The Young Bucks vs. Kevin Steen/El Generico, PWG DDT4 2013 (1/12/2013)

This was the finals of the PWG DDT4 tournament and for the PWG World Tag Team Titles.

More importantly than all of that, it’s El Generico’s final independent match.

This isn’t quit the OBAMA ERA INDIE FED flag waver that Bucks vs. Appetite For Destruction is, but it’s so high up there. The reunion of the best babyface of his era with an old bully so as to take on new bullies, making up with the past without resolving anything just yet. A loss to the new evil, but a moral victory that makes it not matter all that much in the end, because it all feels so good and drops on your chest with the force of a megaton bomb. As good of a representation of the company as anything else, unfiltered PWG MAGIC.

Once more, Kevin Steen vs. The Young Bucks is a perfect match up. El Generico vs. The Young Bucks is right up there. Steen can’t help but jumping them at the start and forcing his sort of match on them, again dragging El Generico into one of his messes. Reuniting with Kevin Steen doesn’t mean changing the dynamic. It’s far far too late in the game for that. He is what he is, El Generico makes peace with it, and runs headfirst into it with him. But it’s been a year since this sort of thing really worked like it used to. Steen’s taken out when they slip in a belt shot and Generico once again has to do it on his own.

It’s classic formula stuff, but never loses the desperate and frantic nature that they start with. Steen’s hot tag is perfect, but they wind up right where they were the last time they met in PWG at the 2009 Battle of Los Angeles. Steen is helpless against the repeated single and double Supericks. El Generico winds up in the same spot, but he’s able to fight it. He’s also able to kick out of More Bang For Your Buck, because he’s a superhero and because it’s also not that great of a finish. Rick Knox goes on to get involved, and the match even finds a way to produce the only acceptable BRAINBUSTAHHHHH kick out ever by way of no referee being there initially, Knox running down, Knox being pulled out and then superkicking Matt Jackson, before going back in for the count then kicked out of. Should the move eever be kicked out of? Hey, probably not. But it’s his last match and they went above and beyond to still protect it, so it works. Matt comes back inside and they try the Package Piledriver fed into the Brainbuster, only for Matt to block the Brainbuster into a cradle to win.

It’s not a great finish.

I don’t really even like it all that much. I like the idea of it. The Young Bucks are always just barely tough enough to always remain slippery. It’s the core part of their entire deal, it’s a great concept. Not sure a Package Piledriver is the right move to use before a spot like that, as the result is no-selling a fucking piledriver, but like any minor issues with this, its heart is in the right place enough that it’s not worth expending emotional energy getting hot and bothered about. They get so so so so much right here, even carried by a great wind as it is, that it’s not worth moaning about .08% of a thing.

Most importantly, it’s a fucking heartbreaker. I’ve never hated The Young Bucks more than in that moment, so it’s impossible to ay the idea didn’t totally and completely work. It’s a thing they could only pull off with a wrestler and character like El Generico.

After the match, El Generico says farewell. First to Kevin Steen, who initially refuses the handshake in his frustration with another big loss, before coming back and doing the right thing in the last chance he’ll ever have to do so. It’s one of the biggest pops in PWG history, and like so much of this, it just feels good.

A fitting end to the long Young Bucks vs. Kevin Steen issue, even if the match was hardly about him in the end. More importantly, a fitting end to the story of Kevin Steen and El Generico. It’s another loss to the Young Bucks, but this time, nothing comes after. Nothing follows the hug, it’s Generico having his moment and Kevin Steen finally being okay with El Generico having his moment. It’s something like growth. They didn’t win, but they at least had this last night to finish all of that, and can part now from a much better place than they would have coming into this show. Imagine if PWG had stories though.

Following that, El Generico says goodbye to the world. The speech itself isn’t online for free on its own, but it comes at the end of this wonderful El Generico tribute video someone made following the release of this show.

It’s a big loss. As big of a loss as the indies have ever had, full stop. Generico might not have been Bryan Danielson or CM Punk or Samoa Joe, but there’s never been a babyface as consistently good and pure as El Generico. That matters a whole lot. There are a million good wrestlers, maybe a hundred great ones, but few ever as wholly likeable as El Generico, especially on a consistent level. I have loved wrestlers and specific babyface types in these roles again since Generico, but never quite so much. If you want to call one of those monolithic superworkers Ric Flair relative to their surroundings, you can feel free to do so. In that case, El Generico is Sting. Slowly but surely, he inches his way into everyone’s heart, and for the last two or three years, he’s been both the conscience and emotional core of independent wrestling in an irreplaceable way.

