Mike Bailey vs. Jonathan Gresham, C*4 Crossing The Line 9: Drive (6/25/2016)

It will likely come as no surprise that this is pretty great.

Not everything is perfect. It goes a little long. Gresham experiments a little too much with some of his offense, trying to fit in big bombs with Mike Bailey’s style and getting a little out of his element here and there. Bailey’s arm selling is occasionally forgotten in little moments. There are imperfections here.

But the match is definitely great.

That maybe shouldn’t be the case.

It would be very easy for this not to be great. Gresham is a technician who likes to go for limbs, and Mike Bailey does not always take so kindly to that. Bailey is the sort of wrestler who ought to never have his legs worked over. He is not especially great at selling them, but also produces close to 100% of his offense with them. It’s one of those situations where there is no good reason to do it except to show off your leg work and maybe to make another guy look bad, as it typically is a significant impediment to the matches in which it takes place. I think less of any match in which it happens, and on any wrestler who opts to fill space in a Mike Bailey match by doing that. Their big Best of the Best final in 2015, I thought, suffered from a little too much of this.

This match is great though, and in part, it’s because Gresham opted for the arm instead.

It’s not just that, of course, but it does make a difference, for every reason lifted above. Bailey can sell an arm perfectly fine, if not exceptionally well, and he’s able to do that while still delivering on all of the offensive firepower that this match has at its disposal. It’s a choice that gives the match a little flavor and focus, that tells the story of Gresham’s advantage when it comes to viciousness and raw science, but this time, not at the expense of the match at large.

The decision represents a large step forward for Jonathan Gresham, if nothing else.

Of course, the match also just kicks a lot of ass and works on that level.

Gresham comes into Speedball’s territory, is a real shithead to him, and is met on that level. For the duration of the match, they get progressively meaner and more hostile with each other. Gresham’s work goes to the hand and elbow as much as the shoulder in his increasing attempts to punish Speedball. In turn, Mike Bailey kicks and slaps and chops a little harder, and gets up in Gresham’s face just a little more every time he does it. It’s a vicious cycle, as they say, but an equally beautiful circle. Two different sorts of maniacs and two different sorts of wrestlers getting more and more Pissed Off, and attacking each other in their own different ways as a result.

That’s pro wrestling, baby.

At the end, the local hero survives it all and wins in the most satisfying possible fashion. Gresham tries to match Bailey by coming off the top, only to crash and burn. Bailey follows with the Ultima Weapon, and as this wonderful emphatic period on the end of it all, Speedball simply winds up and drops Gresham with a buzzsaw kick for the win.

It’s a lovely piece of combat, working on a few different levels. Local hero vs. invader. Striker/flier vs. technician. There’s an old 90s MMA element to the thing, if not in realism (definitely not in realism) than in the sort of freak show throw wildly different sorts of dudes at each other and see what breaks loose mentality that made all of that so much god damned fun. In line with its spiritual inspiration, this was just a ton of fun.

Pretty good for Gresham’s second best match of the weekend.

***1/4

Mike Bailey vs. Biff Busick, C*4 The Doom Generation (3/21/2015)

This was a Best Two of Three Falls match.

It’s a rare match beyond even the stipulation. It’s rare in the sense that it’s a 2013-2015 Biff Busick match, a Mike Bailey match against another great wrestler, and a Biff/Bailey match that isn’t great. It’s a weird match that feels real out of line with the rest of the series. It’s a total aberration, but there’s no mystery as to why. These two have a great match set, but it’s a sprint. If not an out and out sprint, it’s a shorter match in which nothing ever feels held back. In this match, a lot does, as they go for a longer match and lose a significant amount of that old urgency, with a less vocal and heated crowd not doing them any favors. Mostly though, it’s that they pace it like their other matches together and with a runtime of two to three times as long, it’s unsustainable throughout the duration.

Of course, these two are simply too great to have a BAD match. Everything mechanically works. I can’t say either performance in the match wasn’t good in a raw data sort of a way. Busick’s shots are nasty, Bailey’s selling and comebacks are good, they do some gnarly stuff and I think you can isolate most few-minute segments of this and watch it and go “yeah, that rules”. It’s just not a pairing that works especially well in this format.

