this is not a new game to her, and she isn't afraid. This is magnified by the fact that she is very small. Imagine Spike Dudley as a company ace who could back it up in the ring, and had gone broadway with Steve Austin to prove it (in this analogy Drew Gulak is Steve Austin in case you are wondering).
Anyway, back to the match. There was some really sharp stuff in the second fall including a sick knee from Qefka, and a really nice missile dropkick from Blake. The finish to the fall was especially cool as Blake hit a jumping knee off the top to the arm, and then locked on her Bad Omen hold for the submission.
The third fall opened with Blake immediately going after the mimes injured arm. Blake tries to finish him with is own submission, but Qefka is able to escape, and we end up getting some fun stuff built around the physics of miming, including a "spring loaded splash" and Blake countering an attempt to reel her in with miming with a superkick. Blake is able to get Qefka back in the Bad Omen, but the mime makes the ropes. I was hoping he would mime the existence of a rope and the ref would be forced to honor it, but this worked just as well. Blake goes to the top after this and ended up leaping off into...I'm not sure. I think it was a cutter of some sort, but in the most unfortunate of all possible endings to a show we don't quite see exactly what happens because of the camera shot. We just know it was enough to end Blake's run as the top dog at Dojo Wars.
Post-match Qefka The Quiet v. George Gatton for his first medal of honor match is set up, and matchmaking machine Emil Jay thanks everyone for coming out and says that they are going to keep Dojo Wars going forever.
There were no match of the year candidates on this show, the biggest star on it was probably Joe Gacy, and no more than 50 people were in the building at any given time. But in terms of presenting an efficient and effective show that made the most out of the talent available, paid off angles, and set up new ones, this was good stuff. The card was extremely well structured in terms of match placement, the commentary did a great job both providing context and calling the action, and the crowd stayed hot from beginning to end. Dojo Wars 75 was well worth the 2 hrs and twenty-two minutes I spent watching it, and for the price of zero dollars and zero cents, I hope others will give it a look.
As time went on I started to watch Dojo Wars both to take a look at some of the talent being developed in the CZW system, but also because the show became a place where you could see guys like Joe Gacy, Tracy Williams, or Drew Gulak go twenty plus minutes against each other or up and coming guys who wouldn't normally get that sort of opportunity. For several months now the promotion has been run by senior matchmaker Emil Jay, who also does ring announcing and commentary for the shows, and has ushered in an era of Memphis inspired storytelling without completely abandoning the other staples that have become associated with the Dojo Wars brand.
The promotion's 2 year anniversary show - Dojo Wars 75 - is available in full for free on YouTube (as are all of their shows since the end of January on this channel). I have been threatening to review one of their shows for a while, and as a mark for milestones this felt like the obvious one to go with. And so...here we are.
Dojo Wars 75
Conor Claxton v. Frankie Pickard
If I'm not mistaken the first Dojo Wars match I ever saw was these two in a sub-five minute grappling heavy bout, that came across like a sparring session that was getting a little bit out of hand. As a matter of fact I think that was the first match Dojo Wars ever ran period. In any case these guys are homegrown DW guys, and it was cool to see them open the show. I think both guys are really underrated, though Claxton is someone who's profile seems to have grown quite a bit in the last year.
I was expecting to see at least some of the grappling that had defined the early bouts I saw between these two, but instead they decided to lay each other to waste with strikes. It's not so much that the match was based around them, and not all of them looked brutal, but this felt more Futen inspired than RINGS inspired to the extent that it was shootstyle inspired at all. There were some vicious seated kicks in this, and a cool spot where Pickard did a kip up right into a brutal looking forearm, but my absolute favorite part was when things started to break down late and Claxton resorted to these wild forearms to whatever part of the downed Pickard he could hit. Dojo Wars has a tradition of time limit draws (they are the only promotion I can think of where that is a finish that is actually something that seems possible when any match starts), so it actually felt like a likelihood when Jay started talking about it on commentary, which made Pickard's last second win off of a coast-to-coast overhead belly-to-belly superplex a cool surprise. Clunky but enjoyable match.
Rayo v. Ace Austin
This match was set up as a way for Austin to avenge an arm injury that Rayo had inflicted to him on a previous show. I have seen Rayo twice before at Atlanta Wrestling Entertainment where he does a soccer player gimmick that is pretty much the perfect heel act for the AWE crowd to collectively shit on. For Dojo Wars he leaves his ball at home and he looked fine here, targeting the injury some, before tapping out to an Austin arm submission. Decent match, explosive in parts, and the babyface got revenge. It served its role on the card.
Billy Danvers v. Cannonball
Cannonball is a big dude, who I don't think had ever been knocked off his feet coming into this. Danvers looks like Trevor Lee's socially awkward little brother. The idea here was to recreate the 1-2-3 Kid win over Razor Ramon on the near anniversary of it, and it was effective in that regard. Yeah the moonsault press didn't exactly connect the way you would ideally want it to, but the reactions of Danvers, Cannonball, the live crowd, and Emil Jay to Danvers flash pin all made it work as a moment. I especially loved the camera shot of Cannonball's "Oh my god" face, and Jay scrambling to find out what the official time of the match was because he couldn't believe what he'd just seen. Fun.
Sozio v. Blackwater
I don't even know how to describe the Blackwater gimmick so I won't. Just google him, or better yet watch this show, because he's pretty much the epitome of a capital c wrestling Character. This wasn't even really a match. I think the intended angle was Blackwater burning Sozio with a fireball. Instead we got something that looked like Blackwater lighting his hand on fire and punching Sozio in the face. Now to some people that might sound lame, but I actually loved it because it reminded me of this kid in high school who scheduled a fight with a tougher kid who he knew could beat his ass. His master plan to offset the advantage was to wrap his hands in tin foil and set them on fire. The tin foil started melting into his flesh and his adversary had to come over and stomp out the flames, breaking one of his hands in the process. Blackwater stayed away from the tinfoil and fucked up Sozio just like he intended, leading to chaos in the Dojo, including referees and Emil Jay in full panic mode. For an angle that's execution was slightly off, this was well done.
Max Caster, Josh Adams, Robert Locke & Kit Osbourne v. Isaac Atrox, Lloyd Jameson, Alexander James & Laszlo Arpad
This was basically your 1997 Nitro match featuring random third tier luchadors where the crowd and Tony Schiavone spend a chunk of it focusing on the previous segment where the NWO smashed Jim Powers and Hugh Morrus with a leadpipe backstage. I don't mean that as a knock on any of these guys, but when you are coming after two big angles, and right before the marquee matches what are you gonna do? To be fair the crowd largely stayed with them as they stayed with everything all night, and I enjoy matches like this as a sort pro wrestling version of a Punk-O-Rama Compilation where you can get just enough of a taste to know that Millencolin is awesome and that you never want to hear The Humpers again. I won't say whether anyone in this was The Humpers of the match, but I am partial to Robert Locke as the Millencolin because of his hair and because he's a good carny who hustled me into buying a t-shirt for the tag team he was managing at the Smoky Mountain Cup. Good job brother. The best exchanges in this were between Adams and Jameson, and I think setting up a match with those two was really the point of this, so I'd say this did it's job.
Rory Gulak v. Curt Robinson
Robinson's boyish look is well complimented by his yellow amateur wrestling singlet which looks like the sort of thing that you'd have seen Corey wear if he'd had a rematch of his shoot fight with Vader's kid when he was an upperclassman. Gulak is doing the "Amazing" gimmick that he does with his brother on the CZW main roster. This was kind of a weird match in that the more difficult a spot seemed the better it seemed to be executed, while some of the seemingly simpler stuff felt a bit rough around the edges. I did like the finish a lot which was a Gulak Octopus stretch into a pinning combination. Post-match Curt snapped and put the female ref in the cross faced chickenwing. You could argue this was one too many mid-90s WWF tribute angles on the show, but I thought it worked well in furthering the Robinson character as we've all known a babyfaced, sore loser, jock, who reacts to personal failure by beating up women.
Joey Janela v. Penelope Ford
This was a surprise addition to the show as Janela - who has been trying to get a kiss from Ford for some time - had lost a Loser Leaves Town match some time back. Janela banters heavily with the crowd pre-match, at one point hamming it up so much that he falls off the ropes to the laughter of everyone, himself included. Emil Jay agrees to make this match, the stipulation being that Janela gets a kiss from Ford if he wins, and if he loses he has to leave town again. One could argue that there is something regressive about the stipulations, but a woman fighting to evict her stalker from the universe in which they are operating in, and avoiding his unwanted sexual advances in the process, is actually a story I can get behind at least on some level.
I honestly didn't know what to expect once the bell rang, but what we got was a match that saw Janela's "Bad Boy" act countered by the really dynamic and athletic spots of Ford. Usually when I use the term "gymnastics" in the context of a pro wrestling review it's as a pejorative, but here Ford's spots actually came across as gymnastic-y in a good way, as she was using her flexibility, athleticism, and body control to offset Janela's more direct heelish work. I thought her bridging back to avoid a clothesline and then hitting a headscissors came across about as good as I've ever seen that kind of spot come across which is a testament to both Janela and Ford. I also dug the battle over position for a suplex, the handspring elbow being teased early and delivered later as a comeback spot, and the bit on the apron where Ford fell into a split opening her up to a series of Janela kicks. There was also a brutal powerbomb spot in this and a really good looking strike exchange that somehow managed to not be uncomfortable while still looking violent. The finish was a bit abrupt, but the bridging roll up Ford won with looked completely believable as something that would keep someones shoulders to the mat for three seconds. Comedy, big spots, stiff strikes, and stakes behind it - this was a really good wrestling match and my match of the night.