It’s a void that’s been empty in independent wrestling ever since this show and it’s one very unlikely to ever be filled again, for many different reasons.

Some people call this the end of PWG’s peak. I won’t go that far. So many of the hallmarks still remain, there is still so much great work to come. Kevin Steen becoming a babyface and people like Candice and pre-Q Drake sticking around and being elevated means that there is at least some emotional core to get behind and not this immediate degeneration into the soulless athletic masturbation that the company’s largely become since the end of 2015. But losing the very best wrestler in company history is still a hell of a thing.

I avoid standing out on a limb a lot on here because the entire idea of this series is reevaluation of things I love, but I will stand out on least stable limb in the world and say that El Generico is the best wrestler in the history of the promotion.

God damn.

I’ve seen it probably five to ten times already. It’s one of those snappy matches to go to that always livens me up a little. It’s frantic, it’s emotional, it packs a hell of a punch on every level that pro wrestling is supposed to, and there’s stunningly little fat on it. Up there with the 2011 DDT4 finals against Steen and Tozawa as the best non-gimmick Young Bucks match ever to this point, and when it’s all said and done, it might still be number one. The ending’s sad, but all endings are.

It is an emotional juggernaut the likes of which professional wrestling had rarely ever inflicted upon me.

Every time I see this match, it happens all over again.

Once more, it was a pleasure.

****

Kevin Steen/El Generico vs. The Briscoes, PWG DDT4 2013 (1/12/2013)

This was a first round match in the 2013 DDT4 tournament.

It’s El Generico’s last night in PWG and as an independent wrestler. The show is effectively happening as a farewell to him, so that he can do a whole bunch of stuff on his way out the door. Doing it in a tournament is a real piece of soft genius from PWG too, as the tournament also provides the cover for Kevin Steen and El Generico actually team up again and to get them where they need to be for Generico’s actual last match at the end of the night. They begin this as not unwilling but certainly begrudging partners, and spend the match growing closer and closer together again.

It’s also just cool as hell that The Briscoes come back to PWG for this.

They’re not really PWG style guys anymore, and haven’t been since injuries near the end of the 2000s changed them into more simplistic brawlers. Still love them, but it’s a weird match up at this point, and there’s no real secret about why they stopped being regulars. But if independent wrestling was going to say goodbye to El Generico, and specifically to do it with Steen and Generico teaming up one last time, it would have been woefully incomplete if The Briscoes weren’t there.

The match is great.

Is it 2007? No. But nobody’s acting like it is. It’s a fun undercard match, with enough character drama between Steen and Generico to make up for what’s been taken away athletically by the arc of time’s arrow. There’s little fat on the match and while there’s never any real feeling that The Briscoes will win this, given the circumstance, that’s fine because the match kind of turns them into a symbol of everything Steen and Generico aren’t as a tag team today, never were, and kind of every reason they broke up to begin with. Every single tag that they make is a blind tag, and every single one Steen makes is pretty angry. The reasons for their split three years ago are still clearly there, Generico not being aggressive and mean enough for Steen’s tastes, and Steen being so impatient with that. It almost leads to their defeat when Generico just pulls up on an errant Helluva Kick, only for Steen to get mad anyways.

It doesn’t matter though, because despite Steen being taken out, Generico ducks the Doomsday Device to fall down into a Victory Roll on Jay Briscoe to win. Nothing’s been solved, maybe nothing ever will. But here and now, it’s a wonderful dismissal of every argument Kevin Steen ever had against their team all those years ago.

What a nice little thing this was.

***

El Generico vs. Kenny Omega, DDT Never Mind 2012 (12/23/2012)

This was for El Generico’s KO-D Openweight Title.

It doesn’t quite hold up to the standard I had set it at in my memory, but it’s still a really really incredible performance by El Generico.

Kenny Omega’s also in this match. As usual, he fluctuates between being the worst good wrestler and being the best bad wrestler. There’s the eye rolling attempts at dramatic motions, the very awkward attempts at punching and stomping when he tries his more rudimentary back work, and just the very off putting nature in general. Perhaps the most extreme example ever of a syndrome I usually apply to Christian as the best known example, where someone’s in ring work is worlds better as a babyface but who comes off better as a personality as a heel. Christian isn’t even a tenth as unlikable as Kenny Omega is, he just has a face like that, but Kenny Omega is one of the most singularly unlikable wrestlers to reach a prominent position in the last decade. So, matches like this that revolve around Kenny the babyface achieving something big have such an hill to climb before the bell even rings.

