I've decided day one of the Southern Indie Spotlight (a name I hate but am too lazy to change) will be timely. Well actually it's not timely at all in the sense that it's a link/quasi-review of a 5 year old match. But it is timely in that it is a match between Corey Hollis who appeared on WWE Monday Raw this week, and Kyle Matthews who as of today was publicly announced for this years Scenic City Invitational tournament.
Now the logical thing to do here would be to introduce readers to each wrestler in case they aren't familiar with either, but I'm not going to do that. It's possible I'll write a long entry about each guy at a later time, but for now the important thing to know is that these are two of the more talented cruiserweight types to come out of the South over the last ten years.
A few notable things about this match.
- It was uploaded to YouTube by Scott Hollis who is pretty clearly related to Corey. This is cool to me because it potentially makes this YouTube channel the equivalent of a wrestling baby book, and this match roughly akin to the footprint shirt dad frames and hangs on the wall for six months before the cat knocks it down and glass shatters everywhere. 2 years later dad walks across the floor and gets a piece of glass stuck in his foot and he cusses for twenty minutes as he tries to pick it out, spewing blood all over the carpet. But when he finally gets it out he remembers those cute little baby footprints and he laughs and says god bless YouTube. All of this is going to be bullshit when I discover Scott Hollis is a distant cousin, but work with me here.
- Kyle Matthews wears long tights and works heel. I am not saying there is any correlation between the two, but he doesn't often bust out long tights, and he rarely works heel. In general I think this is for the best. I prefer Kyle as a babyface. That said he does a good job here, playing a sort of jilted babyface, who tries to slow clap himself into the hearts of the Alabama fans who just aren't having it because by God Corey is one of theirs and they don't need some Georgian crossing state lines and trying to meddle into the internal affairs of the fine people of Scottsboro, Alabama. You could run with a really inappropriate historical analogy that would make Kyle Matthews a communist who is actually carpetbagging for the greater good, and Hollis a regional babyface who ages poorly even in Kirkian defense of hearth, home and culture but I'm not going to do that. Nope, I won't.
- This is pretty early on in Hollis' career. As best I can tell he's about two years in, but he's already really good and I think they work the exact right sort of match as you basically get a New Japan Young Lions type of affair, but with a wee bit more adventurism on offense, and far more stuff building directly off crowd engagement. One of the things that really stands out here is that while this isn't a great match, it's a match that logically builds from Matthews frustrated he doesn't have approval/is being outwrestled, Matthews outright cheating, Hollis making slow comeback but being cut off, Hollis eventually winning with a crazy looking gutwrench powerbomb lungblower thingie. Now that I've spoiled the finish go watch it.
More tomorrow if I'm not dead.
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