Storm of Entrails & Joe Gacy v. Business Casual & George Gatton (NO DQ)
If you haven't seen Shlak's promo for this match check it out. The pre-match introductions here were really long but they also kind of set the stage for the absurdity that was to follow. This was a show that had already seen a man get punched by a flaming hand, so the standard for violence was really high. I was kind of wondering where they would go with this as a result, and where they went was a weird hybrid of comedy and savagery.
I'm not even going to try and do a play-by-play on this but in this match you saw dudes getting slammed on those little things that are filled with gun powder but look like sperm, an 8X10 of George Gatton stapled into someones flesh, a woman get attacked...with silly string, garbage cans, crutches, a Van Terminator tease that led to a man punching a chair instead, keyboard warriors everywhere symbolically demolished, and legos used as a legit weapon of mass destruction as we all know they most certainly can be. Business Casual and Gatton end up scoring the win and it is sold as a huge upset. That kind of made the match to me as I was able to project a certain psychology backwards onto the bout where Gatton and Business Casual were basically the Denver Broncos dragging the more skilled in the setting team of Storm of Entrails and Joe Gacy into their gutter and beating them on those terms like the Broncos did to the Panthers this year.
Brittany Blake v. Qefka The Quiet (2/3 Falls; Medal of Valor)
Blake is someone I am all in on as an up-and-comer, who I think could end up being really fucking good when it's all said and done. I think Dojo Wars has clearly helped her a ton and she entered this show with the Medal of Valor (the top honor in the promotion). Her challenger, Qefka The Quiet, is an insane looking mime character who had the grandest of all entrances on this show which I won't spoil.
Qefka took the first fall quickly with a schoolboy. I tend to think early flash falls are overdone in 2/3 falls matches these days, but this was actually executed so well that I thought it worked.
As I mentioned above, I am a Brittany Blake fan, and one thing I really liked about her in this match is that even after dropping a fall she still comes across as a rightfully cocky champion. She's defended the Medal of Valor a bunch of times, this is not a new game to her, and she isn't afraid. This is magnified by the fact that she is very small. Imagine Spike Dudley as a company ace who could back it up in the ring, and had gone broadway with Steve Austin to prove it (in this analogy Drew Gulak is Steve Austin in case you are wondering).
Anyway, back to the match. There was some really sharp stuff in the second fall including a sick knee from Qefka, and a really nice missile dropkick from Blake. The finish to the fall was especially cool as Blake hit a jumping knee off the top to the arm, and then locked on her Bad Omen hold for the submission.
The third fall opened with Blake immediately going after the mimes injured arm. Blake tries to finish him with is own submission, but Qefka is able to escape, and we end up getting some fun stuff built around the physics of miming, including a "spring loaded splash" and Blake countering an attempt to reel her in with miming with a superkick. Blake is able to get Qefka back in the Bad Omen, but the mime makes the ropes. I was hoping he would mime the existence of a rope and the ref would be forced to honor it, but this worked just as well. Blake goes to the top after this and ended up leaping off into...I'm not sure. I think it was a cutter of some sort, but in the most unfortunate of all possible endings to a show we don't quite see exactly what happens because of the camera shot. We just know it was enough to end Blake's run as the top dog at Dojo Wars.
Post-match Qefka The Quiet v. George Gatton for his first medal of honor match is set up, and matchmaking machine Emil Jay thanks everyone for coming out and says that they are going to keep Dojo Wars going forever.
There were no match of the year candidates on this show, the biggest star on it was probably Joe Gacy, and no more than 50 people were in the building at any given time. But in terms of presenting an efficient and effective show that made the most out of the talent available, paid off angles, and set up new ones, this was good stuff. The card was extremely well structured in terms of match placement, the commentary did a great job both providing context and calling the action, and the crowd stayed hot from beginning to end. Dojo Wars 75 was well worth the 2 hrs and twenty-two minutes I spent watching it, and for the price of zero dollars and zero cents, I hope others will give it a look.
Wednesday, May 25, 2016
Southern Indie Spotlight Take 8 - 2011 Doug Somers
I'm lazily making my way through a an entry about another one of my favorite Southern Indie guys, but in the meantime I am having fun going through my archives. On accident I stumbled upon these gems today - the great 2011 run of Doug Somers on the Southern indie scene. I've always been a huge fan of Somers as the ultimate in sleazy bad guys, and I was really excited when this stuff popped up so I'm going to share it with you all today including my reviews of the matches which were written back in 2011.
Bull Buchanan/Doug Somers v. Murder 1/Rob Adonis
I found this extremely entertaining. Cage match in front of a Southern crowd that is really into the two teams and the angle that the match builds to. Basically all punches and brawling and it's not fast paced but the punches all look good. Somers gets stabbed, takes a face rake into the cage and bleeds. Finish is fucking insane as Somers goes to climb out of the cage but gets caught up top and takes a leaping powerslam (awkwardly) off the top of the cage. Just a fucking ridiculous bump to take for a guy his age. Right after this the heel manager slams a door on Bull Buchanan's head and runs in the ring for the beatdown with the heels holding off the babyface lockeroom as it empties to try and make the save. Really fun stuff.
Doug Somers/Stupid v. Kyle Matthews/Frankie Valentine 7-1-11
I fucking loved this. After watching Somers in the entertaining Cage Match I wanted to see if there was anything else of his available and stumbled upon this, a really good Southern tag, in front of a crowd that is red hot, with four guys that understand how a match like this is supposed to be worked. The babyfaces don't have the most dynamic look, but for the most part did a really job getting some good spots in and selling their ass off on the defensive which made up the bulk of this match up. Some really cool teases in this including a couple of great teased hot tags on the long heat section. I like how they started with one heat section, went to a hot tag and Somers immediately comes in and rakes the eyes of the kid cutting him off in his tracks. Somers also hit a sick clothesline in this and was really the star of the match. He bumps far better than a guy his age should (took a nice back body drop here), sells his ass off to make the faces look good both during the shine and on hope spots, utilizing great tag psychology, and his offense is just perfect both in execution and style. He just comes across as a surly old bastard and is fucking perfect in this. Loved the powder to the eyes finish and the post match brawl with Somers punching dudes in the face right in front of the camera was great too. Awesome stuff when you take everything into consideration.
Bull Buchanan/Doug Somers v. Murder 1/Rob Adonis
I found this extremely entertaining. Cage match in front of a Southern crowd that is really into the two teams and the angle that the match builds to. Basically all punches and brawling and it's not fast paced but the punches all look good. Somers gets stabbed, takes a face rake into the cage and bleeds. Finish is fucking insane as Somers goes to climb out of the cage but gets caught up top and takes a leaping powerslam (awkwardly) off the top of the cage. Just a fucking ridiculous bump to take for a guy his age. Right after this the heel manager slams a door on Bull Buchanan's head and runs in the ring for the beatdown with the heels holding off the babyface lockeroom as it empties to try and make the save. Really fun stuff.
Doug Somers/Stupid v. Kyle Matthews/Frankie Valentine 7-1-11
I fucking loved this. After watching Somers in the entertaining Cage Match I wanted to see if there was anything else of his available and stumbled upon this, a really good Southern tag, in front of a crowd that is red hot, with four guys that understand how a match like this is supposed to be worked. The babyfaces don't have the most dynamic look, but for the most part did a really job getting some good spots in and selling their ass off on the defensive which made up the bulk of this match up. Some really cool teases in this including a couple of great teased hot tags on the long heat section. I like how they started with one heat section, went to a hot tag and Somers immediately comes in and rakes the eyes of the kid cutting him off in his tracks. Somers also hit a sick clothesline in this and was really the star of the match. He bumps far better than a guy his age should (took a nice back body drop here), sells his ass off to make the faces look good both during the shine and on hope spots, utilizing great tag psychology, and his offense is just perfect both in execution and style. He just comes across as a surly old bastard and is fucking perfect in this. Loved the powder to the eyes finish and the post match brawl with Somers punching dudes in the face right in front of the camera was great too. Awesome stuff when you take everything into consideration.
Best of the Super Juniors Takes From a Guy Who Thinks Taguchi is The Best Wrestler in New Japan This Year
We are four days into New Japan's Best of the Super Juniors tournament, and I've actually managed to see every tournament match so far. Though I am considered by many to be a New Japan hater, it's the only promotion in Japan I have kept a real close eye on this year (All Japan is debatable I guess), and I generally enjoy the BOSJ shows as deviations from the tired staples of a product that I actually do enjoy but believe to be monumentally overrated. With that in mind, and because I skirted all responsibility on my Southern Indie Spotlight post for today/yesterday (my sleep schedule is horrifyingly damaged as a result of a back injury sustained while occupying space), I figured I'd give my thoughts on each of the tournament participants after their first two matches, as well as some more general thoughts on how the tourney has been going so far.
First a couple of general thoughts on the tournament so far.
1. Up until the main event of Night 4 I don't think I would have called any match in the tournament less than decent. I'm not really a star rating guy, but I'd say the first 15 matches of the tourney all fell somewhere in the 2 1/2 star to 3 3/4 star range. Nothing that I thought approached match of the year level, but I tend to think that in a tournament spamming MOTYCs actually dilutes from the what you can do in terms of creating compelling stories over the course of shows. That's not to say I don't want guys to work hard, but I appreciate it more when the stage is set for bigger things that can be paid off as the tournament gets into the final stages. This kind of speaks to why I think counting "great" matches is - at least in isolation - a terrible metric for comparing (or even evaluating) a wrestlers strengths, but that's a bigger topic for a different day.
