Timothy Thatcher vs. Lucky Kid, WXW 16 Carat Gold 2018 Day Two (3/10/2018)

(photo credit to GD Photography.)

This was a quarterfinal match in the 2018 16 Carat Gold tournament.

In theory, one might think a match largely comprised of a babyface beating the everloving shit out of a sketchy little goon of a heel does not make for the greatest wrestling match. There’s not a great narrative arc to it in the way that we often think of great wrestling matches possessing. Not a lot of drama to it, not a lot of stakes, typically it is sort of backwards. On paper, it could read as two forces trying to meet in the middle behind mechanics and narrative, and muddying up the waters. Things of that nature. 

Wrestling does not happen on paper though, and so this absolutely rocked.

Lucky Kid, a lithe little painted up goon in the villainous RISE stable, is an absolute freak. Offputting, weird, tons of potential, all of that. He is the perfect person for Timothy Thatcher to hurl, stretch, and smack the life out of for ten to fifteen minutes, resulting in one of the more purely satisfying matches in recent memory. A lesser match would sell itself out a little to avoid the match I described in the first paragraph, giving into the conventions established by a century of how wrestling often is, and this match succeeds because it doesn’t at all, instead gambling on just how unlikeable Lucky Kid is and hitting the jackpot in the process. 

Of course, there is a little more to it than just that, narratively speaking.

Thatcher is also often confused and baffled by Lucky Kid’s weird antics and unique evasions, and repeatedly gets caught. He even almost gets pinned by a flash inside cradle that allowed Kid to upset Matt Sydal in the opening round. However, all Kid has is flash. Literally. Not just an all-sizzle-no-steak way, but literally, all he has are these flashes, before he constantly gets beaten down even worse each time. Kid’s only chance was the flash, and once Tim sees it coming and never lets up again, he’s dead in the water. So, you know, if you need something, there’s an intellectual element as well, I guess. 

For the most part though, it just rocks to see Tim Thatcher absolutely wail on this abominable little cretin for ten minutes, and sometimes that is all wrestling has to be.

***

WALTER vs. Ilja Dragunov, WXW 16 Carat Gold 2017 Night Three (3/12/2017)

Photo courtesy of the phenomenal @OliWrestling on Twitter.

This was the finals of the 2017 16 Carat Gold tournament.

You might have heard of this. It’s a pretty great match and a pretty famous match as well, effectively launching Ilja and arguably doing even more than that for the company at large. As someone who was transitioning into being a more active viewer and more aware fan in late 2016 and early 2017, it was the first time I had heard anything about WXW in a while. Again, you never want to assume your experiences are universal, I can’t say everyone felt that way about it or experienced that reaction, but it was a doorway back into the company for me. I’ll always associate this match and the weekend/tournament as a whole with that feeling.

That being said, I’ve never loved it.

I’ve seen it now five or six times, wanting to unlock the same feeling that it seemed like everyone else whose opinions I respect felt watching this, which is not a singularity with this match specifically, but I think it’s a disparity that I’ve felt most acutely with regards to this match specifically.

It’s a match that I respect and admire, more than one that I really love.

The booking of the thing is phenomenal, one of WXW’s finest hours in that regard since the 2011 16 Carat Gold finals, which saw what I would have considered previously to be their crowning achievement (and on a match quality basis, still is). The way this match is set up, in three different ways — from the history between the two, to the tournament’s weekend long booking, to the history of the tournament as a whole — is genuinely masterful, and the sort of set up that more promotions really ought to take a look at.

WALTER and Ilja met before near the end of 2016 in a great little match, in which Ilja showed something, but was distracted by issues within his group Cerberus that cost him the match. Ilja Dragunov no longer has those distractions, and the match has a very simple and good foundation to work with, your classic example of a familiarity enhanced by simple narrative.

Beyond just the slight history between these two, the tournament itself is also pristinely assembled. Ilja’s gone through another former member of that same Cerberus faction in Avalanche, WALTER’s tag team partner in Thatcher, and earlier in the night, another longtime WXW top guy in Bad Bones, a clear story of progression past the group, and into the upper echelons. In comparison, WALTER’s run to the finals has been all about turning challenges away, from would-be successors like David Starr and Marius Al-Ani to a slugfest against Matt Riddle earlier in the show to avenge a loss earlier in the month. It’s a clear and perfect story about one man protecting the upper echelon and one man slowly trying to break into it.