Ultimately, this match stands as another example of how making a thing into the longer version of itself can often often water the thing down beyond recognition. These are two of the best in the world, likely top ten guys at the end of 2015, but this is not what they’re best at. Take them out of their element — and give them a more subdued audience — and it just doesn’t work as naturally. It’s unfortunate that this series couldn’t have gone perfectly, but it’s not like fruit, one doesn’t spoil the whole bunch. It’s just not a match anyone needs to see, and one that’s been largely forgotten for a reason.

Truthfully, any company who books this match at this point and wants it to be longer and more cerebral doesn’t really understand what the match is and what either wrestler is about and deserves what they get.

Biff Busick vs. Mike Bailey, C4 Crossing The Line 7 (6/21/2014)

One of a few different great matches that they’ll have in 2014.

This is a match up that I remember a lot for these really gruesome and fun matches where Biff would push Young Karate around and then Bailey would be one of the best underdogs in the entire world. This match isn’t singiicantly less dramatic than any of those matches, but I’d put it a step beneath the great CZW, Beyond, and PWG matches because it lacks that sort of narrative. This is worked much more in a dream match style, with the entire thing being real back-and-forth. It’s still a great match because these guys have so much cool offense to do to each other, but there’s more to this than they offered here.

The highlight is actually early on, when the drunk crowd begins singing “O CANADA” when Seedball has a headlock on, and these guys display a real flair for the dramatic and a keen sense of the moment. Instead of getting the cut off and transition to some Biff offense right then and there, they wait until the crowd reaches a crescendo before backflipping Mike over and out onto the top rope and sending him flying with a European Uppercut. It’s this wonderful and fun little thing, this perfect microcosm of why independent wrestling is so much fun. An on-the-fly moment impossible without the crowd acting up and without thinkers as quick as either of these two or both of them.

As great as the match itself is, that’s the part of it that’s probably going to stay with me for weeks or years or however long.

They hit each other incredibly hard for fifteen minutes or so, and then Seedball wins with the shooting star double knees. There’s not some special reason for his win. As much of the match has just been a riff session between two very talented offensive wrestlers, the end just so happens to come at random. Not the end of the world, but again, they’ll do far better in the future.

A terrific first stop for one of the quietly great little touring matches of 2014 and 2015, only to be improved on from here.

***

Kevin Steen vs. Mike Bailey, C4 The Warriors (5/3/2014)

With Steen’s final days on the independents now in full swing, it’s one of the final weekend of Canadian independent shows that Kev ever does. There’s a SMASH show the day after this and a few before Steen’s ultimate exit in July that spoils it being THE last one, but C*4 makes far better use of him here than the other company does in any of those dates, both in who he faces and what he does.

It’s a hell of a match to go out on, and a hell of a thing he does in his exit.

Kevin Steen shows up to a much smaller and less important show and he puts on PWG level working boots, with a clear story of Bailey standing up to someone who used to bully him as a rookie. It isn’t that Mike Bailey needs making in front of this crowd at this point, but Steen still busts his ass to give him as much as possible on his way out the door. And yet, it’s a balance he’s struggled with sometimes in PWG and it’s something he’s always struggled with more in ROH over the last several years, so it’s a hell of a thing that he gets it right here.

It’s classic heel Steen. He’s angry and mean, but always shows just enough ass to keep the other guy in the fight. The crowd work is entertaining, but never so much that it distracts from the match or makes him likeable. He’s always just barely on the edge, constantly doing these very mean things to the crowd’s hero, but without ever making some big switch in himself to insist that everyone hates him now. It’s the magic of Kevin Steen from 2011 through the end of his independent career, that he could balance these things so flawlessly. It helps too that Mike Bailey is the closest thing the indies have come to an El Generico type since Generico himself went back to the orphanage, so it’s a very easy thing for Kevin Steen to slip back into. Nothing is exactly the same, but it has this very similar feeling. A classical underdog, but one who can kick ass too, and who refuses to take a single second of Steen’s bullshit.

They also manage to strike the perfect balance between keeping it small and efficient and focused, but also going big as hell when it matters. Things build up perfectly and they leverage both things earlier in the match and then the situation they’re in to create some genuinely surprising nearfalls. Bailey exhausts something like ninety percent of his arsenal in the process of coming back and he’s already this underdog local who hasn’t QUITE broken out of Canada just yet, so it’s believable that all these different Steen things could beat him. Maybe not the powerbomb or the F5, but they’re done with enough force and intensity that, shit, maybe.