2. So far Kushida has really been the only person booked to have standout matches. I assume this is by design as he is the ace of the division, and there is a sense in which I respect the decision to feature your top junior this way. That said it has created a weird situation where the New Japan junior heavyweight champion has actually been presented as having more difficulty defeating his opponents than anyone else in the tournament so far. I have zero problem with him losing to Kyle O'Reilly or anyone in the tournament really as if it's done smartly it can create credible future challengers to the title without damaging him. Still, it is at least worth asking whether or not it is smart to position the champion as "guy who has great competitive matches" or "guy who is clearly the best" in a tournament like this.
A Block
BUSHI - One of the most improved guys in wrestling over the course of the last year, and he's looked pretty sharp in the tournament. His gimmick brings something a little different, but he can bring pace and excitment when the matches call for it too. Not necessarily one of the top performers so far, but the Gedo match was a fun match everyone should watch, and he's looked good.
Gedo - Better wrestler than he is a booker and that's more a compliment of his abilities as a worker than it is a shot at his booking. Every year the BOSJ comes around and I leave it wishing he was a full time guy as his Memphish dick heel routine is something that will never get old to me. He's been on point so far.
Kushida - One of the best three guys in the tournament so far, but as mentioned above he's had by far the most ideal conditions in which to deliver. A lot of people have the O'Reilly match as a MOTYC which I don't buy at all, but it was a very good match, and the Romero bout was solid too. Wish we saw a little more struggle on some of his speedy work as it is starting to trend away from explosive and into exposing, but I understand he's got a formula that works and it's hard to criticize.
Kyle O'Reilly - Probably the standout of the tourney for many so far. I've enjoyed both of his matches, think they've told reasonably effective stories (not always something you see with modern junior wrestling so that shouldn't be dismissed), and the fire he shows on offense is always impressive. On the other hand the way he works sometimes creates a situation where the impact of singular spots or moments has little to no effect. I have been trying to put my finger on what about O'Reilly I don't quite get, and I think what it comes down to is that the way he paces his offense often leads to great looking exchanges followed by solid selling, followed by more great looking exchanges and solid selling. Some might read this and say "what's the problem with that?" and my response would be in the abstract nothing, but I would really love to see O'Reilly matches where the sequences were slowed down just a hair to allow some of the individual blows to pop. It's a strange thing to explain, but I think I'd find his matches much more organic if I saw a bit more of that. I still think he's been very strong in the tournament, and one of the top four guys in it, but I wanted to write a bit on why I'm not quite as high on him as others so there you have it.
Matt Sydal - Sydal has looked good in the tourney, but he really hasn't jumped off the page. Of all the people in the field he's the one where I have the least which is either good or bad depending on how you look at it.
Rocky Romero - I'm not really the guy who would normally sing hosannas to Romero, but he's acquitted himself well in this tournament. He has a fairly adaptable style in the sense that I don't think he struggles looking comfortable against wrestlers as different as KUSHIDA and Finlay, and there is no one in his block who I think he couldn't work a solid match with.
Ryusuke Taguchi - Nothing that has occurred so far in the BOSJ has dissuaded me from my view that Taguchi has been the best guy in New Japan so far this year. While he is an explicitly goofy character, he's not a comedy wrestler. Instead he injects comedy into his wrestling in really effective ways, while also having the ability to turn things on and become more serious when need be. So far in the BOSJ we've seen his ridiculous entrances, but when the bell rings you believe he's a guy who is willing to fight to win the tournament. The Sydal and Finlay Jr. matches were both very good bouts, strong for different reasons, and featuring Taguchi in completely different roles. I'd probably have them both in my top three for the tournament so far, and could see an argument for them at 1 and 2. I think it's possible that no one in wrestling in 2016 does a better job at working to his spot and role on a card than Taguchi, and I am really looking forward to seeing how things unfold with him going forward.
David Finlay Jr. - I tend to think Finlay is one of the more underrated guys in all of wrestling and he's done well for himself so far. I do think that in look and the way he carries himself he doesn't come across as a junior on the surface, but he's got no problem working the fast paced exchanges that are expected out of the house style. He introduces an interesting element into the field because he's being presented as green but completely unafraid of the guys in front of him, which really makes me wish he was in the same block as Liger, but what can you do. His selling feels shaky at times, but at other times it really adds to things. Probably the guy I'm most looking forward to watching against the rest of the guys in his block.
B Block
Trent - There is nothing bad about Trent per se, but he's also the least exciting guy in a field that includes Tiger Mask IV. He's a serviceable talent, but he's not done anything to dissuade my view coming in that I much prefer him in tag teams. I was hoping he'd reign in Ospreay and the exact opposite happened.
Bobby Fish - Fish is a strange one. I kind of see him as a guy who gets sucked into the world of his opponent, but maybe that's not fair. The Liger match I liked but didn't get why people were raving over it. The Ricochet match was okay, but at times it looked like they were literally counting off their pre-planned routine. I kind of wish Fish was getting to work Finlay, Gedo, or Taguchi because on paper I think they are the best match ups for him in the tournament.
Jushin Thunder Liger - He's a legend and still pretty damn great. His matches with Fish and Owens were worked very differently from my perspective. It probably won't go anywhere, but I think there is potential to build on the fact that he cheated to win his first match, and had to overcome cheating to win his second. I'm very interested to see the approach he takes against the flyers still left for him work. It's not inconceivable that Liger could exit this tournament in my top ten wrestlers on the planet, which is amazing when he consider his age.
Ricochet _ I like Ricochet fine for what he is, and he's had a lot of matches I've enjoyed over the last couple of years, but so far he's come across to me as the guy with the most athletically impressive offense that looks just a bit to staged for me to fully bite on. This is a line he walks all the time, but I thought the Fish match especially got super dance routine-y at times. He's a wild card for me in that I could see him completely blowing me away v. a Liger or even an Owens, but I also really dread the Ospreay and Volador matches unless they are worked as complete sprints with no attempt at making them anything more.
Tiger Mask IV - I said I'd have the least to say about Sydal, but I might have even less to say about TM IV. Occasionally he will have a blowaway performance, but we haven't seen it so far. Instead he's been there as he always is. Nothing more, nothing less.
Volador Jr. - Of all the guys in the tournament he's the one that feels the most out of place to me. In fact he's the only one who feels out of place to me. I've never been high on him, but when I say he feels out of place I am not critiquing his work. I think he's been reasonably effective as a guy reeling off pretty looking spots, and if anything the Trent match was better than I thought it would be. That said, his offense doesn't stand out as much in a field with Ospreay and Ricochet, and he has the frame of a guy too big to be in this field.
Will Ospreay - So far we've had good Ospreay and bad Ospreay. The Owens match was good Ospreay, where I thought his spots were reasonably well executed and built to, there wasn't egregious/business exposing no selling spots for no real reason, and he worked at more than two speeds. Then there was the Trent match which I up to this point is my pick for the worst tourney match by a fairly wide margin where we got the opposite of everything I just said. I get his charm, I don't hate him, but I really don't want to see anymore of the Ospreay that I saw in the Trent match.
Chase Owens - I could see how some might say that he feels out of place, but I actually think he has looked really good in this tournament so far. He has enough big spots to get by, but where I think he really excels is in controlling the pace of a match so that the biggest moments feel big. The Ospreay match was really good and saw him keep pace with a guy who you might think would blow right by him, and the Liger match was really fun and kind of worked to Owens strengths as a guy with Southern indie roots. I'd say he's been one of the top three or four guys in the tournament so far.
First a couple of general thoughts on the tournament so far.
1. Up until the main event of Night 4 I don't think I would have called any match in the tournament less than decent. I'm not really a star rating guy, but I'd say the first 15 matches of the tourney all fell somewhere in the 2 1/2 star to 3 3/4 star range. Nothing that I thought approached match of the year level, but I tend to think that in a tournament spamming MOTYCs actually dilutes from the what you can do in terms of creating compelling stories over the course of shows. That's not to say I don't want guys to work hard, but I appreciate it more when the stage is set for bigger things that can be paid off as the tournament gets into the final stages. This kind of speaks to why I think counting "great" matches is - at least in isolation - a terrible metric for comparing (or even evaluating) a wrestlers strengths, but that's a bigger topic for a different day.
2. So far Kushida has really been the only person booked to have standout matches. I assume this is by design as he is the ace of the division, and there is a sense in which I respect the decision to feature your top junior this way. That said it has created a weird situation where the New Japan junior heavyweight champion has actually been presented as having more difficulty defeating his opponents than anyone else in the tournament so far. I have zero problem with him losing to Kyle O'Reilly or anyone in the tournament really as if it's done smartly it can create credible future challengers to the title without damaging him. Still, it is at least worth asking whether or not it is smart to position the champion as "guy who has great competitive matches" or "guy who is clearly the best" in a tournament like this.
A Block
BUSHI - One of the most improved guys in wrestling over the course of the last year, and he's looked pretty sharp in the tournament. His gimmick brings something a little different, but he can bring pace and excitment when the matches call for it too. Not necessarily one of the top performers so far, but the Gedo match was a fun match everyone should watch, and he's looked good.
Gedo - Better wrestler than he is a booker and that's more a compliment of his abilities as a worker than it is a shot at his booking. Every year the BOSJ comes around and I leave it wishing he was a full time guy as his Memphish dick heel routine is something that will never get old to me. He's been on point so far.
Kushida - One of the best three guys in the tournament so far, but as mentioned above he's had by far the most ideal conditions in which to deliver. A lot of people have the O'Reilly match as a MOTYC which I don't buy at all, but it was a very good match, and the Romero bout was solid too. Wish we saw a little more struggle on some of his speedy work as it is starting to trend away from explosive and into exposing, but I understand he's got a formula that works and it's hard to criticize.
