Baron Corbin vs, Kalisto, WWE TLC (12/4/2016)

This was the dreaded CHAIRS MATCH.

Wonderful business.

It’s not complex, a classic big vs. small guy, with the aid of about a hundred chairs to cover up for the several deficiencies of yet another WWE Project big guy. The sort of bullshit that, when not undercut in any other way, will virtually always work.

The best way to cover up for that, it turns out, is to also employ a very gifted smaller wrestler and to have him take a bunch of really really REALLY vicious, violent, and flat out disgusting bumps onto and through all sorts of combinations of steel chairs. While there are, certainly, better and smarter ways to have matches, sometimes a well executed shortcut is as fun as anything else, and it’s why this match and precious few other Baron Corbin matches manage to stand something roughly approximating the test of time.

One of the year’s more fun pieces of bullshit, and if not for another match yet to come in 2016, easily Corbin’s career work.

***

Kalisto vs. Rusev, WWE Extreme Rules (5/22/2016)

This was for Kalisto’s WWE U.S. Title.

It’s sort of a foregone conclusion since Rusev has a renewed push lately and Kalisto’s been largely forgotten and abandoned to midcard hell with the title for the last few months, yet another victim of the WWE reverting to form after briefly accidentally going with something cool. Everyone’s kind of known what’s going to happen since the match was first announced, with the only real drama coming out of people maybe wanting to try and delay the inevitable (Kalisto being fully abandoned in the WWE) and trying to cheer Kalisto on.

Of course none of that matters.

Predictable matches can still kick a lot of ass, and this kicks a whole lot of ass.

Kalisto is an ultra sympathetic babyface and a gigantic bump freak. Rusev is a stellar big man wrestler and an even better monster with a lot of real impressive offense to do. It is a natural marriage, and despite a short runtime and them clearly not reaching the ceiling that it feels like this match has, it’s an astoundingly good time in the most simple ways. Increasingly violent and mean-spirited cut offs by Rusev, increasingly deranged bumps by Kalisto, awesome little comebacks, perfect selling of a smaller flying attack by Rusev, all of it. The sort of match that succeeds less because of the heights that some portions of the match reach, and more because how good all of it is.

It just kind of helps out that the match ends with two real nasty bits also.

Rusev wins the title back first with a throw of Kalisto off the top onto the apron in the sort of wildly reckless back bump you don’t get to see a lot of in the WWE, and then by following with the all-time God Damner of an Accolade, holding Kalisto back in on himself in a real gross way.

Rusev wins the title, and gets heated up for a fall time-killer feud against one of the five people in the company who matter. Kalisto goes back to not doing a whole lot, before eventually realizing in six to twelve months like many before him that the only outcome of trying real hard in the WWE is eventually getting hurt, and stops doing that quite so much. All results that just about anyone could have seen coming, as frustrating as always from this company, but still occasionally made worthwhile by the constant threat of matches like this to break loose at a moment’s notice.

One of the hidden gems of the year. 

***

Kalisto vs. Alberto Del Rio, WWE Smackdown (1/14/2016)

This was for Kalisto’s recently won WWE U.S. Title.

It’s great.

The old joke is always that you could tell when Del Rio was going to win a match based on his performance in it, at least when he was capable of being a great wrestler. It’s not a joke though. It’s not the only thing that factors into a Del Rio match being good or bad, motivation can come and go for other reasons, and not every win is going to result in the same effort, but mostly, it’s true. Go through the cagematch profile or your spreadsheets or just your memory, and almost every great Del Rio match is one that he wins. Given the breadth of his bad traits and actions, time’s turned it into a funny little thing more than anything else, a tell in retrospect of how matches are going to go. (although I imagine many of his opponents find it far less funny, which, hey, fair.)

A few minutes into this, when Del Rio has a skip in his step and is putting something into it like he hasn’t since those few great ROH matches in 2015, the result of this becomes apparent, especially given the lesser nature of the recent match in which Kalisto first beat Albert for the title.

