Jonathan Gresham vs. Nick Gage, PBTV Wazzup (11/25/2017)

This was for Gresham’s PBTV (later IWTV) Independent Wrestling Title.

For the first time in my life, I became a Powerbomb TV/IWTV subscriber to watch this match. There are very few thing that I remember in my life from late August through mid December of 2017. A few wrestling matches, a few days at work, a few days in real life outside of that (folks, it is bad if you reply to a girl you just started seeing’s invitation to Thanksgiving with her family with “no thanks”, and had my father not passed in August (hence the memory gaps), I don’t know that I could have ever gotten away with it), but for some reason, the memory of this weekend off and the decision to pay to watch this specific match is one that sticks around the old brain hole.

(And also a Nick Gage match the next day, but we don’t need to talk about that.)

It is not an especially great match.

Gresham goes after Nicky’s arm, and while the selling of Gage is functional, it is not great. Between two of 2017’s best wrestlers (spoilers for THE YEAR IN LISTS, sorry but not actually sorry, learn to parse the exact tones of my praise for specific wrestlers so that you can predict these things months out), they are not quite able to build a fully functional bridge. However, the attempts to build this doomed bridge are a lot of fun. Nicky trying to sell the arm, Gresham trying to brawl, and all things in between.

Nicky gets counted out when Gresham dives off a tope into a sleeper and bolts inside at the count of nine.

It’s a hard thing to say if they had a better one in them, if they were holding back on a small show in the bullshit little CHIKARA venue, or what. I don’t really know, and neither do you. My immediate gut response is to say that this was a replacement match for the scheduled Gresham vs. Fleisch match for a reason, that nobody would have ever booked this as the sole draw for a show unless they had no other choice. My gut, as it is more often than not, is correct, but that isn’t to insult anything that happened here. If not a great match, it was a deeply entertaining one, and one that I found impossible to ever look away from.

You can say what you’d like here, it is certainly not a great match, nor the greatest stylistic fit, but I really like what they did all the same.

Despite everything, it killed a weekend night for me at a point in my life in which I really needed something to kill a weekend night, and so not only am I unable to offer up any criticism here from a real emotional place, but I also have a real soft spot for this exact and specific match.

 

Orange Cassidy vs. UltraMantis Black, PBTV Futures (10/22/2017)

God, yes.

As expected, a match this flawless on paper is even greater in reality.

Two of the greatest characters of the twenty first century collide and deliver a match in which every single second is filled with something truly wonderful.

Sometimes that’s this earlier stage heel stooge version of Orange Cassidy (a version more interesting than anything he’s done on AEW television since maybe like early 2020) doing more cowardly and way funnier versions of the sort of bits that have become routine in the half decade and counting since this match happened. Sometimes it’s an UltraMantis Black promo before or in between the falls of this thing, not only dropping some real gems and oddities in there, but always delivering his verbiage in the funniest and/or most interesting ways possible. Other times it is Eddie Kingston and Joe Sposto (fka Leonard F. Chikarason) having a god damned BALL on commentary at getting to call some nonsense like this outside of a former horrible environment, and in certain moments, it is every element of the match working at the same time.

Following a grueling four minute time limit draw, both agree to a falls count anywhere, no count out, no disqualification, no time limit restart, leading to the match adding two real real gross spots (throw through like four and a half chairs, UltraMantis Black’s Cosmic Disaster on a pile of thumbtacks) onto what was already maybe the year’s most purely entertaining match.

A perfect wrestling match, maybe the hoot of the year, zero notes.

Wheeler YUTA vs. Alex Shelley, IWTV Untitled (10/8/2021)

(photo credit to Jaylee Photography)

This was for YUTA’s IWTV Independent World Title.

A great match, to be sure, but also a very rewarding one in the sense that something finally breaks here, and Alex Shelley turns up the aggression to like thirty nine on a ten point scale and just takes this shit for himself.

Early on, at some point, a switch flips when Yuta damages his arm in the match, and Shelley finally stops playing nice with the kids.