Even outside of what’s done this year, there is a clear history in the 16 Carat of matches like this in the finals going a certain way. There is a repeated theme in this tournament in the 2010s of the established star turning back the one on the rise. There are exceptions (2013 in the Zack vs. End final, and 2011, which was arguably different as Callihan was an outsider), but El Generico beat Tommy End in 2012, Chris Hero beat Axel Tischer in 2014, Tommy End himself turned back Axel Dieter Jr. in 2015, and Zack Sabre Jr. turned back Dieter again the year before.

You might wonder who the last young wrestler to make the leap in the 16 Carat Gold finals against an established star was, and it was WALTER himself, when he beat Chris Hero in 2010.

Before the bell even rings, this is a match that presents three different fascinating questions that stack up perfectly on top of each other. Can Ilja beat WALTER now that he’s the best version of himself, free from all distraction? Can Ilja enter the main event picture of WXW in doing do, or will WALTER turn back another would-be peer and establish total and complete dominance yet again? Lastly, can any young wrestler break through in the 16 Carat Gold final, or will yet another promising young wrestler be shut down by veteran opposition in an environment that is not kind to inexperience?

The answer to every single one is a resounding yes, shouted as loud as possible from the highest point possible.

As a story, it is one of the best constructed in wrestling in some time.

As a match, it is pretty great.

That’s sort of just it. It’s pretty great, and not really great.

It’s a stupid difference that doesn’t really matter all that much, outside of that it’s probably worth explaining why a lot of people in my general sphere or corner of this chunk of the wrestling internet are wildly high on this match, and why it’s not going to make any year end lists on this blog. My problems with this are also small dumb little problems not so heavy as to tear down the story they built or even to say this is not a great match. I just don’t love it like that. My feelings top out at “yeah, that was great”. I find it hard to support Ilja entirely, still being a little too goofy for me combined with a few real weak Lariats that are supposed to be bigger game changers than they feel like they ought to be. It doesn’t totally feel like he’s doing what the match says he is, or at least not all of the time, and maybe that’s sort of just a natural result of WALTER being so great in a match built around elevating a promising young wrestler, but it’s a (minor) impediment all the same.

Like Ilja himself being something of an unfinished product still and feeling off as a result given the match’s aim, something about the entire thing too is just slightly off for me, and even if it’s not as off as their empty arena match in 2021, it’s enough to land this in the most uncomfortable zone a match can exist in for me, this combination of “wait, that’s it?” and still thinking a match mostly rocked.

What works about this really works though.

To start with, it is yet another all-world performance by the big man. His offense is maybe the best looking in wrestling at this point. Absolutely nothing he does fails to look like it would kill a normal human being. The chops are all absolute motherfuckers, enhanced by Ilja’s skin tone making it easy for them to leave their mark as a visual shorthand for the beating WALT’s putting the boy through. His slow escalation of his selling in the back half of the match is also real special, best in the world level stuff to slowly show the damage collecting and giving Ilja more and more of an opening for the last ditch desperation shots. Ilja’s also fantastic here like seventy or eighty percent of the time. His weird faces work on occasion, but when he hurls his body around, it’s electric. The big chop war is one of the best of its kind in recent memory, each shot being different as a result of tone and reaction, and each one telling this story of Ilja slowly pounding the door down and off the hinges. Again, it’s not all totally tied up and assembled yet, but everything that works about Ilja is there in one way or another.

After the big kickouts that all work as well as ever because of the way tournaments work, Ilja responds to a slap fight by hurling himself in with a second Torpedo Moscow for the win, delivering that high decibel answer with as much force and persistence as possible. If the match itself didn’t totally deliver, the moment absolutely did, and that’s what this is really all about.

One of the decade’s most remarkable achievements, even in spite of Rico Bushido doing commentary.