That’s a flaw that this match has, so obviously announcing early on how it’s going to end.

Of course, that’s one of the only real ones there are to be found here, outside of having to hear Mauro Ranallo’s voice on the call.

Kalisto is psychotic enough as a bump freak to match Del Rio’s winning-induced mania on offense, and they have this delightful television match that’s equal parts violent and snappy and just outright fun. As much as some of Kalisto’s bumping matches Al’s psychotic tendencies, in particular the missed Tope Con Giro that leads to the finish, his offense is just as snappy and, in its own way, a little violent as well. There’s a little extra emphasis on things like his multiple-rotation corkscrew crossbody or the mid 2000s Sydal vs. Styles snap on his rana near the end that makes him out to be something more than just the underdog. Smaller and faster, yes, but capable of angry responses himself.

It makes enough of a difference to make this match, and eventually this series, into something a little more memorable.

Del Rio eventually finds the result to justify his performance, going after the hurt arm that Kalisto sold beautifully all match, and regaining the title with the Cross Armbreaker to really kick the series off.

An incredibly impressive effort in a situation (Smackdown in early 2016) that absolutely did not require one. Even if the reasons for that effort are not always ideal, it’s hard to argue with the results.

***1/4

The New Day vs. The Usos vs. The Lucha Dragons, WWE TLC (12/13/2015)

This was a ladder match for the New Day’s WWE World Tag Team Titles.

It’s a big dumb stunt show and I absolutely love it.

The trick is both a total honesty about that and also the ability to fill the match with big spot ideas that are both incredibly cool and fairly novel. This match also makes clear distinctions between the teams and wrestlers in the match in interesting ways (Big E is strong, Kalisto is the littlest but has the craziest brain, The Usos need to work in tandem to succeed), and it allows for some tension and struggle at all times. Everyone tries to take Big E out, and it always allows the space for Kofi Kingston to sneak around and so some stuff, and it’s how New Day hangs on despite this match being wildly out of the element of half the line up that they went with in this match. It’s a nice touch, and the sort of thought a match like this needs put into it to exist on a level beyond just shouting “COOL!” over and over for fifteen minutes and to stay in my mind for years like this has.

The one major spot also helps out, and if you’ve seen the match, I don’t even have to say more than that.

For the children though:

It’s the high point of the match, but not the end.

With Kalisto and That Uso being taken out, the other tries to handle Big E for good with an equally God damning splash off the top to Big E under a ladder lying on the floor. It’s the same sort of a move that removes someone at the price of also removing yourself, and shows the value Big E brings even when he can’t climb. The pro wrestling version of the gravity that a great shooter in basketball or a great receiver in football gives you. Kalisto manages to get up, as Sin Cara II has just somehow vanished, but Woods gets on the apron and delightfully hurls the trombone at his back. He’s distracted, and Kofi hurls him flipping off the ladder in another wholly unnecessary and wonderful bump, before Kofi pulls down the weird thing the belts are on in WWE and nowhere else.

A great match, but historically, largely a framework for one of the greatest spots of all time.

It’s a god damner of a thing, the sort of spot that belongs in highlight reels for years and years and years (obviously you feature and retain the sort of talent who can do this…). Like the match itself, if the WWE had any idea of how to canonize their history, or if they cared to, this would have a far greater reputation than it does. Better matches than this have suffered from the same problem, but it’s always a little bit of a bummer when you finish a great WWE pay per view match and come to that same realization.

If nothing else, the one spot at least seems to have had some staying power, which is more than you can usually say for a match like this.

***1/4

The Young Bucks vs. AR Fox/Samuray Del Sol, PWG Is Your Body Ready? (6/15/2013)

This was for the Bucks’ PWG World Tag Team Titles.