Luckily, El Generico has the will and the strength to hoist him on his back and get them as far as possible.

I can’t say Kenny was entirely useless here. Once Generico began selling the back in a more robust sort of a way, Kenny kind of gets it and does some bigger offense. His big moves are all crisp enough and even if his punches, elbows, and boots were all embarrassing, Kenny’s got a hell of a chop in his arsenal and used it to prodigious effect when he was in control of the match. Kenny also took a few real gross neck bumps here. Despite the many many flaws, this is probably the single best Kenny Omega performance in his career to this point, just because of all the bigger things he got right.

But this is an El Generico masterclass and would have barely been great without him. He holds the early parts together with the sorts of fundamentals that Kenny never really learned, and his back selling is largely very good. It’s not as good as his arm selling against Ibushi in October and there are far better selling performances you can find out there from Generico, but it’s good work that gives the match something it needed. The finishing run would also fall apart with a lesser wrestler. Omega’s selling and pacing is weird, but Generico largely holds it together in between the major bombs thrown out.

Not all perfect though. Generico stealing the One Winged Angel feels out of character in a jarring sort of way. The match feels kind of stunted and disconnected at a few points early on and when transitioning to the end run. Following the worst offense, the kickout of the BRAINBUSTAAAAAHHHHHHH (gigantic eye roll. one of the biggest ever. the guy’s leaving, fine, but the idea that a.) anyone should ever kick out of that & b.) it should be Kenny is a ludicrous one. big negative.), Kenny scoops up Generico in a last ditch One Winged Angel and he finally wins the KO-D Title.

A great match here that I suspect many of you would love, as flawed as it is with regards to the minor things.

Still, the Canadians-in-DDT version of Bryan Danielson vs. Davey Richards in late 2009.

***1/4

Kevin Steen vs. El Generico, ROH Final Battle 2012 (12/16/2012)

This was a Ladder War for Steen’s ROH World Title, as even if he’s been misused for the last two years, El Generico did at least deserve a proper farewell in ROH.

It’s about as good as the more famous Fight Without Honor from two years ago, but in a less interesting way. That was a gigantic swing and a miss with some major flaws and weaknesses. This is two guys, realizing that ROH doesn’t matter anywhere near as much as it did even a year ago, deciding to shut up, play the hits, and to save anything new for a meeting on a larger stage, should they ever have it.

There’s nothing new to this, really. I never loved the original Ladder War (the Boston Street Fight in August 2007 is worlds better, come fight me), but this is very much a match that exists in the shadow of that and less so Steen Wolf. This is to say it feels more stunt and setpiece oriented than based on any kind of feeling of contempt or real inclination towards violence. It’s the difference between these two in a more polished and castrated environment like this and in PWG, where it seems like everyone’s true selves always bubbles to the surface.

Still though, there’s a lot of cool moves and grotesque ladder bumps to this, and one hell of an ending.

It’s not the ending El Generico deserved in ROH, but that’s not the end of the world. ROH isn’t ROH anymore, and it hasn’t been El Generico’s real home in two years, if not longer. He’ll have a better final match in DDT a week after this, and he’ll have the most emotional indie wrestling farewell in some time when he says goodbye in his actual home promotion. This is a tour stop, a way for El Generico to wave bye bye to fans on the East Coast. That’s all ROH is now.

***1/4

 

Super Smash Bros vs. El Generico/Samuray Del Sol, EVOLVE 18 (12/8/2012)

Another one of these really simple and snappy SSB movefests.

Really hard thing to hate, even if this isn’t the perfected version of the act that they’ve shown in PWG all year or recently in DGUSA against the Inner City Machine Guns. Sadly, this isn’t in the same ballpark exactly as their match against the Dojo Bros from a week prior, but it’s just so well done. It’s restrained when it makes sense to be, but there’s always a cool thing around the corner. It’s a bunch of cool stuff in a row, while still adhering to some kind of basic tag structure. They do that while never losing the thread of what this was about or it feeling like this was trying to dress the thing up. It is what it is, and by letting it be what it is, there’s much more charm to it.

Following the final rush of the fireworks show, Del Sol gets the big win for the team with his wild Prawn Hold Drop off the top onto Stu/Player Dos.