***1/4

Bad Bones vs. Ilja Dragunov, WXW 16 Carat Gold 2017 Night Three (3/12/2017)

This was a semi-final match in the 2017 16 Carat Gold tournament.

Much like the Timothy Thatcher match the night before in the quarterfinals, it’s a lovely sprint from Dragunov, and a tidy little bundle of fireworks with significantly more firepower and packing maybe more of a punch than the box you bought over at Krazy Kaplan’s might have suggested.

However, unlike that one, I don’t think this is great in spite of being kind of a shorter sprint, but because of that. I think this one lands a little better for two reasons, even independent of this being the final night and the winner having to wrestle again. The first is quite simply that these two have more matches against each other in which to totally explore everything they can do here. The second is that nobody in this match is an all-world level wrestler like Timothy Thatcher, and so I find it much easier to get behind that sort of raw ambition as a result of the ceiling and the expectations that a match like this is working with.

It’s not like we’re losing out on some next level scientific display, you know?

Huck those bombs, you might as well.

As far as bombs go, this is a match with absolutely phenomenal pieces of artillery.

The chops and the elbows as you’d expect from any praised Dragunov match are blistering, some real rude boys on display in this match. Beyond that, they take a lot of real high risks, and it always work out just right. Bones’ tope suicida is a real mother fucker, and the Suicide Suplex that takes both men out is artless in the most brutal and satisfying possible way, putting the emphasis on suicide far more than on suplex. It goes a little far some times and they get repetitive or lose the plot, you can lob a few moments off, but mostly, it is a lovely little show of ambition and guts, the sort of a match that I simply cannot find it in my heart to have anything all that negative to say about it.

Bones pushes a little hard, gets too cocky at all the wrong moments after previously doing everything right, and Ilja wrecks his ass for it. The final moments of the match have a beautiful feeling of culmination to them, Ilja rising up and battering Bad Bones with a demonstrative show of force, and it’s a delight. Following a real nasty shotgun Lariat, Ilja fires off the Torpedo Moscow for the win. Maybe not the match’s greatest or biggest single piece of artillery, but certainly the fastest and meanest and truest, and it’s enough to send Ilja into the finals.

As many know, this is far from the best they’re capable of and even farther from the best these two will actually do against each other later this year, but as far as baselines and foundations go, a pretty great baseline and foundation.

***

Timothy Thatcher vs. Ilja Dragunov, WXW 16 Carat Gold 2017 Night Two (3/11/2017)

This was a quarterfinals match in the 2017 16 Carat Gold tournament.

It’s nice.

Really, that’s it.

Dragunov and Thatcher have a nice match that did a lot of the things I want wrestling matches to do. Charismatic wrestlers grapple and hit each other pretty hard and it’s over in like ten minutes. The local hero finds a way to hit the best in the world with his one perfect move and manages the upset, the locals rejoice, all of that. There’s some dumb sort of dudes rock adjacent wrestling here, but Thatcher is so great at everything, so great at making everything he does feel genuine and realistic, that it works out just fine anyways. Likewise, when Ilja makes some real weird faces early on, Tim just GOES WITH IT and makes weird faces back at him, but in such a combative feeling way that it feels like the early stages of fighting and not whatever those Ilja/Cara Noir matches were. That’s sort of how the entire thing goes. Thatcher is not necessarily a sprint guy so much as he is a guy who can have some great shorter matches, but this threads the needle between the two and through raw force of talent on both ends, it works.

This never quite seems like even half like what they’re capable of, the ten minute runtime manages to be both a delight and also comically short for a first time pairing with this much potential, but a great match is a great match, and it isn’t as if they won’t get chances other than this.

One of four (4) different good to great ten minute or less matches from Timothy Thatcher on the same day.

***

ACH vs. Mike Bailey, WXW 16 Carat Gold 2017 Night One (3/10/2017)

This was a 1st Round match in the 2017 16 Carat Gold tournament.

Do I wish this didn’t start with a dance spot?