As much fun as the Alex Shelley comeback tour has been from late 2019 through now, I’m very happy we got to something like this as well. With more and more of our old 2000s independent wrestling favorites returning to a sense of freedom in recent years, something like this was inevitable. The Motor City Machine Guns might have been heroes to a lot of fans just a little younger than I, but for many of us, Alex Shelley was never a hero. Certainly not a heroic character. He stabbed Jimmy Jacobs in the back. Filmed a bunch of bad stuff for money, back before Paparazzi Productions became more associated with the best comedy segments of a generation. He took over a show in a tent and insisted on taking spots instead of earning them. He didn’t sell out, he bought in, things of that nature.

He’s been great enough to shine no matter what, and there’s a fair argument that there was no point swimming upstream with the reactions he was going to get as an indie wrestling living legend, but it is an absolute delight to see him get to do what I think he does best, but now with a sort of elder statesman approach to it all, the shitty punk kid evolving into a mean older guy.

Shelley tears apart both arms of Wheeler YUTA with an intensity he hasn’t shown much of — at least not to this extent or for this long of a time continuously — since returning to the scene. The cool tricks that nobody else is doing are there, but there’s a snap and a meanness to everything he’s doing too. Borderline torturous at times, angry and sharp enough that it doesn’t even matter if Shelley barely does anything anyone might call illegal. Sometimes it’s just about tone, and the tone is perfect. Wheeler YUTA’s been a bad guy all year, and he’s done a fine job, but Shelley is great enough in this that it doesn’t matter at all. Shelley takes over, goes nuts in the attempt to try to take something back and take something new for himself, and YUTA’s back in his best role as this put-upon babyface. Through no failing of his own, YUTA is in the spot his rival Garcia was a day earlier, now against something more focused, hostile, and intent than he’s ever encountered before.

Wheeler YUTA was fine here. I think his arm selling could have been better sometimes, but he did alright. Good offense, great bumping, solid matwork, all of that. This was Alex Shelley’s match though, through and through, and he killed it. An incredible performance on a number of levels, culminating in one of the best feeling title victories in recent memory.

Shelley lands the Shellshock at the end, and when YUTA tries a fighting spirit no sell, Shelley removes his head with an uncommonly mean Lariat, hits the Shellshock again, and goes into the Border City Stretch for the win, garnering his first singles title of real note (I mean, sorry, BLP’s secondary title or the SMASH Title isn’t the Independent World Title) in a very very long time.

Revanchism has never felt so good.

One of the most rewarding viewing experiences all year.

***

Jonathan Gresham vs. Adam Priest, IWTV 100 (8/8/2021)

(photo credit to Jon Washer)

Short Kings’ Road.

Chronologically, assuming that you’re reading this around the time this happened or when I wrote this months later and not years after the fact (if so, hello, I assume we’re all dead), I haven’t written about Adam Priest just yet. If you’ve talked to me when one of his matches was streaming on any show worthwhile though, you’ll know that I like Adam Priest. It’s still a little early, but he’s a little guy with a ton of intensity, clearly with some of that Jamie Noble or Chris Benoit style DNA in him (hopefully more of the former). If not always in matches that I love, I’ve yet to watch an Adam Priest match and not at least come out of it thinking that he’s very good.

Naturally, as soon as meets all-world level talent Jonathan Gresham for the first time, he has his career match to date.

On a show like this, a showcase of most of the best that independent wrestling has to offer at the moment, it’s a delight to see a match like this.

It’s one of my favorite sorts of matches once again, the old dueling limbwork classic. The mechanics of it are, as expected, stellar. Priest isn’t quite as gifted at selling a limb as Gresham is, but since he’s far less experienced and since the match asked less of that from than from Gresham, it’s not exactly the end of the world. Doubly so when Gresham himself was so great at it, yet again.

Gresham targets the arm, as he does, and Priest goes after the knee in return. The aim of a match like this, obviously, is elevating the young man, and so his knee work is more effective. You can chalk it up to Gresham taking him lightly or Priest being more aggressive or, and this is my favorite, the idea that there’s just so much more tape of Gresham going after the arm and not nearly as much tape on Adam Priest, period. Priest’s knee work lasts longer than Gresham’s intermittent grabs at arm work, and it just matters more in the end, as his aggression and ambition seems to win out time and time again.

Priest’s raw ambition proves to be both a gift and a curse near the end of the match.