Kyle O'Reilly - Probably the standout of the tourney for many so far. I've enjoyed both of his matches, think they've told reasonably effective stories (not always something you see with modern junior wrestling so that shouldn't be dismissed), and the fire he shows on offense is always impressive. On the other hand the way he works sometimes creates a situation where the impact of singular spots or moments has little to no effect. I have been trying to put my finger on what about O'Reilly I don't quite get, and I think what it comes down to is that the way he paces his offense often leads to great looking exchanges followed by solid selling, followed by more great looking exchanges and solid selling. Some might read this and say "what's the problem with that?" and my response would be in the abstract nothing, but I would really love to see O'Reilly matches where the sequences were slowed down just a hair to allow some of the individual blows to pop. It's a strange thing to explain, but I think I'd find his matches much more organic if I saw a bit more of that. I still think he's been very strong in the tournament, and one of the top four guys in it, but I wanted to write a bit on why I'm not quite as high on him as others so there you have it.
Matt Sydal - Sydal has looked good in the tourney, but he really hasn't jumped off the page. Of all the people in the field he's the one where I have the least which is either good or bad depending on how you look at it.
Rocky Romero - I'm not really the guy who would normally sing hosannas to Romero, but he's acquitted himself well in this tournament. He has a fairly adaptable style in the sense that I don't think he struggles looking comfortable against wrestlers as different as KUSHIDA and Finlay, and there is no one in his block who I think he couldn't work a solid match with.
Ryusuke Taguchi - Nothing that has occurred so far in the BOSJ has dissuaded me from my view that Taguchi has been the best guy in New Japan so far this year. While he is an explicitly goofy character, he's not a comedy wrestler. Instead he injects comedy into his wrestling in really effective ways, while also having the ability to turn things on and become more serious when need be. So far in the BOSJ we've seen his ridiculous entrances, but when the bell rings you believe he's a guy who is willing to fight to win the tournament. The Sydal and Finlay Jr. matches were both very good bouts, strong for different reasons, and featuring Taguchi in completely different roles. I'd probably have them both in my top three for the tournament so far, and could see an argument for them at 1 and 2. I think it's possible that no one in wrestling in 2016 does a better job at working to his spot and role on a card than Taguchi, and I am really looking forward to seeing how things unfold with him going forward.
David Finlay Jr. - I tend to think Finlay is one of the more underrated guys in all of wrestling and he's done well for himself so far. I do think that in look and the way he carries himself he doesn't come across as a junior on the surface, but he's got no problem working the fast paced exchanges that are expected out of the house style. He introduces an interesting element into the field because he's being presented as green but completely unafraid of the guys in front of him, which really makes me wish he was in the same block as Liger, but what can you do. His selling feels shaky at times, but at other times it really adds to things. Probably the guy I'm most looking forward to watching against the rest of the guys in his block.
B Block
Trent - There is nothing bad about Trent per se, but he's also the least exciting guy in a field that includes Tiger Mask IV. He's a serviceable talent, but he's not done anything to dissuade my view coming in that I much prefer him in tag teams. I was hoping he'd reign in Ospreay and the exact opposite happened.
Bobby Fish - Fish is a strange one. I kind of see him as a guy who gets sucked into the world of his opponent, but maybe that's not fair. The Liger match I liked but didn't get why people were raving over it. The Ricochet match was okay, but at times it looked like they were literally counting off their pre-planned routine. I kind of wish Fish was getting to work Finlay, Gedo, or Taguchi because on paper I think they are the best match ups for him in the tournament.
Jushin Thunder Liger - He's a legend and still pretty damn great. His matches with Fish and Owens were worked very differently from my perspective. It probably won't go anywhere, but I think there is potential to build on the fact that he cheated to win his first match, and had to overcome cheating to win his second. I'm very interested to see the approach he takes against the flyers still left for him work. It's not inconceivable that Liger could exit this tournament in my top ten wrestlers on the planet, which is amazing when he consider his age.
Ricochet _ I like Ricochet fine for what he is, and he's had a lot of matches I've enjoyed over the last couple of years, but so far he's come across to me as the guy with the most athletically impressive offense that looks just a bit to staged for me to fully bite on. This is a line he walks all the time, but I thought the Fish match especially got super dance routine-y at times. He's a wild card for me in that I could see him completely blowing me away v. a Liger or even an Owens, but I also really dread the Ospreay and Volador matches unless they are worked as complete sprints with no attempt at making them anything more.
Tiger Mask IV - I said I'd have the least to say about Sydal, but I might have even less to say about TM IV. Occasionally he will have a blowaway performance, but we haven't seen it so far. Instead he's been there as he always is. Nothing more, nothing less.
Volador Jr. - Of all the guys in the tournament he's the one that feels the most out of place to me. In fact he's the only one who feels out of place to me. I've never been high on him, but when I say he feels out of place I am not critiquing his work. I think he's been reasonably effective as a guy reeling off pretty looking spots, and if anything the Trent match was better than I thought it would be. That said, his offense doesn't stand out as much in a field with Ospreay and Ricochet, and he has the frame of a guy too big to be in this field.
Will Ospreay - So far we've had good Ospreay and bad Ospreay. The Owens match was good Ospreay, where I thought his spots were reasonably well executed and built to, there wasn't egregious/business exposing no selling spots for no real reason, and he worked at more than two speeds. Then there was the Trent match which I up to this point is my pick for the worst tourney match by a fairly wide margin where we got the opposite of everything I just said. I get his charm, I don't hate him, but I really don't want to see anymore of the Ospreay that I saw in the Trent match.
Chase Owens - I could see how some might say that he feels out of place, but I actually think he has looked really good in this tournament so far. He has enough big spots to get by, but where I think he really excels is in controlling the pace of a match so that the biggest moments feel big. The Ospreay match was really good and saw him keep pace with a guy who you might think would blow right by him, and the Liger match was really fun and kind of worked to Owens strengths as a guy with Southern indie roots. I'd say he's been one of the top three or four guys in the tournament so far.
Southern Indie Spotlight Take 7, Chris Hamrick (I missed a day...sue me)
I missed a day due to lack of motivation and crippling back pain. And I'm gonna take today to recycle a post I made over at ProWrestlingOnly.com on Chris Hamrick because I really like it. I'm sure the grammar is bad. I'm not proofreading it at all right now. It's another thing written in the context of the Greatest Wrestler Ever project so keep that in mind.
For the purposes of projects like this I always try to be objective. By objective I don't mean "find the one truth that governs all wrestling analysis, and apply that standard to all wrestlers," but rather "try to ascertain things that I value in wrestling, and do my best to rank the wrestlers based on how closely they conform to those values." Obviously that is imprecise for a variety of reasons, but I try. That said it's really tough for me to be objective in that sense with certain people. Chris Hamrick is probably the best example of this.
Now make no mistake - I think Chris Hamrick is at minimum a very good wrestler. He's one of the craziest bumpers in wrestling history. He has a great command of psychology, very good timing, can throw a punch, works very well at multiple speeds, and is one of the most creative, interesting and varied offensive wrestlers of his era. He's got plenty of good matches, and good performances, and I'm not sure I've ever seen anything out of him that I would categorize as less than a good effort. But none of that is the reason I felt compelled to nominate him.
I nominated Hamrick because I am a huge fan of independent wrestling, particularly Southern independent wrestling, almost entirely because of him. When I was growing up indies would only come to my town a few times a year. It was usually a PWF show or some card using a similar roster. That generally meant Terry Austin, George South, The Italian Stallion, and a roster of others at about that level who would put on a very by the numbers show, with minimal effort. It wasn't bad really, but the shows were flat, and lacked anything that could really grab your attention. Except for Chris Hamrick.
I saw Hamrick work a bunch of shows live as a kid/teenager and it was always the best thing on the card, and always completely amazing. More often than not he was in a tag match, but not always. If he was working heel you'd usually get him at his shit talking best, jawing with the locals, working great heel schtick...and then taking absolutely insane bumps that in some cases literally brought people out of their seats (I saw him take "his" bump through the ropes on a hardwood basketball floor once where he skidded out and took out a few rows of fans). You got all the staples that made Southern heel work effect PLUS the dynamism of a guy who was a great athlete and willing to put his body on the line.
If he was a face you usually got great fire, good selling, and offense that was completely unlike anything you would see on these shows at the time. I remember marking out for Scott Steiner as a kid because of his crazy spots, but seeing Hamrick was even nuttier. Here was a redneck dude, with a mullet, doing jump out of the gym top rope legdrops and moonsaults. I never saw him live after he started doing the top rope piledriver as a finish, but it was completely in keeping with the vibe that I got watching Hamrick when I was younger. He was basically the Billy Black of the Carolinas and we loved him (or loved to hate him) for it.
That said my all time favorite Hamrick performance was when I got to see him live several years back with my daughter who was probably six or seven at the time. Before his match no one was really coming up to his gimmick table because the show also had Buff Bagwell, The Rock N Roll Express, Dusty Rhodes and Nikita Koloff their signing autographs. Emma and I went up to Hamrick and got a couple of signed 8X10's and a DVD. My daughter was definitely nervous talking to him just because he was a wrestler, and he asked her to cheer extra for him.
About an hour later he had his match, and unsurprisingly it was the best on the show. We got crazy bumps, brutally stiff chops, some neat submissions (an underrated aspect of his game), and a couple of awesome highspots including a split legged moonsault to the floor. It got over more than anything on the show, and when he went back to his table afterwards people swarmed it. My daughter asked if she could run over and say hi to him, which I kind of discouraged her from doing figuring he'd want to make as much cash as he could, but she went anyway. Hamrick high-fived her, had her sit next to him for a bit, and introduced her to people as his number one fan in the building.
So I think Hamrick is really, really good. Criminally underrated, was wasted in ECW, and had a team with Smothers that was awesome which everyone forgets and where the footage isn't widely circulated. He was ahead of his time in the right ways, while still understanding the importance of working, building heat, and staying logical. Is loved by people throughout the business as a worker, and had runs in places that are generally thought of very highly by those who have seen them in full.