Yes. Obviously, the answer is yes. Song and dance indie wrestling is the worst shit in the world unless you literally just started watching, and even then, I don’t know how often you can see that before it loses all charm. At this point for me, I’m not sure I’ve enjoyed a dancing spot in close to a decade, and they certainly had more to them than just “do dance moves to start a match for an easy pop”, like La Parkita being drunk at CHIKARA in 2007 and dancing with fans. This is no threat to break that trend but also hardly a threat to ruin the match, a simple back and forth before they get on with it, a real oddity given how actually and obviously great both ACH and Bailey actually are. The briefness of it only makes it all the more strange.

Anyways.

Is this still a great match despite that opening moment?

Yes!

Absolutely, this is a great match, and the second best match on a really good show.

(There’s another great match on this show in the main event in the first really really great WALTER/Starr match. I reviewed it in 2019 when I first started this blog, and unlike some other 2017 stuff I’m re-doing with better writing, this is not one I’m going to revisit. If you want to read what I thought about it before certain things broke and when I was a worse writer, I’m sure you know how to perform a basic search. It’s really great and I wish it wasn’t still so great even in spite of the match no longer having a protagonist worth rooting for, and we can leave it there.)

Once the nonsense is over with and the actual thing begins, the match delivers exactly what it seems to promise on paper.

Bailey and ACH have a remarkably honest match, nothing more than a show of fireworks and more hostile artillery, and it’s a delight.

Two of the greatest offensive wrestlers in the entire world have a match that is all offense and succeeds wildly for it, and for how remarkable both ACH and Young Karate are both in terms of their execution and the composition and escalation that a successful match in this genre almost has to display to work. While not quite on the level of their 2022 West Coast Pro match as it lacks that aggression, it’s a real pretty and light sort of a thing that I appreciate a lot in this environment.

Not quite Hoot of the Year material, but like ninety-nine percent of the match one (or just me, I should stop ascribing my feelings and beliefs onto everyone, but I never will) expects and desires upon stumbling upon an ACH vs. Mike Bailey match they had totally forgotten about on a show they were going to watch anyways.

***

Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Will Ospreay, WXW 16 Carat Gold 2016 Night Two (3/12/2016)

This was a quarterfinal match in the 2016 16 Carat Gold tournament.

I wrote about them recently, having a great little match on a Rev Pro Cockpit show in early February.

This is basically the same match.

Not move-for-move, these two care far more about those things to ever repeat themselves so blatantly, but functionally, this is just about the same match.

The same general idea of Zack controlling without being overtly antagonistic, a lot of the same moves that these two all favored around this time. The match features most of the same weaknesses, down to a totally obnoxious Zack Sabre Jr. catch spot, some annoying Ospreay selling, and a few moments here and there that really kind of suck. It also has all the same strengths, with a shorter match serving them well, Zack being real great in the moments when he does get a little meaner, and Ospreay’s offense still being performed in such a way that it feels desperate and frantic.

I don’t feel especially inspired to write all of the same things twice, but they are as true here as they were then. (selfishly, I also know more people will read the review of their lauded EVOLVE match at the end of the month than will ever click this, so that’s part of it too. sorry but also not.)

No company in the world at this point would put this on TV, few outside of like 1996-7 WCW or ECW would have put this on TV period, but in a spiritual sense, this is a great television kind of version of the match. Simplified, cut loose of a lot of excess fat, a great sort of sampler of what they have to offer, even if in reality it’s once again practice for their highest profile meeting yet.

Nothing new here, but it’s still just a really good match at this point, no matter how many weird Europeans overrate it just because one of them is wearing a flag on their trunks. Too fun to fall short.

***

WALTER vs. Zack Sabre Jr., WXW 16 Carat Gold 2016 Night One (3/11/2016)

This was a 1st Round match in the 2016 16 Carat Gold tournament.

It’s an interesting version of this match.

Unless their 2018 EVOLVE match is better than I remember — as someone paid me to talk about their 2018 PROGRESS match already and I didn’t even love their PWG match at the time — I’m never going to totally get the match that I want out of these two. Mechanically, it’s always very good and sometimes works on that level purely, but my brain is such that I see a big guy like The Coward and a lithe little beanpole pervert like Zack, and I want more from them. I’ll never the perfect version of Zack who either figures out how to become actually likeable and wrestle like a better babyface or a more consistent and overt heel. Basically, the version of this that I really imagine being out of this world great, the version that’s closer to Sting/Vader or something (or given that I like the big guy more than the little, I’d settle for Joe/Homicide or Joe/AJ), it requires Zack Sabre Jr. to be a smarter, more focused, and better wrestler, which isn’t something that ever really happens while the window is open for these two. Maybe one day in the future, fingers crossed, but it’s not really something that ever happens.