Like most Gabeland matches from this darker period, nobody NEEDS to watch this, but it’s a total sugar rush.

three boy

El Generico vs. Rich Swann, PWG Mystery Vortex (12/1/2012)

Sadly, it’s El Generico’s final singles match in PWG.

It’s not his final match ever period though, so it’s not quite as big as it could have been. This is incredibly fun stuff, two of the best offensive wrestlers on the scene throwing out like 75% of their arsenals at each other, but given the very brief window Rich Swann has an actual good wrestler before becoming a caricature and then one of the hollowed out canceled toys that make up the Impact roster, this probably could have been even better.

Still!

Doing the match and thinking a match up could be even longer and better doesn’t mean what they did wasn’t great. They set out to have a great midcard spotfest, and boy do they. Once again, El Generico is secretly one of the most versatile junior heavyweights ever. He’s again seemingly out of his element against someone younger, faster, and with cooler moves and yet again is maybe just as good as the indie wrestling elder statesman as he is as the all-time underdog.

He’s never as mean here as he was to Ricochet in 2010 and it’s probably to the match’s detriment, but the big takeaway here is that El Generico may not have ever flexed those muscles as much as Kevin Steen ever did, but he has as much political skill as anyone. He gives Swann enough to still look credible, allows him these big counters and kickouts, but never of any of his major offense. He also never kills off anything big that Rich Swann does, so there’s not really any way anyone can say he did wrong by the kid either. Generico breaks out an old classic at the end instead of either Brainbuster variant, with the old double-clutch Orange Crush. Hard to say if it’s really a burial because it’s such a sweet move, but it’s a rare thing for it to be a finish, and that stands out. Doesn’t ruin the match, not even close, but again it’s something worth noting.

Something something don’t let great be the enemy of good, but with something higher than great. Don’t let what could be get in the way of a perfectly satisfying three boy.

***

El Generico vs. MIKAMI, DDT SNAKE WORLD REINCARNATION FINAL ~ POISON SAWADA JULIE FOREVER (11/25/2012)

This was for Generico’s KO-D Openweight Title.

MIKAMI is an earlier DDT guy. He was in those early Tag World Grand Prix and King of Trios tournaments where DDT sent guys out to CHIKARA, along with KUDO and Yoshiaki Yago and the like. He very quickly got left behind when the HARASHIMAs and Kota Ibushis of the world began to take over, and unlike KUDO, MIKAMI failed to ever really adapt or improve to try and hang on.

This match pretty clearly shows that.

El Generico does totally alright in control. He’s very good at walking the line between sportsmanlike and a little mean, the old NWA Champion thing. Obviously El Generico could never be NWA Champion, but he gets the act here once again. The problem is what it always seemed like it would be, which is MIKAMI simply not being very good. Generico tries and he pretends, but the longer he pretends, the more of a put on it feels like. MIKAMI brings his ladder in to do his ladder spots, and Generico gets stuck looking like a goof constantly waiting for things to happen. El Generico does enough to make this a good match, but very few wrestlers in the world could have made this a great match without totally throwing MIKAMI under the bus, and that’s not a position Generico is in here.

Not a horrible match or even an offensive one, until you think for a second and realize that this happened and El Generico vs. HARASHIMA never did.

El Generico vs. Sami Callihan, DGUSA Uprising (11/3/2012)

This is best of three falls match. Before the match, El Generico finds one of the Los Angelitos far from home –

The match itself is tremendous. They take a novel approach to the three fall structure and while it’s too tall a mountain to climb to say that much of anything from DGUSA or EVOLVE in 2012 is capital m Memorable exactly, this is really interesting and the most lower case m memorable thing a Gabe fed has produced in 2012 that didn’t involve Fit Finlay.

Sami baits Generico into rushing him to start, and then he blocks the Brainbuster into a cradle to go up 1-0. From there, he goes after El Generico’s knee much earlier than he did in May. Sami made the mistake of treating El Generico then like any other high flier or light heavyweight where he can zero in on a leg at the end to set up the Stretch Muffler, but he got caught with a Brainbuster out of nowhere to win, when El Generico was more resourceful and much tougher than other wrestlers Sami had tried that on. Here, he actually changes something that he did. Sami Callihan does a lot of things right, but outside of the Finlay series, he’s rarely ever showed progress or attention to long term storytelling like he does.

Smartly, the payoff isn’t immediate.

El Generico is still El Generico.

