Commissions continue again, this one coming from Ko-fi contributor Shaq. You can be like them and pay me to write about all different types of stuff. People tend to choose wrestling matches, but very little is entirely off the table, so long as I haven’t written about it before (and please, come prepared with a date or show name or something if it isn’t obvious). You can commission a piece of writing of your choosing by heading on over to www.ko-fi.com/elhijodelsimon. The current rate is $5/match or thing or $10 for anything over an hour, and if you have some aim that cannot be figured out through simple multiplication or other processes, feel free to hit the DMs on Twitter or Ko-fi.
This was for GUNTHER’s WWE Intercontinental Title.
Many years ago, in the earlier stages of this site, there was a phrase I began using, and probably overused at one point, to gesture towards an idea and a belief that I have long held within my heart.
Buy the ticket, take the ride.
The idea is that, when watching the WWE, there is always a bargain that I think one always ought to be aware of, and that is just kind of part of the show.
While it doesn’t always come up, as occasionally, matches on major pay-per-views live up to the entire promise of the company and serve as advertisements for the idea of a gigantic checkbook guaranteeing at least like 50% of the best wrestlers alive under one umbrella, it almost always does on television. These matches are never totally what they ought to be. They are often too short, too limited given what the wrestlers involved have shown they can do either within the company or elsewhere, or limited by various production quirks like one hundred camera cuts a minute or some of the worst (non-indie) commentary possible.
At the same time though, you get match up like this.
Yes, absolutely, I wish these two fought elsewhere. I wish, so badly, that this happened on an independent show between like 2016 and 2018 when GUNTHER was WALTER and at his fatter best. I wish this was one of the Rey matches in that 2017 WCPW World Cup gimmick. I wish WXW ponied up for Rey Mysterio when they were at their creative peak. Most of all, I wish someone in Lucha Underground had some real vision and ran a Ringkampf invasion angle, leading to this. Even more than that, I wish that — if it had to only happen in WWE — it was more than a relatively spartan TV version of the match. I wish it happened a year later, at a time where GUNTHER wasn’t running through people as often as he was in this establishment period, or when a change in leadership had led to at least a little more freedom for this pairing to stretch its wings.
In the absence of any of these situations though, it is also very cool that we got to see GUNTHER and Rey Mysterio have a match anyways.
Being totally fair, yes, it is a little disappointing. With wrestlers this good, you want more than just Regular Great. At the same time, it is also a great match. One of the best bullies of the era meets, at minimum, one of the five greatest underdog babyfaces in the history of professional wrestling, and even at what feels like near its most basic and restrained form and even with a size mismatch that sometimes leads to awkwardness when trying things like a top rope rana or the classic Yoshi Tonic counter to a powerbomb, something still just naturally works there.
Most impressive — beyond the obvious — is how well this match navigates WWE television constraints.
Obviously, yes, this does that in the way that both men often do, which is compensating for less than ideal time by always doing something interesting, but it also goes beyond that. So often, especially with live shows, commercials can do major damage, but GUNTHER and Rey navigate that better than any WWE TV match I can recall since Bryan left. So often it feels as though some major chunk has been lost, but more than most matches in recent history, these two avoid that. The first break sees this beautiful connection between what came before and what immediately follows the break, with Rey being dragged off the apron for a hard fall outside, before the first spot back is GUNTHER sliding him out of the ring out for another spill to the floor on the opposite side. Minutes have passed, in theory, but watching it now with that all flattened out, it feels like very little time has passed at all. In the second (totally unnnecessary, no 15:00~ match needs two breaks, fuck off) one, there is not quite this perfect connection, but it works in the same way, with very little feeling lost. Were it not for commentary trailing off and a fade in and out, one might truly never know there was a break at all, and among modern WWE television matches, that’s a rare success that it always feels worth mentioning when masters like these, especially Mysterio, are able to do it.
They never totally pull it together. GUNTHER wins with a Lariat, but in selling the idea that Rey is distracted by “his” son’s recent heel turn, so much that could be there is avoided. GUNTHER wins with a Lariat. To the extent that this match is great, it is so because each man themselves is naturally great. It’s one of those matches to succeed through a very casual force of talent from the wrestlers having it, more so than anything else, and I get that such a thing can be immensely frustrating.
It is not everything it can be. It doesn’t feel really even all that close. I firmly believe there is a much better match within these two. However, given that they work for a very dumb promotion and given the cruel realities of the world, I am perfectly happy to watch and half-recommend a disappointing but still great match between these two, especially when the alternative is not ever seeing what it looks like, even in this form.
GUNTHER vs. Rey Mysterio is not a better ride than usual, but at face value, one that I have zero regrets about buying a ticket for.
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HANDWERK 