So, what happens instead is that I settle for moments in these matches in which they come the closest to that. Things like their 2018 matches where Zack is a rotten little motherfucker and gets his shit entirely beaten in for it, or their 2012 match where Zack does the best underdog routine against WALTER (then Big Van) that he’d ever done.

The first half or even two-thirds of this is really good at that, and overall, there’s still a lot to like here. Zack’s still a lot too fidgety to ever be totally likeable, but in a match like this that doesn’t have a lot of time (being the second match on the show for some reason????) to devote to concerns like that, it’s not as much of a problem as it can be in other settings.

Instead of going for either narrative, this is one of those times where it is just about pure unchanging physical dimensions and the strictly mechanical. They go on the ground and WALTER uses his power and technique to hold down, frustrate, and dominate Zack like nobody else really can. There’s a lot of really neat tricks with a Japanese Stranglehold and some reliable old wristlock work. WALTER beating Zack around the ring in strike exchanges was also another reliable hit. Zack also flies around a little more than usual as a measure to counteract WALTER’s size, and it lends the match a little novelty, if nothing else. Zack wins in the end as a result of his speed, diving into the trusty European Clutch after the big fella misses coming off the top.

It’s not what I want to be. It never is, but once again, there’s just enough here to call it great.

That’s probably the real frustration, that no matter how many problems I inevitably have with these matches, because of sheer force of talent (and sometimes force of will), they still always find their way onto the dartboard, if not ever right in the middle. There’s just something about WALTER vs. Zack that I’m always going to really really like, even if I never totally love it.

***

Jonathan Gresham vs. Ricky Marvin, WXW 16 Carat Gold 2013 Night One (3/1/2013)

This was a first round match in the 2013 16 Carat Gold tournament.

It’s an absolute blast in all of the most fulfilling and satisfying ways. It’s Jonathan Gresham vs. Ricky Marvin. Incredibly cool stuff on the ground, fast and crisp stuff on their feet and in the air. Once they get off of the ground, it’s a delightful mad dash to the finish line, and it finishes in the exact manner it should, with Marvin being overwhelmed by the younger, more scientific, and faster wrestler. The sort of match you imagine when you see “Jonathan Gresham vs. Ricky Marvin” on paper, and this is 1000% to its benefit and really the point of booking some wild thing like this.

A terrific hoot and great example of the entire reason indie dream match tournaments exist in the first place.

***1/4

 

Sami Callihan vs. Fit Finlay, WXW 16 Carat Gold Night One (3/2/2012)

The long awaited rematch, now as part of the 16 Carat Gold tournament!

It’s the house show version of this match up, in between the two major meetings in EVOLVE, but the house show version of this is still really great. Finlay now doesn’t play around QUITE so much, but that’s rough for Sami, because he now has Fit Finlay’s full attention. The result is that unlike July 2011, he’s not bullied quite so much as he is thoroughly dominated when Finlay zeroes in more effectively.

Sami is as wonderful as ever on defense. He takes maybe the second best beating in wrestling at this point behind El Generico, and Finlay delivers the best beating in all of wrestling. Like a lot of Finlay matches, it’s mostly a beating. Sami’s pretty much the only Finlay opponent in this run that makes me wish Finlay was a little more giving. As much fun as the beating is, it’s not quite violent or horrific or petty enough to make me forget that it’s a worse version of something we’ve already seen. But, again, a worse version of an incredible thing is still better than so many other things. Finlay is mean as hell, Sami has these incredible little fiery comebacks, and it’s all very very good.