It builds up perfectly from the ground, and when Steen survives Seedball’s newer Triangle Choke finish and is able to get the Package Piledriver on, it’s as great and logical an ending as you could ask for, given that Steen doesn’t do a lot of jobs and that Bailey is so far beneath him outside of this room and this company.

But then Seedball kicks out.

The entire room jumps and starts high fiving like it’s the liberation of Paris.

It’s a move built up well enough throughout multiple promotions that a kick out genuinely feels like a big deal, and it’s done by someone likeable and beloved and believable enough in the role that you get the most jaded people in the world to stand up and begin hooting and hollering, because their hero might just have an honest chance after all.

Pro wrestling is so fucking good.

Bailey is able to come back after that. A top rope version is blocked. Bailey hits a gorgeous and truly nasty top rope poisoned rana, and while Steen survives a Shooting Star Press, he’s not able to kick out again when Seedball breaks out an ultra rare Shooting Star Senton, and the hero does indeed get it done at the end.

A wonderful and beautiful sort of a match, a refinement of some of the best things wrestling can do, even on a smaller scale. Most of all, more than a fitting farewell to Kevin Steen, going out with an above and beyond effort in the exact sort of match he’s always been so at home in and against his career rival’s spiritual heir, and finally doing something that he absolutely never had to do.

***1/2

 

Matt Tremont vs. Mike Bailey, C4 A Better Tomorrow (1/18/2014)

Unfortunately, nobody here lights a dollar bill on fire with a cigar (or the reverse? hard to know off the top of my head) and there’s no wonderful bullet drama about the bonds of brotherhood.

However, it’s hard to say a Mike Bailey vs. Matt Tremont match doesn’t live up to that billing.

It’s a very simple ten minutes, and all the better for not trying to extend itself beyond that. Matt Tremont hurls around Young Karate and beats his ass, and Our Hero fights back slowly but surely. The kicks always rock Tremont, so it’s not some consistent pummeling, but it’s much easier for Tremont to throw his punch than it is for Young Karate to ever get a break. Add in a few real gross bumps, and it’s a hell of an underdog story, even while Bailey always has a kicker’s chance. As the match goes on, Tremont also starts to see Seedball coming more and more, avoiding big aerial spots, countering him on the apron, and blocking most of his kicks. It all feels like the luckier fighter’s been figured out, until Seedball goes in an entirely new direction at the end, countering Tremont’s well built up Powerbomb into a tight and deep Triangle Choke for the submission.

A classical hoot and a real compact sort of a banger. Ten minutes or so, full of nasty spots and great strikes, and with a clear story to it too. It’s on Youtube, this isn’t hiding from you, so go and watch it.

***

 

Eddie Kingston vs. Mike Bailey, C*4 Triumph (4/21/2012)

This one’s on IWTV’s Best of C*4 Volume One compilation, if you’re like me and immediately ran to watch it once you found out that, yes, this actually happened.

Like with the El Generico match the previous year, this is not a fully realized Mike Bailey. He’s still a boy. He’s working in shorts. But he’s close enough to what he’ll become that an all time great can throw him into his match and it works. Perfect Eddie Kingston touring heel match, walking the line as well as possible so as to give Bailey something big while also not losing anything himself. He’s dismissive and has fun with the kid, because he’s not a threat. He turns it up here and there, pounds the hell out of Young Young Karate, but it never feels like it’s the best he can do.

And because I mean that in a kayfabe sort of a way, it totally works!

Because obviously, Eddie Kingston isn’t mailing it in. There’s Eddie matches I haven’t loved here and there, but he’s never felt like a dude mailing it in. He’s always there — like in this match — with enough little touches and really fun little moments that every match has something to it. A sense that he cared about this match, even if he didn’t kill himself in it or produce some kind of epic.

The sense that Eddie isn’t taking Bailey seriously and that he’s thrown off his guard is just enough to let Bailey come out of this feeling like he’s done something. Eddie begins to take him seriously more near the end, but while he’s not exactly flustered,he still doesn’t feel like he gets how special this kid is. One big thing isn’t going to do it, because Seedball keeps coming and coming, and surprising Eddie with fancier kicks or inventive (for 2012) twisting dives. Eddie never really gets going in the way that he does with matches he tends to win, and Bailey surprisingly chokes him out in a Triangle Choke for the win.