Opting for a win any way he can get it (Dylan Hales on commentary wonderfully points out that, for Priest, a win over Gresham in any form at this point is huge, and so the how of the thing doesn’t matter quite so much), he tries the count out with a Figure Four, remeniscent of some of Gresham’s early IWTV Title defenses in late 2017. Gresham is able to get in at nine, but a shot with Priest’s loaded elbow awaits, and Priest is able to pin him. Unfortunately, in his rush to the cover, he let the leg slip, and Gresham found an ankle under the bottom rope, nullifying the pinfall. It was a perfect set up, doomed only by Priest’s own inexperience.

Priest obviously loses himself as a result of the transition from elation to despair upon losing out on the biggest win of his career, and Gresham is just barely able to grab him into an inside cradle for the win.

A lovely little thing here, and a perfect counterpart to the Ku/Makowski match earlier on the show. There’s more than one way to spotlight a newer talent, and while nothing beats a strong win, sometimes it’s just not the time yet. The most beneficial thing for Priest at this point, under six months since first starting to get his name out there in a larger sense, is a relatively even match with one of the five best wrestlers in the world. It’s a hell of a match Gresham helps him have, and a hell of a little piece of booking to get Priest near that level.

One of the year’s best examples of leaving someone better than you found them.

***

Kevin Ku vs. Matt Makowski, IWTV 100 (8/8/2021)

(photo credit to Jon Washer)

The IWTV 100 show is going to be best known for one match, and that’s not unfair. It was one of the best matches of 2021 and if all goes well, it really could go down as one of the truly important matches in the history of independent wrestling. However, it was real far from a one match show, even including two other great matches before the hour-long epic, including what we’ve got here.

This one fucks.

Absolute hoot.

Not a long or complex match, but a blast from start to finish. Makowski is great at kicking and has cool mat tricks, so being the veteran that he is, Ku has a little sprint with him that is entirely about kicking and little tricks on the mat.

To their credit and in spite of a shorter runtime, this isn’t all empty calories. There’s a thrill to it, but there’s also a logic to it all. Ku tries to riff around on the ground early on, as he does, only to find out that it’s where the real skill of Makowski lies, and where the gap between them favors Makowski the most. As a result, he spends the match trying more to bomb out Makowski standing up, with a lot of strikes from that position and a lot of real great throws. It’s only when Makowski can haul Ku up and hurl him down to the ground with his waistlock into a Cross Armbreaker that he can get the win. The entire match is a fight for where the match takes place, and as soon as Matt Makowski can win that fight, he also wins the match.

Ku and Makowski have a match that works on a lot of levels, and one that also just straight up kicks a ton of ass. It’s an ideal sort of undercard match, being a shorter match that feels satisfying on just about ever possible level.

Great great great meat and potatoes shit here.

***

Daniel Garcia vs. Kevin Ku, IWTV Family Reunion 2021 Part 2 (4/8/2021)

This was for both Garcia’s C*4 and Limitless titles.

Before we get going, attention must be paid to the wonderful venue that IWTV ran its WrestleMania weekend shows in. While not full of great matches exactly, the IWTV loop stands out much stronger from a visual sense than any of the GCW shows as a result of taking place in this weird event space (81Bay Brewing Company in Tampa, Florida) with paintings of fish all over the walls. If one watched the earlier and less star-studded cards, one would have the time and mental bandwidth to explore all the different facets of the space from all the different murals of fish on each wall, to the little hallways in the background. There’s a lot to see in every frame, and early matches also had the thrill of seeing people who just worked at the venue having nothing to do because of lower attendance and watching the show behind the bar. Unfortunately, IWTV or building staff unfortunately told them to get off of the shot, and they later all huddled to the left side of the bar, which was then also visible when a camera would have a line over there. A wonderful little experience.

Sadly, this is the standout of IWTV’s weekend slate, and so one focuses more on the great wrestling inside the ring. But it’s worth mentioning as one of the little things in wrestling in 2021 that gave me a dumb little bit of joy for a moment.

This is a great match, but perhaps more than that, it’s the start of one of the more interesting stories of 2021 in the improvement and ascent of one Daniel Garcia.