But even if those things weren't true about Chris Hamrick, he'd still have an outside shot at making my ballot. I can't be objective about the guy who made both myself and my daughter indie wrestling fans.
For the purposes of projects like this I always try to be objective. By objective I don't mean "find the one truth that governs all wrestling analysis, and apply that standard to all wrestlers," but rather "try to ascertain things that I value in wrestling, and do my best to rank the wrestlers based on how closely they conform to those values." Obviously that is imprecise for a variety of reasons, but I try. That said it's really tough for me to be objective in that sense with certain people. Chris Hamrick is probably the best example of this.
Now make no mistake - I think Chris Hamrick is at minimum a very good wrestler. He's one of the craziest bumpers in wrestling history. He has a great command of psychology, very good timing, can throw a punch, works very well at multiple speeds, and is one of the most creative, interesting and varied offensive wrestlers of his era. He's got plenty of good matches, and good performances, and I'm not sure I've ever seen anything out of him that I would categorize as less than a good effort. But none of that is the reason I felt compelled to nominate him.
I nominated Hamrick because I am a huge fan of independent wrestling, particularly Southern independent wrestling, almost entirely because of him. When I was growing up indies would only come to my town a few times a year. It was usually a PWF show or some card using a similar roster. That generally meant Terry Austin, George South, The Italian Stallion, and a roster of others at about that level who would put on a very by the numbers show, with minimal effort. It wasn't bad really, but the shows were flat, and lacked anything that could really grab your attention. Except for Chris Hamrick.
I saw Hamrick work a bunch of shows live as a kid/teenager and it was always the best thing on the card, and always completely amazing. More often than not he was in a tag match, but not always. If he was working heel you'd usually get him at his shit talking best, jawing with the locals, working great heel schtick...and then taking absolutely insane bumps that in some cases literally brought people out of their seats (I saw him take "his" bump through the ropes on a hardwood basketball floor once where he skidded out and took out a few rows of fans). You got all the staples that made Southern heel work effect PLUS the dynamism of a guy who was a great athlete and willing to put his body on the line.
If he was a face you usually got great fire, good selling, and offense that was completely unlike anything you would see on these shows at the time. I remember marking out for Scott Steiner as a kid because of his crazy spots, but seeing Hamrick was even nuttier. Here was a redneck dude, with a mullet, doing jump out of the gym top rope legdrops and moonsaults. I never saw him live after he started doing the top rope piledriver as a finish, but it was completely in keeping with the vibe that I got watching Hamrick when I was younger. He was basically the Billy Black of the Carolinas and we loved him (or loved to hate him) for it.
That said my all time favorite Hamrick performance was when I got to see him live several years back with my daughter who was probably six or seven at the time. Before his match no one was really coming up to his gimmick table because the show also had Buff Bagwell, The Rock N Roll Express, Dusty Rhodes and Nikita Koloff their signing autographs. Emma and I went up to Hamrick and got a couple of signed 8X10's and a DVD. My daughter was definitely nervous talking to him just because he was a wrestler, and he asked her to cheer extra for him.
About an hour later he had his match, and unsurprisingly it was the best on the show. We got crazy bumps, brutally stiff chops, some neat submissions (an underrated aspect of his game), and a couple of awesome highspots including a split legged moonsault to the floor. It got over more than anything on the show, and when he went back to his table afterwards people swarmed it. My daughter asked if she could run over and say hi to him, which I kind of discouraged her from doing figuring he'd want to make as much cash as he could, but she went anyway. Hamrick high-fived her, had her sit next to him for a bit, and introduced her to people as his number one fan in the building.
So I think Hamrick is really, really good. Criminally underrated, was wasted in ECW, and had a team with Smothers that was awesome which everyone forgets and where the footage isn't widely circulated. He was ahead of his time in the right ways, while still understanding the importance of working, building heat, and staying logical. Is loved by people throughout the business as a worker, and had runs in places that are generally thought of very highly by those who have seen them in full.
But even if those things weren't true about Chris Hamrick, he'd still have an outside shot at making my ballot. I can't be objective about the guy who made both myself and my daughter indie wrestling fans.
Monday, May 23, 2016
Southern Indie Spotlight Take 6 - Some Brief Thoughts on Ace Rockwell
Bad back pain and a brutal headache have kept me from doing a new content entry today. So I'm going to recycle my ProWrestlingOnly.com Greatest Wrestler Ever post on Ace Rockwell. I'm a big fan of his, and could easily add a lot to this very brief discussion of his positives. Maybe I will at a later date. As a bonus I'm including a link to a Facebook video of a match he had with Tank at the last Empire show in the Empire Arena in Rossville, Georgia. The match is one of my favorites of 2016, as it's two veterans and stars of the Southern indie scene beating each other up in a number one contenders match in front of a sellout crowd. Think Ishii/Honma but with some fun theatrical selling spots from Ace, and more significance on the one count/pop up spots because it's not something either guy does in every match.
Here it is.
And here are my GWE inspired thoughts on Ace Rockwell.
I just wrote a long post on Shaun Tempers, and Ace Rockwell probably deserves the same though I'm not sure I have enough context with him to do it. That said I could not imagine nominating Tempers and not Rockwell.
If Tempers is the evil spawn of the Chattanooga indie world that went fourth into Georgia and douched his way through the broader scene, Ace is the good son. Mechanically he's actually better than Tempers and has a better range. I love Tempers, but I can't imagine him having effective "workrate" matches on a weekly basis. I could easily see Rockwell doing it, though he'd be the first to bitch about it as it's not really his style.
In fact his style is basically to be an old school, traditional, hard nosed, Southern babyface. This means he knows how to take an ass beating, and knows how to return fire. He's very good at setting up, teasing, and delivering on his big spots, none of which are especially huge by contemporary standards, but all of which are effective and generally very crisp. He's probably got the best bulldog in the game for whatever that is worth.
In last years Scenic City Invitational he had a match with Gunner that I loved, but didn't resonate with others. In fact it was probably the most polarizing match of the tourney. To me the match was entirely believable and featured a masterful performance by Ace in particular with his timing, bumping, and facial expressions really carrying the day. It's not the best Rockwell match I've seen, but the fact that he was able to get over as an equal "star" against Gunner in that building on that night was telling to me.
He has plenty of good matches from Anarchy online, but the real standout is the excellent title match v. Tempers. The Empire title match that is on the Empire website is also great, and remarkably ambitious for a match of this era. That said the best match of his I've seen is probably the I Quit match from 1/2/14 v. Matt Fortune, a young talent from the Chattanooga area. They worked an excellent brawl that probably would have rated in my top ten matches of that year from anywhere on Earth if I had seen it sooner. If pressed I'd rate it as the best Empire match I've ever seen, and that's a promotion I like a lot.
Here it is.
And here are my GWE inspired thoughts on Ace Rockwell.
I just wrote a long post on Shaun Tempers, and Ace Rockwell probably deserves the same though I'm not sure I have enough context with him to do it. That said I could not imagine nominating Tempers and not Rockwell.
If Tempers is the evil spawn of the Chattanooga indie world that went fourth into Georgia and douched his way through the broader scene, Ace is the good son. Mechanically he's actually better than Tempers and has a better range. I love Tempers, but I can't imagine him having effective "workrate" matches on a weekly basis. I could easily see Rockwell doing it, though he'd be the first to bitch about it as it's not really his style.
In fact his style is basically to be an old school, traditional, hard nosed, Southern babyface. This means he knows how to take an ass beating, and knows how to return fire. He's very good at setting up, teasing, and delivering on his big spots, none of which are especially huge by contemporary standards, but all of which are effective and generally very crisp. He's probably got the best bulldog in the game for whatever that is worth.
In last years Scenic City Invitational he had a match with Gunner that I loved, but didn't resonate with others. In fact it was probably the most polarizing match of the tourney. To me the match was entirely believable and featured a masterful performance by Ace in particular with his timing, bumping, and facial expressions really carrying the day. It's not the best Rockwell match I've seen, but the fact that he was able to get over as an equal "star" against Gunner in that building on that night was telling to me.
He has plenty of good matches from Anarchy online, but the real standout is the excellent title match v. Tempers. The Empire title match that is on the Empire website is also great, and remarkably ambitious for a match of this era. That said the best match of his I've seen is probably the I Quit match from 1/2/14 v. Matt Fortune, a young talent from the Chattanooga area. They worked an excellent brawl that probably would have rated in my top ten matches of that year from anywhere on Earth if I had seen it sooner. If pressed I'd rate it as the best Empire match I've ever seen, and that's a promotion I like a lot.
Sunday, May 22, 2016
Southern Indie Spotlight Take 5 - Ray Fury, Fred Yehi, Drew Game, OH MY! or I Finally Review A Full Show
The Southern Indie Spotlight rolls on here on Day 5 with a FULL SHOW review. Even better than that, this is a FULL SHOW that you can watch for free on YouTube!
The show in question is the Indie Wrestling Channel Title Tournament, which took place on December 6th last year in Ellijay, Georgia. I believe the show was technically promoted by DSCW, though a GPW banner is visible above the entrance (both promotions are co-promoted by Woody Hullender). The show was not particularly well attended, though the vibe of the setting is more "studio wrestling" than "empty building," which works for a tourney built around establishing a Roku Channel champion. I have no clue if that was intentional or not, but the look of the building, combined with the brevity of the matches (I believe the first round had ten minute time limits), really ends up giving the show the feel of a logically booked episode of WCW Worldwide. That is a good thing, as you can watch the entire show in a little over an hour (probably right at an hour if you cut out the one non-tournament match), and it serves as a fun little sampler for several different Southern indie talents.