While this isn’t what you might go into it expecting, it’s impossible to imagine anyone being let down by this. Another early glimpse at how good Bailey can be, another great Eddie Kingston performance, and a textbook example of how to go about navigating a match and a situation like this.

The shame of this isn’t that it wasn’t some grand epic, the shame of this is more that this is the only singles match they’ve ever had.

An embarrassment to every US promoter in 2014-16 when Seedball was hot and available, and yet another embarrassment to every UK promoter over the last year.

***

 

El Generico vs. Mike Bailey, C*4 Level Up 2011 (3/26/2011)

A generational dream match between great Canadian babyfaces. Spiritually, Mike Bailey is El Generico’s son, or barring that, he grew up in Los Angelitos de El Generico. They are kindred souls.

Seedball was always a baby, but he’s SUCH a baby here with his three quarter tights and no kickpads. He’s also not all that good just yet, even if that innate babyface charm has always existed within him. Thankfully, he is in there with El Generico, who is fast making another career for himself working these face/face matches as something approaching an elder statesman. This is as good as any of his more famous matches like this in PWG or EVOLVE or DDT, absolutely incredible stuff that completely fell through a gap somewhere. This is on IWTV on a Best of C*4 set though, so every single one of you has homework to do. The real question after this is how it took another two or three years for Bailey to start getting out there after a match this good.

The goal is to legitimize Bailey with some classic Stronger In Defeat booking. Usually, that’s a half measure, but when the match is this great and both men are THIS GREAT in it, it works. It absolutely works. El Generico accomplishes the goal here mainly by absolutely beating the shit out of Seedball. El Generico is not mean or overly violent, but he does have a harder edge he can lean into by now, and it’s as close to a Kingston/Donst style performance as Generico can put out there. He blisters his chest up with repeated chops, projects this idea of being annoyed by Seedball before then impressed later on, keeps taking it to violence on the floor, all of that. If the IWTV player wasn’t such absolute horse shit for capturing either stills or gifs, there’d be a lot more here. Bailey’s selling isn’t all that great yet, but the visual of his chest is enough to get him where he needs to be. He wins the crowd over for his heart, even if they later revert back into being a dull indie crowd and responding with “BEST MATCH EVER” chants, or those sorts of chants that compliment the wrestlers on performing such a good match. When he gets a chance to turn the tables, Mike’s terrific. A few things he does aren’t great, or feel out of place like the often do for young wrestlers, but he’s a baby, so it feels silly to hold that complaint as close as a veteran wrestler doing things like that. While Bailey’s still developing an offensive arsenal, he does have a great dive and he can hit a lot of the trademarks. He’s not all that unlike a younger El Generico himself, with the sorts of basic high flying routes he’s willing to take, which helps the entire thing out so much.

Finishing run is immense, of course. They strike a perfect balance, as Bailey cannot hang with Generico here, not really. He had enough to fight back and he has enough heart and guts and intelligence to pull off some counters here and there, but he’s a boy and El Generico is at the end of the kind of evolutionary chart now that Bailey is still near the beginning of. They still get SO much out of it. There’s a few genuine nailbiters off of big spots, that are as much a credit to the referee as they are to Generico and Bailey. Absolutely perfect timing, I know the result of this match, and I’m absolutely With Them here at home on my couch nine years later. Bailey has one big counter to stay alive, but he doesn’t have much more than that. He doesn’t have much more than that in terms of what offense he hasn’t busted out yet and he also just physically is goddamned SPENT out there after that. He fights on, because he’s as much of a hero as El Generico is, but with his arsenal being empty and his experience level being what it is comes desperation. Generico can block his obvious Shooting Star Press with his knees and go into the obvious Helluva Kick and Brainbuster finish.

A hell of a thing. The sort of match that fires you up and makes you just want to type in all caps, with every other word being a curse. A lot of the newer stuff I’m watching doesn’t blow me away. I like a lot of it, sometimes the matches are even great. They are rarely this great. I am ashamed a match like this eluded me for the last nine years. Do not allow it to elude you any further.

Watch this match.

***1/2