It’s not fair or accurate to say he came entirely out of nowhere, as he’d been around that sort of IWTV sphere of promotions for a few years and shown some obvious potential before 2021. However, it’s this year that he has one of the best years of anyone anywhere in the world, and sort of steps out near the front as more than one of independent wrestling’s numerous potential guys. It’s one of the most rewarding experiences a fan of independent wrestling can have, to see someone grow and improve and make The Leap, so to speak. Not just improving, but improving in such an emphatic way and reaching a level beyond just being really good now. There’s a step to it instead of the slope that you often see people’s improvement take the shape of. It’s doubly rewarding here and now, as nobody from the U.S. indies has done that in a few years before Garcia in 2021, or at least not to the level that Garcia did, and it’s really cool to see.

That leap largely begins here and now, if not with this match, than with Garcia’s spring 2021 campaign in general.

I wouldn’t exactly call this Garcia’s breakout match or anything quite that strong (realistically, that comes later, and I’ve already written about it), but it’s here and his matches going forward where he starts to really tighten up, make more use of smaller moments in his matches, and generally begin to put it together. Great performances that start to result in great matches as well.

(one could also note this as near the start of Kevin Ku’s remarkable 2021 as well. it would be unfair to say the same about Kevin Ku here, as his career year in 2021 feels less like the start of something and more like a great wrestler making the most of increased opportunities and a scene of increasing health.)

The match itself is more a riff session than anything, but one that shows the skill of the two men trying things out and going back and forth. Nasty holds, cool escapes, great little moments of smaller hostility and remarkable pettiness. Dropping a knee on a stomach when you already have a hold on the man, just because. Ku baiting Garcia into a few things early on, getting a lot of mileage and feel-good moments out of the veteran baiting the annoying younger guy. They get into some dumber strike trading that I don’t love quite as much, but not enough to hate either. It certainly doesn’t have a chance to last much longer from that point, as Garcia soon wins with his super deep Sharpshooter. Garcia himself doesn’t feel better than Ku, but it’s a nasty enough hold that it feels true. The sort of move that can beat anyone, even if Garcia spent the match largely lacking the experience and precision of his opponent.

Not the greatest match of the year and certainly one that I think was maybe overpraised at the time because of a dearth of matches like this over the weekend, but too good to fail. Ultimately, that’s largely my feeling on the match as well. A collection of some cool things both big and little, not amounting to as much as it could or may in the future, but just a little too great for all of the other stuff to totally impede.

A very very good time, seventeen minutes well spent.

***

 

 

Wheeler YUTA vs. Daniel Garcia, IWTV 100 (8/8/2021)

(photo credit to @JWasherBeyond on Twitter)

This was for Yuta’s IWTV Independent World Title, as well as being the 100th defense of said title.

It’s a match that’s gotten a lot of buzz in the few days since, that will likely become one of the more talked about matches of the year, and it’s worth talking about. It was also a match I wanted to watch again given how bad the IWTV Roku app can be sometimes and that, in the case of a match like this, the buffering and missed patches can do real damage to the way a match flows in real time. Also it’s important to remind many of you that unless you pay me to do something, I will write about any singular thing I god damned well please. Thank you.

Mostly though, it’s that I thought I should see it again, because I never appreciate long matches when they’re happening live in front of my eyes.

That’s not an old man thing. I’ve been like this my entire life, with a few major exceptions. I was live in attendance for the Bryan Danielson vs. Roderick Strong match that lasted fifty six minutes, and while you can very easily chalk that up to it not ending until after midnight on a show that lasted over four hours, I didn’t love it until I was able to watch it back later. The same can be said for matches like this that I’ve simply watched live on a stream or something. Sometimes it’s that a duller part early on makes it a lot easier to lose immersion if something is just in a smaller box on a screen and sometimes it’s that something more interesting will grab my attention later on. Even beyond my own personal struggles, it’s just harder to have a great longer match than it is to have a great shorter match. Virtually every match I’ve liked within the last ten to twenty years that’s longer than forty minutes, with a few special exceptions (Joe/Punk II, Joe/Bryan in 2004 (not in 2006), Bryan/Aries at Testing the Limit) is a match that I didn’t like nearly as much on first viewing as I did on second or third.