The show is on YouTube in three parts. I will link to them all separately because the uploader was smart enough to separate the video files and label them only by round. As a result you can watch the entire tournament from beginning to end without being spoiled. If you'd like to do that feel free to read this review in pieces after you are done watching each video.
Fred Yehi v. Jaden Newman
So I've recently started advancing the argument that Fred Yehi is the best wrestler in the world in 2016. A big part of that argument is that he's one of the only guys this year who we have been able to see work everyone from the absolute top tier talent on Earth, to people who are literally working free shows as trainees and students, without really missing a beat. No the matches at WWA4 aren't as good as the WWNLive family matches (or even his best match in TWE v. Colby Corino), but Fred is still awesome in them, and more importantly he seems to bring the best out of his opponents.
Here he is matched up against a literal high school student in Jaden Newman. Now one might think that if you are a guy known for having really good matches with trainees, big Chattanooga area teenager is historically the absolute best person you could be up against. But Jaden Newman isn't Terry Gordy, and this match is just kind of there. Really the point here is to establish Fred as the heel, and it is effective when he is on offense. When Newman is on offense...well he shouldn't have been on offense. There was one flubbed spot down the stretch, and Fred won this with the spinning elbow.
Ray Ray v. Shane Marx
Shan Marx is a guy who is really respected by a lot of people inside Georgia wrestling, and is kind of sneaky good in that he doesn't look like he'd be anything special, but he's very solid. Ray Ray is basically a redneck Rey Mysterio, including the 619 as a set up for a crossboyd finisher. I kind of hate that I blogged about Cyrus v. Torque the other day being your consummate Mark Henry v. Rey in a Southern indie setting match, because this is even more so that and no I'm not saying that because Marx is black and Ray Ray is named Ray Ray.
The match is literally worked as Ray Ray v. the big brick wall. Can Ray Ray hiptoss a wall? Nope. Can he armdrag him? Nope. Can he bounce of the wall and sell his back? Yes. Marx is actually a really athletic and mobile guy so calling him a wall shouldn't be misconstrued but you get the point.
Marx is on point in his role, but Ray Ray really makes this because every time he hits a big comeback spot he remembers to sell. I especially loved the teasing of a 619/splash attempt which had been put over on commentary as his finish, and the rana/powerbomb struggle actually leading to a spike DDT on Marx. Finish was literally right out of the Rey v. Mark Henry playbook, as Ray Ray hit his 619/splash combo, but Marx rolled through and absolutely murdered him with a Death Valley Driver. Good match that had the elements to be even better but not the time.
Drew Game v. Deon Mercer
I probably first saw Drew Game work a show back in 2002ish and here he is still making towns. He now looks like the most gloriously awesome 80s/90s WTBS competitive squash match working enhancement talent and I do not mean that as an insult. He is billed as being from "Sun Tan City" and that is just about perfect. I could totally imagine him and The Gambler teaming up v. Fire and Ice in an insanely fun 4:24 second Saturday Night match, and this is a tournament build around the "sampler sized" match so it is right in Game's wheelhouse.
To Mercer's credit he worked the crowd into more of a tizzy than anyone else had up to this point, but I also give Game credit for that because look at him. He radiates heel scumbag with the fire of a thousand suns.
The match is simple but effective, with Game working the back, and Mercer getting in his comeback spots. The highlight was probably Game's axe kick to the kidneys of a downed opponent, which is the sort of thing that would have been considered a cheap shot in 2003 Pride. Mercer gets a flurry down the stretch with the Emma corner splash and a senton, but then pays for doing the "tuning up the band" Shawn Michaels superkick tease with a flash brainbuster that ends the match. Loved the fact that the babyface hot dogging and telegraphing his finish bit him in the ass.
Chip Hazard v. Ray Fury
Ray Fury was announced for the Scenic City Invitational the other day and has the reputation of being one of the better Chattanooga area indie guys who didn't really work the best Chattanooga area indie show (Empire). I said this on Twitter when he was announced, but I think he has the potential to be the Jason Collins of this years tournament, which for people who haven't seen last year's SCI means that I think he could be a relatively unknown guy who gets an at bat and hits a home run on the first pitch.
Chip Hazard is one half of the tag team The Movement with Talon Williams. I haven't seen him work very many singles matches, but I always enjoy him in tags.
Early on Fury took over on Hazard's arm and they did a good job establishing Fury as a tenacious technician whose skill rattled the more bruising heel. Hazard's arm was taped which also made the attack on the arm logical. It didn't really serve a larger purpose in the match, but it was effective.
There were some cool spots in this (tilt-a-whirl into Russian legsweep by Fury, and a really cool STO to cut off a later Fury flurry by Hazard), but the match was really about Fury trying to evade and survive Hazard's piledriver. He evaded it once, survived it by getting his leg on the ropes, and then ended up evading it again and hitting a flash death valley driver for the pin. They actually packed a lot into a small span of time, the match built well, and even though Fury hit his finish 30 seconds after eating a piledriver his selling was strong both before and after, so it's really hard to be critical of that. At this point I had to assume they were building to a battle of the Death Valley Drivers between Fury and Marx...but were they? Let's watch the second round and find out.
Semi-Finals
Fred Yehi v. Shane Marx
Funny enough Yehi, was just talking up Marx on Twitter yesterday. Marx does some nice stuff in this early including a real fast dropkick and a pretty fistdrop. More people should do fistdrops.
Yehi takes control and works over Marx stomach. This is an unusual choice, but Fred makes it interesting by beating him in gut with these sweeping forearm shots that are different from any forearm shots I've seen before which is kind of Yehi's thing. Simple, Logical, Innovative should be Fred's Hustle, Loyalty, Respect.
They build to a spot with Marx countering a German suplex attempt, but Yehi just drives him into the corner and goes back to the stomach. About nine minutes in we get a ten minute call which I love because if you aren't working Father Time you aren't working. Marx wins a strike exchange and goes for a spinebuster, but his stomach gives out and he can't get him up. Fred goes for the spinning elbow - established as his finish in round one - and THEN Marx hits the big spinebuster. That sort of "tease, deliver, tease, deliver" really rewards people who are paying attention and makes the near falls feel like bigger deals.
Fred sells the spinebuster by flopping around the ring like a fish, and Marx goes for a DVD again, but gets rolled up quick for the fall. I wasn't in love with the finish of this, and it really seemed like DVD v. DVD was the obvious thing to build to after round one, but it's hard to argue against the best wrestler in the world moving on to the finals.
Ray Fury v. Drew Game
In the first round Game was established as just the type of heel who would injure a man for kicks, and that's what he does here. Fury gets his arm posted early and this match becomes all about the damage to Ray's arm and whether or not he can work around it. Game was in control, Fury would try to mount a comeback, and he would be cut down by a kick to the arm, a single arm DDT, et. Very consistent work that stuck to the theme.
Fury did try his neat tilt-a-whirl into a Russian legsweep again, but it was countered by a elevated face plant spot which was easily the biggest move in the match. Game followed up by going for the brainbuster that won him his first match, but Fury slipped over the top and hit another flash DVD for the win.
This match was probably too short for it's own good, but the work was really solid and established that Fury's arm was banged up, and that Fury's DVD was a sure fire deathblow when he hits it. The match ended with more than ten minutes left on the video player which actually made the flash fall more effective because the viewer naturally assumes Game is going to kick out when they are looking at the clock.
Instead Game pouts post-match and refuses to leave the ring. Chip Hazard comes out to persuade him but ends up joining him in his sit down strike (kind of?) and the aforementioned promoter Woody Hullender calls over the house mic for someone to come take out the trash which leads to a bonus match.
Good Ole Boys v. Chip Hazard and Drew Game
As a match this is nothing at all, but it's worth watching if you've never seen the Good Ole Boys because it's a gimmick that is every bit as awesome as it sounds. Cousin Cletus is a big old boy, horseshoe balding, and almost jovial looking. Cousin Shaggy is a much smaller fella who kind of looks like the living embodiment of the farmer in the farmer's daughter urban legend, i.e. a deranged John Deere tractor owner who will murder you execution style in a cornfield if you so much as look at his kin the wrong way. Both wear overalls and Waffle House t-shirts. Speaking of Waffle House they are almost always the most over babyfaces on any show they work, and the crowd chants "Waffle House" during their face in peril sections. In other words their existence is a regional treasure.
Again the match isn't much, though I do love the fact that Game ended up working three times despite losing in the semis, and the spot with him being overwhelmed by a Cletus handshake was picture perfect, something out of nothing, schtick. Shaggy picked up the win with an awkward looking splash off the top, which reminded me that I saw him have a pretty good Scaffold match where the ring was filled with mouse traps v. Brad Cash at a DSCW show on Halloween last year. I love wrestling.
Finals
Fred Yehi v. Ray Fury
If you were wondering whether or not the arm injury Fury had suffered in the semifinals was going to come into play in the finals, here is your answer - Fury came out with his shoulder taped. This instantaneously got me excited because I am a huge fan of matches that pick up where the previous match left off.
Then the bell rang and we got possibly the best opening to a match I've seen in the last six months. Fury - who has a visibly injured arm - sprints across the ring, dropkicks Yehi in the face as he's still in the corner, and immediately hits the Death Valley Driver. This is the same finisher that has won him both of his matches as a "flash" spot and was hands down the most protected spot on the show (Remember that Marx won in the first round with a DVD as well).
But as great as an injured man going for broke with his killshot right out of the gate because he knows it might be his only chance is, the best part of this is that this did not lead to an immediate near fall. Instead Yehi rolled to the floor right after the impact. This forced Fury, who was selling his arm already, to roll to the floor and try to pick Yehi back up to roll him in and get the win. Because his arm is damaged, the deadweight of Yehi is especially difficult to get up, and by the time he does get him in Yehi is able to kick out at two.