One could accuse this of expanding upon the more listless moments of the first match. This is not an encounter without fat on it. There’s leg work without much of a point, although Sami sells it incredibly well while it happens and through the rest of the match. They occasionally break down into aimless outside fights that have no real value but to break up some of the stuff on the mat, but are always full of a few real nasty little shots, and go to aid the nasty little vibe of the entire thing. It’s not a lean match. But god damn, all of that excess is fun as hell. It’s not stupid or aimless, it’s always mean and violent, so I have infinitely more patience for that sort of excess. If you’re going to aimlessly fight, it should feel as real and intense as the less efficient sections of this.

Finlay once again gets the better of Sami, this time less through attrition, and more by recklessly shoving him off the top and into the people. Back inside, Finlay pours it on. I say things like “pours it own” or “[x] crowds [x] at the end” to communicate a series of things in a row when someone is feeling themselves, but really, Finlay POURS IT ON. A brutal assault, only saved from feeling unnecessary by how Sami keeps trying to crawl and scratch his way up from each and every thing that happens to him. Sami takes two or three Celtic Crosses, but won’t stop crawling around or getting up, so Finlay now uses TWO Jumping Tombstones in a row and pins Sami again.

Not an essential match like their two matches in EVOLVE, but one more for completionists and big fans of these two. For big fans of these two, you won’t be blown away, but this will ABSOLUTELY leave you satisfied and smiling. Very easy match to watch, very very easy match to enjoy. A nice medium-sized chunk of Finlayism, against one of his greatest opponents.

***1/4

Big Van Walter vs. Sami Callihan, WXW 16 Carat Gold 2011 N3 (3/13/2011)

This was the finals of the 2011 16 Carat Gold tournament. 

Homegrown vs. foreign star isn’t anything new for the 16 Carat Gold. It’s pretty much the norm. This has a little more behind it than usual though, and is maybe the greatest story that WXW’s ever told from tournament to tournament. Back in 2009, when Walter was a baby (or more of a baby), these two were in a group called the Catch Hoolz. European wrestling, y’all. I know. Anyways, Walter and the other members ejected Sami Callihan in the fall of 2009. Since then, Walter had gone unbeaten in singles matches in WXW, prior to a largely political loss of the World Unified Wrestling Title to Sekimoto two months before this. He ran through the 16 Carat last year, unseated and ejected standard bearer Chris Hero from the territory by and large with his win in the finals, destroyed the 16 Carat trophy after the match, and won the title fairly easily from Zack Sabre Jr. later that summer. In fact, save for the superhuman Sekimoto, Walter hasn’t been beaten in a singles match since 16 Carat 2009 — against another member of the old indie guard in Drake Younger. Effectively, this is about everything for Sami Callihan. Personal revenge, revenge on behalf of the fans, and an ascension to the upper echelon of independent wrestling by doing what previous people on that level have either done before or failed to accomplish. 

Sami makes sure to spell almost all of this out in a pre match promo to help out, if you didn’t know all of it. He uses harsher language than I would, of course. I also didn’t proudly quote Charlie Sheen in that last paragraph. 2011 was a wildly different time. 

With all due respect to El Generico lighting a fire under Sekimoto, this is the performance of the weekend. It’s a poor reflection on European fans and independent fans in general that this happened on the same day as Generico/Sekimoto and LDRS/Future Shock, and this is the third most talked about match on the show. It’s one of the best performances of the year and of Sami’s entire run as one of the best in the world for four or five years here. Walter is perfectly fine, the previous year showed that he can be held by the hand and guided, but Sami isn’t structuring this emotional and intellectual epic that Chris Hero was.

It’s a thirteen minute slugfest, Sting vs. Vader on trucker speed, and it’s a goddamned masterpiece. A CHIKARA-esque victory of booking on both macro and micro levels. 

Sami charges in, and instead of giving him even a morsel of hope or optimism, he immediately eats shit. Walter isn’t the beast he’d become, but he’s able to throw a chop and a boot and he can throw Sami Callihan into things. He can throw him into so many things. The appeal of Sami isn’t one I’d usually describe as sympathy so much as fascination, but he’s incredibly sympathetic here. I love watching Sami, but I rarely watch Sami and find myself cheering for him like I do here against Walter. Half of that is the horrible things that happen to him like being repeatedly kicked face first off the apron or press slammed through a table or hurled into a steel support beam, but he really does sell his ass off. He’s a wounded animal. I want to help him, I want to see him succeed. He eventually does, and because he ate shit for half the match (if not two-thirds) and because it comes only after one big kickout of a powerbomb, it has a lot more behind it. Sami chops the tree down very simply and very violently. Sometimes literally, with chops and clubs to the thigh and knee, and sometimes through repetitive lariats and elbows.