So, any match that’s this long is a match that I need to watch again after the fact to get a real feel for.

On second viewing, this is really really great.

Some of the hyperbole is a lot. Is this the best U.S. indie match in half a decade? No. However, it’s the best one in something like two years (hello Violence is Forever vs. They Might Be Giants) and a genuine ray of light, especially for people like myself who are more inclined to really love this more combative and realistic style of wrestling. Is it the best match of the year? I don’t know. It might be? It’s in the running. I have a shortlist and it’s on it. I don’t think it’s a slam dunk exactly because I don’t necessarily think the MATCH OF THE YEAR should have the issues this does, but it’s unbelievably impressive.

Warts and all, that’s what I keep coming back to here, how stunningly ambitious it was and how impressive it was that they got as much right here as they did. It’s a very obvious attempt to garner buzz because long matches are flashy and grab the eyes, but a.) it worked (always has and always will, especially on an independent level, sadly) & b.) it’s still just a really great professional wrestling match. I’m not impressed immediately by ambition, but I am very much impressed by ambition that comes as close to the goal as this did. There are all time greats who have had the same ideas as these two and had far worse matches together than this.

What helps so much is that the majority of this match does genuinely feel wrestled with a purpose. Throughout something like the first seventy five percent of this, something is always happening that feels important.

Of course, context helps too.

In the week before this, Daniel Garcia has had a schedule that could be optimistically described as psychotic. This show happened on a Sunday. On Wednesday, he debuted on AEW Dynamite in a losing effort as part of a six man tag team match against Jon Moxley, Darby Allin, and Eddie Kingston. On Friday and Saturday nights, he participated in the Scenic City Invitational and made it to the finals, wrestling three matches across two days, before then coming up to New Jersey to have this match. As commentary (a genuine highlight of this match and a tremendous assistance to the story told in the ring, one of the better commentary performances in independent wrestling in recent memory) points out, it’s not as if YUTA has been in the lap of luxury either, having defended the title two days prior. However, in the eight days preceding this, Wheeler YUTA has had two matches while Daniel Garcia had been in five. There’s a difference and everybody knows it.

It’s a tremendous assistance that not only do they lean into the obvious story, but that they do so immediately. Garcia doesn’t exactly run right in, but he opens the match with an urgency that Wheeler YUTA simply does not have. As soon as he sees an opening, Garcia pounces with a Piledriver. The champion is able to survive and gain distance immediately after, but Garcia spends the first ten to fifteen minutes of the match frantically mauling Wheeler YUTA. He’s desperate on the mat, cagey and antsy as hell, and grabbing anything he can think up, while Wheeler just kind of hangs back and aims for distance. Beyond the classic trope of the champion only ever having to survive, there’s a real sense to the match that Garcia needs to end this within fifteen to twenty minutes or the adrenaline is going to wear off, the exhaustion will set back in, and it will become a significantly more difficult match to win.

YUTA survives though, and true to form, things suddenly become much harder for Garcia once that flurry is over.

Wheeler escapes a headlock with a backdrop suplex, and wonderfully, Garcia makes the decision to focus on arm damage and not neck damage, giving the match a much juicier point of focus.

The arm selling of Garcia is not quite perfect, but it is so much better than anything that he’s ever shown before. He hits the classic notes like not being able to lift the champion or needing to use the good arm to grab his wrist to hang onto holds, but he has some really unique approaches too. He falls down a few times trying to push up off the mat, he holds his wrist and elbow in little ways that denote an injury even when it’s not the focus of the match. There’s one particularly good bit before YUTA really gets to work on it in which Garcia lands a takedown and has to go into a complex hold but without ever using the left arm. He uses his legs more effectively and the right arm, putting over not just the pain he’s in, but how smart and skilled he still is. One of my favorite things that Bret Hart would do is that when he had his back worked over, he would always just carry himself differently. He would walk around in a much tighter way, like someone working a real working class job who hurt their back but can’t afford to go home. The job still had to be finished, you know? It was never flashy like the far worse Shawn Michaels back selling performances, but always felt a lot more realistic, taking every step in a match intent on reminding you that this is a man with a bad back. Daniel Garcia is a little showier than that, as he should be as a character, but there’s real elements of that same idea here. For a significant stretch of this match, Daniel Garcia moves and operates like someone with a genuinely hurt arm. It’s imperfect, but as someone who’s had a bad wrist injury once, there are elements of Garcia’s performance like the way he can’t grip things in a certain way or how he holds himself that immediately feel correct and true.