He’s just as tough and resourceful as he was when they fought half a year ago, and now he has the added advantage of both knowing Sami Callihan and knowing that he can beat Sami Callihan. He rallies again, as he does, and sells the leg even better now. Sami stuffs the Brainbuster out of nowhere because Generico’s leg is more damaged now than it was in that first match. But it doesn’t matter, because El Generico has it in him to hit it anyways.

This is how you vanity sell.

The lift on one leg is impressive enough, beyond simply the idea of it.

Most impressive is the way Generico almost loses him once he has him up, registering the weight he has to carry on one leg, before snapping down and hitting it in a grosser way than usual. It’s perfect stuff, really really incredible, and it gives Generico the second fall to even it out.

The leg’s still hurt though, and it’s now that Sami’s work pays off. I love that. I love that it took a while. Sami wasn’t able to do what he wanted in May, he wasn’t able to do all he wanted in the first two falls, but he played a long game when El Generico didn’t. Generico pretty much did all he was ever going to do on one leg simply to stay in the match, so it’s as much Callihan’s smart first fall tactic that gets the job done here as the knee work that actually wins him the third. Generico tries, but Sami Callihan doggedly sticks with the Stretch Muffler like never before. He sits down with it while holding El Generico at a side angle, and Generico finally has to give up.

One of the very few triumphs of booking in these first few years of Gabe running his own shop. Using El Generico solely for dream matches was whatever, but he managed to rehab him with the Samuray Del Sol series and the tag team matches he worked, on top of the win over Callihan in May. The result is that a thing like this can happen and it doesn’t feel like an eye roller or a put on. El Generico’s reputation, now actually established in the company itself, can be used both to elevate Sami Callihan with a win that he had to actually change something about himself to earn, and to tell the story of Callihan becoming more focused in pursuit of a title.

Now, why it took him until late 2012 to get behind Sami Callihan to this extent is another question entirely, but nobody ever accused Gabe of being quick on the draw.

***1/2

 

El Generico vs. Kota Ibushi, DDT Special 2012 (10/21/2012)

This was for Generico’s KO-D Openweight Title.

This isn’t quite the same relative near masterpiece as they had three weeks before, it’s these two riffing it out, but there are few other combinations of guys that I would want to see riff it out for fifteen to twenty minutes, outside of El Generico and HARASHIMA. Kota Ibushi sort of channels that early on, going after the ribs for a short period. Kota’s work is real brutal and Generico’s selling is terrific.

Then, proving Kota’s focused arm work in September was a complete and total fluke, Kota just stops doing that.

Oh well. It’s not a thing to be disappointed in. It’s a return to nature.

The point is, these guys did a bunch of incredibly cool and gross stuff to each other, and a whole lot of it was new. Kota Ibushi almost dies a few different times, but activates whatever dead eyed affluenza psycho gene he has in him that just goes off in hard situations like this. Generico gets stuffed when he tries most of his big stuff and Kota Ibushi absolutely kills him. Big gross lariat, Half Nelson Suplexes, even stealing a Helluva Kick just for the hell of helluva it.

sorry

i wrote like two-thirds of this on election night and then stopped writing and started drinking

so

El Generico got knees up on the Phoenix Splash and got a cradle, hooking the leg at two and a half in a perfect little thing to cut off the kick out, and BARELY gets Kota Ibushi with that to win.

Not the best they can do and it’s infuriating that this happened three or four times and there’s no Generico vs. HARASHIMA match, when HARASHIMA isn’t doing shit and hasn’t all year, but yeah man whatever. Fun festival of danger and a bunch of cool shit, even if it’s just a lot of the same cool shit rearranged. Everything is dog shit and this wasn’t dog shit.

***1/4

El Generico vs. Big Van Walter, RPW Uprising Night Two (10/14/2012)

Yeah, this happened!

It’s not all that it could be, but the size disparity is enough that it’s worth considering that maybe it never could be. Still, it should have been more than a midcard match. It should have been longer than ten or eleven minutes. But when has Rev Pro ever gotten it — that being anything more complex than booking a simple and unsinkable dream match — even close to completely right?

As it is, what we have rules in its own way. Generico is still the best babyface in the world, and an even better underdog. Walter isn’t WALTER yet, but he’s got everything he needs for this to work. He can chop. He can throw a boot. And he’s not getting any shorter or thicker. Generico goes about it as you’d expect. He has trouble lifting the big guy and repeatedly tries for it and gets closer. When it seems like he’s about to get it, he gets very violently and succinctly shut down. Walter wins with a real gross Powerbomb.

It’s better to have a mid card sort of TV match version of The Coward vs. El Generico than to not have one at all.

***