All in the first minute we have
1. An injury established in the previous match carried over into the next
2. A fast paced, hot, opening attack
3. Strong selling of a damaged body part
4. Strong selling of a big spot
5. Milked drama in the form of the struggle on the floor
6. An extremely effective and dramatic near fall.
This was done off of two offensive moves, neither of which looked especially nasty. While the near fall was off of a finisher, the limb selling actually kept the Death Valley Driver protected, as Yehi was effectively down from it for the entire minute. Just an excellent opening sequence.
At this point Fury is hurting, but he figures "hell it worked the first time" and goes for the running dropkick in the corner. But this time it doesn't work as Fred moves out of the way and Fury gets hung up in the ropes. Then there is this great moment where Yehi retreats across the bottom rope, hand over hand like he's a climbing the thing in gym class, stopping at the neutral corner to gather himself and survey the scene.
What he finds is that Fury is really hurt, so Fred goes to work. He hits a German to incapacitate Fury, and then goes straight for the arm. Fury scrambles to escape a Fujiwara armbar, so Fred decides he's had enough, stands on his hand with one foot, and with the other kicks Fury's injured arm repeatedly. Simple, Logical, Innovative.
From there Yehi goes to this modified Fujiwara armbar (you can tell this is a pro wrestling review because I used the term modified to describe a hold) where he has his knee dug into the elbow joint to apply extra pressure. The camera angle on this isn't the best, but both the idea of it and the selling of Fury are so good that I really don't care. As my buddy Matt D says, wrestling is symbolic (I think he says that...).
Fury actually manages to avoid the Yehi spot where he slaps the rope on a rope running spot to create impact on his opponents arm, and backs Yehi into a corner but Fred actually uses the angle against him. This is some straight up Yoshiaki Fujiwara defensive position wrestling at its finest, as Fred actually takes the impact of the tackle in the corner and folds himself into it so he can reach over and grab back onto Fury's injured wing. It's a small thing, but it's small things that make decent wrestlers good, and good wrestlers great.
Fury is able to come out on top of a strike exchange and hit a single arm snapmare, but Fred cuts him down to size and hits a Fisherman suplex for a near fall. After this he gets back, traps Fury's arm and goes for a powerbomb variation but Fury counters with a Falcon Arrow of all things. This might sound ridiculous, but it absolutely works as a hope spot both in the sense that it showcases that Fury has some big bombs in his arsenal if he can only find an opening, but also in that it is a big enough spot to serve as a transition to the stretch run.
Both guys make it to their feet so of course we get a strike exchange. In 2016 this is sort of a staple, but not every strike exchange ends with one guy hitting the injured limb of his opponent. This one did, but then Fred hit the ropes and ran straight into a leg lariat for a near fall. This was followed by a short arm crossbody from Fury for a near fall. Yes you read that right. Ray Fury did a Rainmaker set up into a crossbody in this match. And if you are paying close enough attention to the theme here you can probably guess that this spot actually made complete sense because it was done in the form of a defensive spot, as he pulled away from Yehi who had grabbed his hurt arm, effectively jump starting him like a lawnmower and then leaping onto him while the opening was there. Just excellent stuff.
Now it was time for the finishing exchange and what an exchange it was. Yehi hits a codebreaker on Fury's hurt arm and goes for his spinning elbow finish. Fury ducks and goes for the Death Valley Driver, but guess what? His arm is completely destroyed now, and though he can get Fred up, he can't hook him with his other hand. Yehi pops off Fury's shoulders, hits a nasty forearm to the injured arm, and then taps Fury out with a cross armbreaker. For extra effect Fred's body was in between Fury's and the ropes so the valiant babyface was put in a position where a rope break was a literal impossibility.
The whole match was less than ten minutes. It was not a match of the year candidate, and not the sort of match that some people would call great. The execution wasn't always super smooth, there weren't a ton of big spots, and it wasn't in front of a loud, animated crowd. But it was as logical a match as you will ever see both in terms of paying off the psychology and build that was contained to the match itself, and in that it played off of things that had been established across the course of the entire tournament. In a vacuum this is a good match and the best match on the show. In the context of the tournament itself - which is how the match was intended to be watched - I would call it a great match.
Yehi won the tournament (and the Indie Wrestling Channel title), and is the best wrestler in the World so far in 2016. But the star of this tournament was Ray Fury, who looked good in three different matches, against three drastically different wrestlers, emphasizing different aspects of his game in each match. I look forward to seeing him at the Scenic City Invitational in August, where he'll have a shot to do something like this again.
The show in question is the Indie Wrestling Channel Title Tournament, which took place on December 6th last year in Ellijay, Georgia. I believe the show was technically promoted by DSCW, though a GPW banner is visible above the entrance (both promotions are co-promoted by Woody Hullender). The show was not particularly well attended, though the vibe of the setting is more "studio wrestling" than "empty building," which works for a tourney built around establishing a Roku Channel champion. I have no clue if that was intentional or not, but the look of the building, combined with the brevity of the matches (I believe the first round had ten minute time limits), really ends up giving the show the feel of a logically booked episode of WCW Worldwide. That is a good thing, as you can watch the entire show in a little over an hour (probably right at an hour if you cut out the one non-tournament match), and it serves as a fun little sampler for several different Southern indie talents.
The show is on YouTube in three parts. I will link to them all separately because the uploader was smart enough to separate the video files and label them only by round. As a result you can watch the entire tournament from beginning to end without being spoiled. If you'd like to do that feel free to read this review in pieces after you are done watching each video.
Fred Yehi v. Jaden Newman
So I've recently started advancing the argument that Fred Yehi is the best wrestler in the world in 2016. A big part of that argument is that he's one of the only guys this year who we have been able to see work everyone from the absolute top tier talent on Earth, to people who are literally working free shows as trainees and students, without really missing a beat. No the matches at WWA4 aren't as good as the WWNLive family matches (or even his best match in TWE v. Colby Corino), but Fred is still awesome in them, and more importantly he seems to bring the best out of his opponents.
Here he is matched up against a literal high school student in Jaden Newman. Now one might think that if you are a guy known for having really good matches with trainees, big Chattanooga area teenager is historically the absolute best person you could be up against. But Jaden Newman isn't Terry Gordy, and this match is just kind of there. Really the point here is to establish Fred as the heel, and it is effective when he is on offense. When Newman is on offense...well he shouldn't have been on offense. There was one flubbed spot down the stretch, and Fred won this with the spinning elbow.
Ray Ray v. Shane Marx
Shan Marx is a guy who is really respected by a lot of people inside Georgia wrestling, and is kind of sneaky good in that he doesn't look like he'd be anything special, but he's very solid. Ray Ray is basically a redneck Rey Mysterio, including the 619 as a set up for a crossboyd finisher. I kind of hate that I blogged about Cyrus v. Torque the other day being your consummate Mark Henry v. Rey in a Southern indie setting match, because this is even more so that and no I'm not saying that because Marx is black and Ray Ray is named Ray Ray.
The match is literally worked as Ray Ray v. the big brick wall. Can Ray Ray hiptoss a wall? Nope. Can he armdrag him? Nope. Can he bounce of the wall and sell his back? Yes. Marx is actually a really athletic and mobile guy so calling him a wall shouldn't be misconstrued but you get the point.
Marx is on point in his role, but Ray Ray really makes this because every time he hits a big comeback spot he remembers to sell. I especially loved the teasing of a 619/splash attempt which had been put over on commentary as his finish, and the rana/powerbomb struggle actually leading to a spike DDT on Marx. Finish was literally right out of the Rey v. Mark Henry playbook, as Ray Ray hit his 619/splash combo, but Marx rolled through and absolutely murdered him with a Death Valley Driver. Good match that had the elements to be even better but not the time.
Drew Game v. Deon Mercer
I probably first saw Drew Game work a show back in 2002ish and here he is still making towns. He now looks like the most gloriously awesome 80s/90s WTBS competitive squash match working enhancement talent and I do not mean that as an insult. He is billed as being from "Sun Tan City" and that is just about perfect. I could totally imagine him and The Gambler teaming up v. Fire and Ice in an insanely fun 4:24 second Saturday Night match, and this is a tournament build around the "sampler sized" match so it is right in Game's wheelhouse.
To Mercer's credit he worked the crowd into more of a tizzy than anyone else had up to this point, but I also give Game credit for that because look at him. He radiates heel scumbag with the fire of a thousand suns.
The match is simple but effective, with Game working the back, and Mercer getting in his comeback spots. The highlight was probably Game's axe kick to the kidneys of a downed opponent, which is the sort of thing that would have been considered a cheap shot in 2003 Pride. Mercer gets a flurry down the stretch with the Emma corner splash and a senton, but then pays for doing the "tuning up the band" Shawn Michaels superkick tease with a flash brainbuster that ends the match. Loved the fact that the babyface hot dogging and telegraphing his finish bit him in the ass.
Chip Hazard v. Ray Fury
Ray Fury was announced for the Scenic City Invitational the other day and has the reputation of being one of the better Chattanooga area indie guys who didn't really work the best Chattanooga area indie show (Empire). I said this on Twitter when he was announced, but I think he has the potential to be the Jason Collins of this years tournament, which for people who haven't seen last year's SCI means that I think he could be a relatively unknown guy who gets an at bat and hits a home run on the first pitch.
Chip Hazard is one half of the tag team The Movement with Talon Williams. I haven't seen him work very many singles matches, but I always enjoy him in tags.
Early on Fury took over on Hazard's arm and they did a good job establishing Fury as a tenacious technician whose skill rattled the more bruising heel. Hazard's arm was taped which also made the attack on the arm logical. It didn't really serve a larger purpose in the match, but it was effective.