It’s in this middle part that a major weakness of the match emerges, and it’s that Wheeler YUTA is simply not as good as Daniel Garcia.

His arm work doesn’t quite match up to the level of Garcia’s performance in response to it. YUTA honestly forgets it after a few moments and it’s largely on Garcia’s back that it matters at all and isn’t just obvious filler. His work that’s meant to be more vicious doesn’t ever quite come off that way as opposed to the more organically gutsy and gritty feelings that Garcia evokes doing similar things, which might wind up working in a way differently than he intended. This isn’t to say YUTA is anything close to bad in this though. YUTA has some of these great moments of offense as well to cut him off, and what he lacks in character work as a heel champion, he makes up for in mechanical skill. It’s just that there is one really good performance in this match and one incredible one, and the gulf between the two cannot help but reveal itself at some points. All the same, given that this feels like Daniel Garcia’s coming out party as genuinely one of the best wrestlers in the entire world, it’s not enough to bring this down.

Garcia, beyond the arm selling, is incredible here. My favorite thing about Garcia before this match was how antsy he always was. It makes him worth watching even in moments of lower importance and it made him an incredible heel. In a match like this, in which he transforms from a cocky challenger who’s also something of an antagonist to being a full blown hero by the end of the match, he never loses that and super impressively finds a way to turn it in his benefit. It means against a cur like YUTA, the impulsiveness and stubbornness is turned into a virtue. Wheeler YUTA doesn’t necessarily inspire me to want to see someone take a pound of flesh out of him, but the longer this goes and the more the contrast between the two gets to play out, the better it feels in those moments where Garcia can catch Wheeler sleeping and throw out a wild shot or desperately try and grab a hold.

The major weakness of the match is that in the last ten to fifteen minutes, this loses something. Part of that is that the draw becomes more obvious. Part of that is that they repeat themselves here and there. Some of that has a point, such as Garcia struggling with the grip on one hold and finally getting it near the end before time runs out. Sometimes it’s not that. They lean a lot on chop exchanges too, and generally just kind of run out the clock (until the final minute or two of Dan finally getting that move on), but in a way that benefits the match. The real thing is just that sixty minutes

All the same, there is so much to love.

The character stuff they do from start to finish is just about perfect. The performance from Garcia is pristine and fully accomplishes the goal of elevating him into being on of the best wrestlers in the world. The performance of YUTA isn’t quite there, but it’s his best one yet as a villain, and the gap between #1 and #2 is astronomical. Mechanically, it’s just about perfect aside from the repetition. The strikes are all great looking and mostly great sounding. The holds are all tight and mean and good as hell. It always feels like they’re wrestling with a purpose or a goal, trying to convey something. Most importantly, there’s almost always this sense of struggle. Garcia or YUTA is always trying to fight back or grabbing something extra hard, or throwing in a shot just because. If nothing else, every part of this feels like a battle in a way that a major independent wrestling match hasn’t since Timothy Thatcher left.

They get so much right that what isn’t totally perfect doesn’t really bother me. Sure, it’s the reason this isn’t even better, but it’s a ratio that overwhelmingly favors the bright spots. At some point, there’s no need to dwell upon the negative.

Like anything like this in the past, and like things like this in the future (as there is no way, once again, that the lesson learned here by independent wrestlers isn’t simply that longer = better), the praise in the moment has been hyperbolic. The negative reaction to that praise and the buzz for this matches and matches like it will be just as hyperbolic. Young guys are going to go too long and do too much. They’re kids and they want everything, because we all do. Many lack the experience, proper instinct, and patience to do it right, and it’s always the right call to be cautious when guys like this go an hour. All of this has happened before and all of this will happen again.

If more of those ultra-ambitious attempts got as much right as this did, it wouldn’t be anything to be cautious about to begin with.

A true accomplishment.

***1/2