The great thing about Sami Callihan at his best was that everything was such a struggle. He’s not quite Eddie Kingston (who is?), he wasn’t quite an all-time great loser, but he always lost such close fights and lost them with efforts exactly like this. So, when he gets closer and closer than ever, and gets further than anyone against Walter (again, save Sekimoto who really just tried to ruin a lot of this stuff by putting a little asterisk on it) in a year, it feels pretty big. Walter didn’t luck out with a hand injury or something like he did to Hero a year ago, and Sami has the advantage of Walter’s hurt leg that Hero never did. Sami isn’t a cerebral wrestler, but he has a better match against the same opponent than one of the most cerebral wrestlers of all time. It also never loses that sense of foreboding that it carries. Sami’s not Eddie Kingston, but Eddie’s big wins always telegraphed themselves a little bit because nobody can lose in SOME settings, but it’s not out of the question. Walter is their guy, winning two straight isn’t so unbelievable. Sami’s a cult favorite, but he hasn’t totally ARRIVED just yet. 

The really unique thing about this match, and what makes it stands out, is how definitively it concludes. 

Walter is ultimately just a big goddamned bully. He has a huge posse behind him and he picks on smaller men, and the most satisfying way to stop a bully is to just go up and hit them. Sami Callihan hits Walter in the face and cuts his big legs out and reveals the abject goddamned coward that’s always been within him. Sami finally drops him down and pummels him to the mat before going into the Stretch Muffler. The beauty of the thing is how long Walter lasts. They do the misdirection with the hand raise spots only for Walter to survive, but it’s then that Callihan begins kicking the hell out of him in it. First to the back and then to the face. A little to the shoulders too. Walter’s too big to get out of this easily, he can’t contort or anything, and he’s not used to the attack like this. Sami keeps kicking him until the coward within wins out, and Walter finally submits. 

Ideal spartan style big vs. little match. The gold standard for that on the indies seems to be Morishima vs. Bryan, and I while I disagree (it’s actually Joe/Bryan in 2004), I won’t say it’s better than Danielson/Morishima. I’d love to. I can’t, but I’d love to. What I can say, WITH GREAT FUCKING DELIGHT is that this is the version of that match that Gabe would have ran the first time if he had any guts left by 2007. 

One of the very few times that WXW got everything about a match completely correct. You can’t trust WXW with the complex stories too frequently, but something as simple as “gutsy dirtbag gets revenge on a bully”, they can knock it out of the park. There’s no room for error. That’s what this match is, absolutely no room for error. It’s a thirteen minute match with two distinct halves that are as bare bones as it gets. Would I have liked a little more? Maybe, yeah. They have another match in 2011 that delivers the match people maybe wanted out of this. This is still really special, both because of and in spite of that brevity. The real reason it got talked about less is because it offered no olive branch to the people here for a super indie dream match tournament. The 16 Carat has always played dress up with that sort of idea and offered concessions in the finals even when crowning their own less skilled homegrowns, but this match did not. This was a fight and it was proud to be this sort of thing that required a little context. I love it for that. I love the courage this match displayed. Absolutely zero compromise. 

The real charm of Sami Callihan, and what separate him from a lot of others who have followed his sort of formula (maybe like someone specifically who is also really great against Walter), is that when it came time for a big main event crowning moment, he didn’t deviate. His biggest moment so far comes in a match that is distinctly a Sami Callihan match. If he conceded at all, if he gave an inch, than this wouldn’t really be an honest to god crowning moment. It doesn’t mean half as much when you come to the mountain as it does when the mountain comes to you. The end result is both one of the most satisfying matches of the year and one of the least cowardly matches in European wrestling history and in all of independent wrestling this decade. 

***3/4