There were some cool spots in this (tilt-a-whirl into Russian legsweep by Fury, and a really cool STO to cut off a later Fury flurry by Hazard), but the match was really about Fury trying to evade and survive Hazard's piledriver. He evaded it once, survived it by getting his leg on the ropes, and then ended up evading it again and hitting a flash death valley driver for the pin. They actually packed a lot into a small span of time, the match built well, and even though Fury hit his finish 30 seconds after eating a piledriver his selling was strong both before and after, so it's really hard to be critical of that. At this point I had to assume they were building to a battle of the Death Valley Drivers between Fury and Marx...but were they? Let's watch the second round and find out.
Semi-Finals
Fred Yehi v. Shane Marx
Funny enough Yehi, was just talking up Marx on Twitter yesterday. Marx does some nice stuff in this early including a real fast dropkick and a pretty fistdrop. More people should do fistdrops.
Yehi takes control and works over Marx stomach. This is an unusual choice, but Fred makes it interesting by beating him in gut with these sweeping forearm shots that are different from any forearm shots I've seen before which is kind of Yehi's thing. Simple, Logical, Innovative should be Fred's Hustle, Loyalty, Respect.
They build to a spot with Marx countering a German suplex attempt, but Yehi just drives him into the corner and goes back to the stomach. About nine minutes in we get a ten minute call which I love because if you aren't working Father Time you aren't working. Marx wins a strike exchange and goes for a spinebuster, but his stomach gives out and he can't get him up. Fred goes for the spinning elbow - established as his finish in round one - and THEN Marx hits the big spinebuster. That sort of "tease, deliver, tease, deliver" really rewards people who are paying attention and makes the near falls feel like bigger deals.
Fred sells the spinebuster by flopping around the ring like a fish, and Marx goes for a DVD again, but gets rolled up quick for the fall. I wasn't in love with the finish of this, and it really seemed like DVD v. DVD was the obvious thing to build to after round one, but it's hard to argue against the best wrestler in the world moving on to the finals.
Ray Fury v. Drew Game
In the first round Game was established as just the type of heel who would injure a man for kicks, and that's what he does here. Fury gets his arm posted early and this match becomes all about the damage to Ray's arm and whether or not he can work around it. Game was in control, Fury would try to mount a comeback, and he would be cut down by a kick to the arm, a single arm DDT, et. Very consistent work that stuck to the theme.
Fury did try his neat tilt-a-whirl into a Russian legsweep again, but it was countered by a elevated face plant spot which was easily the biggest move in the match. Game followed up by going for the brainbuster that won him his first match, but Fury slipped over the top and hit another flash DVD for the win.
This match was probably too short for it's own good, but the work was really solid and established that Fury's arm was banged up, and that Fury's DVD was a sure fire deathblow when he hits it. The match ended with more than ten minutes left on the video player which actually made the flash fall more effective because the viewer naturally assumes Game is going to kick out when they are looking at the clock.
Instead Game pouts post-match and refuses to leave the ring. Chip Hazard comes out to persuade him but ends up joining him in his sit down strike (kind of?) and the aforementioned promoter Woody Hullender calls over the house mic for someone to come take out the trash which leads to a bonus match.
Good Ole Boys v. Chip Hazard and Drew Game
As a match this is nothing at all, but it's worth watching if you've never seen the Good Ole Boys because it's a gimmick that is every bit as awesome as it sounds. Cousin Cletus is a big old boy, horseshoe balding, and almost jovial looking. Cousin Shaggy is a much smaller fella who kind of looks like the living embodiment of the farmer in the farmer's daughter urban legend, i.e. a deranged John Deere tractor owner who will murder you execution style in a cornfield if you so much as look at his kin the wrong way. Both wear overalls and Waffle House t-shirts. Speaking of Waffle House they are almost always the most over babyfaces on any show they work, and the crowd chants "Waffle House" during their face in peril sections. In other words their existence is a regional treasure.
Again the match isn't much, though I do love the fact that Game ended up working three times despite losing in the semis, and the spot with him being overwhelmed by a Cletus handshake was picture perfect, something out of nothing, schtick. Shaggy picked up the win with an awkward looking splash off the top, which reminded me that I saw him have a pretty good Scaffold match where the ring was filled with mouse traps v. Brad Cash at a DSCW show on Halloween last year. I love wrestling.
Finals
Fred Yehi v. Ray Fury
If you were wondering whether or not the arm injury Fury had suffered in the semifinals was going to come into play in the finals, here is your answer - Fury came out with his shoulder taped. This instantaneously got me excited because I am a huge fan of matches that pick up where the previous match left off.
Then the bell rang and we got possibly the best opening to a match I've seen in the last six months. Fury - who has a visibly injured arm - sprints across the ring, dropkicks Yehi in the face as he's still in the corner, and immediately hits the Death Valley Driver. This is the same finisher that has won him both of his matches as a "flash" spot and was hands down the most protected spot on the show (Remember that Marx won in the first round with a DVD as well).
But as great as an injured man going for broke with his killshot right out of the gate because he knows it might be his only chance is, the best part of this is that this did not lead to an immediate near fall. Instead Yehi rolled to the floor right after the impact. This forced Fury, who was selling his arm already, to roll to the floor and try to pick Yehi back up to roll him in and get the win. Because his arm is damaged, the deadweight of Yehi is especially difficult to get up, and by the time he does get him in Yehi is able to kick out at two.
All in the first minute we have
1. An injury established in the previous match carried over into the next
2. A fast paced, hot, opening attack
3. Strong selling of a damaged body part
4. Strong selling of a big spot
5. Milked drama in the form of the struggle on the floor
6. An extremely effective and dramatic near fall.
This was done off of two offensive moves, neither of which looked especially nasty. While the near fall was off of a finisher, the limb selling actually kept the Death Valley Driver protected, as Yehi was effectively down from it for the entire minute. Just an excellent opening sequence.
At this point Fury is hurting, but he figures "hell it worked the first time" and goes for the running dropkick in the corner. But this time it doesn't work as Fred moves out of the way and Fury gets hung up in the ropes. Then there is this great moment where Yehi retreats across the bottom rope, hand over hand like he's a climbing the thing in gym class, stopping at the neutral corner to gather himself and survey the scene.
What he finds is that Fury is really hurt, so Fred goes to work. He hits a German to incapacitate Fury, and then goes straight for the arm. Fury scrambles to escape a Fujiwara armbar, so Fred decides he's had enough, stands on his hand with one foot, and with the other kicks Fury's injured arm repeatedly. Simple, Logical, Innovative.
From there Yehi goes to this modified Fujiwara armbar (you can tell this is a pro wrestling review because I used the term modified to describe a hold) where he has his knee dug into the elbow joint to apply extra pressure. The camera angle on this isn't the best, but both the idea of it and the selling of Fury are so good that I really don't care. As my buddy Matt D says, wrestling is symbolic (I think he says that...).
Fury actually manages to avoid the Yehi spot where he slaps the rope on a rope running spot to create impact on his opponents arm, and backs Yehi into a corner but Fred actually uses the angle against him. This is some straight up Yoshiaki Fujiwara defensive position wrestling at its finest, as Fred actually takes the impact of the tackle in the corner and folds himself into it so he can reach over and grab back onto Fury's injured wing. It's a small thing, but it's small things that make decent wrestlers good, and good wrestlers great.
Fury is able to come out on top of a strike exchange and hit a single arm snapmare, but Fred cuts him down to size and hits a Fisherman suplex for a near fall. After this he gets back, traps Fury's arm and goes for a powerbomb variation but Fury counters with a Falcon Arrow of all things. This might sound ridiculous, but it absolutely works as a hope spot both in the sense that it showcases that Fury has some big bombs in his arsenal if he can only find an opening, but also in that it is a big enough spot to serve as a transition to the stretch run.
Both guys make it to their feet so of course we get a strike exchange. In 2016 this is sort of a staple, but not every strike exchange ends with one guy hitting the injured limb of his opponent. This one did, but then Fred hit the ropes and ran straight into a leg lariat for a near fall. This was followed by a short arm crossbody from Fury for a near fall. Yes you read that right. Ray Fury did a Rainmaker set up into a crossbody in this match. And if you are paying close enough attention to the theme here you can probably guess that this spot actually made complete sense because it was done in the form of a defensive spot, as he pulled away from Yehi who had grabbed his hurt arm, effectively jump starting him like a lawnmower and then leaping onto him while the opening was there. Just excellent stuff.
Now it was time for the finishing exchange and what an exchange it was. Yehi hits a codebreaker on Fury's hurt arm and goes for his spinning elbow finish. Fury ducks and goes for the Death Valley Driver, but guess what? His arm is completely destroyed now, and though he can get Fred up, he can't hook him with his other hand. Yehi pops off Fury's shoulders, hits a nasty forearm to the injured arm, and then taps Fury out with a cross armbreaker. For extra effect Fred's body was in between Fury's and the ropes so the valiant babyface was put in a position where a rope break was a literal impossibility.
The whole match was less than ten minutes. It was not a match of the year candidate, and not the sort of match that some people would call great. The execution wasn't always super smooth, there weren't a ton of big spots, and it wasn't in front of a loud, animated crowd. But it was as logical a match as you will ever see both in terms of paying off the psychology and build that was contained to the match itself, and in that it played off of things that had been established across the course of the entire tournament. In a vacuum this is a good match and the best match on the show. In the context of the tournament itself - which is how the match was intended to be watched - I would call it a great match.
Yehi won the tournament (and the Indie Wrestling Channel title), and is the best wrestler in the World so far in 2016. But the star of this tournament was Ray Fury, who looked good in three different matches, against three drastically different wrestlers, emphasizing different aspects of his game in each match. I look forward to seeing him at the Scenic City Invitational in August, where he'll have a shot to do something like this again.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)