The winner of this match becomes the 2015 Christmas Cracker, fought under rounds rules.
As expected with all of these sorts of Johnny Kidd matches against children, it’s a lot of fun. An overwhelmingly good time in the expected way, and with the expected story. A middle aged man teaches some punk a thing or two, gets taken to task, before he’s able to pull it out at the end. Kidd’s craftiness and heart makes up for no longer having the speed or advanced technique that Sabre Jr. has going for him. Everyone goes home happy, it’s a real reaffirming sort of thing, unless you’re some sort of Zack Sabre Jr. superfan who needs him to win all the time, and if that’s the case, I’d like to ask you where his cell phone is.
Matches like these fall short if they don’t get every single part right. with each man playing it off with smiles and handshakes and all of that, and they do a sensational job of that. Zack can never really feel like an actual good guy to me, but because of him being who he is, it plays just as well as a smirking little display of condescension towards the veteran. Aggression eventually comes in after Kidd takes the first fall on a simple cradle cutback, and is played two different ways by the two wrestlers. You know what Zack’s looks like by now. Petty uppercuts, getting meaner with his holds, and pouting his way around the ring. Kidd plays it differently than that, throwing in little comments here and there about how to do this one right or asking if they taught Zack this one in Japan before he uses some old tricky little thing.
Zack uses the folded arm European Clutch to take the second fall, and gets unbelievably cocky about it. Having seemingly proven something, he abandons it entirely and starts trying to win. He throws more uppercuts than ever at the old man in a row, but it allows Kidd to grab him in a plain and simple inside cradle for the win.
While Sabre Jr. isn’t quite the best loser of a generation, or even as great of a loser as a sex creep who he’ll have many of his best matches with over the next few years, he does have a similar gift for it. He’s a great loser, but it also feels incredibly incredibly good to see him lose. While he’s lost better matches than this, it has rarely felt quite as gratifying or as funny as it did here to see him get totally schooled by an old man.
Like most of these Johnny Kidd rounds matches that pop up with your indie stars, it’s sort of a self affirming thing. If you think you’re going to like this, you almost definitely will, and ought to just watch it already.
An absolute blast.
HANDWERK 
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