It’s the first of two major farewells on the show, as Samuray Del Sol will soon go off to the retirement community in Orlando. We went into detail on the shame of it when discussing his final match in EVOLVE, but that doesn’t make it any less of a shame now. It might even be said to be much more of a shame, because he just got to PWG, and it was a much better fit than EVOLVE might have ever been. Everyone always talks about the shame of a guy like Biff Busick signing so young, or the rush of 2018 through the present, but Del Sol leaving so soon is one of the big unheralded wastes of the decade too.

A great match, of course.

It doesn’t really come close to something like the Bucks/Dojo Bros series or the big ICMG vs. Fox/Del Sol match from the previous All Star Weekend, but it’s great all the same. It’s overlong and a little too indulgent. I’d love to say it’s the start of that from the Bucks and maybe a sign of what’s to come once their 2011-2015 peak period starts to come to an end, but that wouldn’t be true. It’s always been part of them. Their best work comes during the period of time in which that was kept under wraps the best, but it’s always going to peak its way out every now and then, because it’s who they are. It’s unfortunate when it comes out, it’s even more unfortunate when it goes back to being the whole deal, only now played as if it’s something to be admired and not reviled.

And yet, this is fun as hell. The usual Bucks clowning around that’s almost always responded to with them eating shit and/or getting their ass kicked, as it should be. Del Sol and AR Fox both do a bunch of really wonderful and spectacular offense. The story here is as simple as always, with the Bucks being an actual tag team up against amateurs in the field. A lot goes right and the challengers come close, but something is constantly wrong. A classic 15% spot, not knowing which one of them is the legal man, all of these little mistakes that wind up blowing them the lead every time. It all feels like a dynastic blue blood team in a big game up against one that hasn’t ever been here before, and has no idea how to act like they have. A thousand things have to break right for them to have a prayer, and one or two have to break wrong for them to blow it all.

In the end, things keep breaking wrongly and the Bucks’ plan finally works. They’re able to separate the upstarts and keep Fox outside. More Bang For Your Buck puts Samuray down, and sends him on his way.

Took like five minutes too long to get there, but what works about this match REALLY REALLY works.

***1/4

Johnny Gargano vs. Samuray Del Sol, EVOLVE 22 (6/2/2013)

This was for Gargano’s Open the Freedom Gate Title.

On Del Sol’s last night in the company before unfortunately essentially going off to Florida (a different part) to retire, save for a shockingly decent December 2015 – December 2016 run, he finally gets a shot at the title. It’s as much a big match farewell for him as it is the first major showcase of the new John Boy heel character. It’s the role model disingenuous heel stuff. He didn’t invent it, it’s not really anything new, but he’s very very good at it. The highlight is dragging a child over during his entrance when the kid is wandering around and forcing him into a photo op, like he’s doing this tired child a favor or something. Incredibly smarmy stuff. Immediately want to see him get his ass kicked.

The child then gives him a big thumbs down. Get ’em, kid.

As for the match itself, I think you know what you’ll get. Gargano’s heel act is a lot less grating than anything he’s done in that role on NXT television, but it’s still not quite on the level as the more wholesome babyface work. Gargano’s a major victim of the Christian thing, where he looks like a heel and has a certain detestable quality to him, but works in the ring better as a babyface. Del Sol takes a lot of huge bumps though, and Gargano is never in control for so long that the match gets dull. It’s ultimatelt a showcase for the new character as much as anything else, but with Del Sol on his way out the door, it’s hard to argue that it’s the wrong decision. He could have looked stronger and done more, but he’s off to (in theory, lol) make money for someone else instead, so what’s the point?

There’s a really wonderful last half to this at least, up to a point. They only ever got the one chance together and they make the most of it. In front of a more lively crowd than the one here at the wonderful Orpheum in Ybor City, FL and maybe in front of more people, I think this would be elevated a level. It’s the sort of match a hot crowd can really help out, although they do get them at the end when they start doing dumber and worse stuff, along with going too long, in a clear appeal to the Florida Mindset.

Great heel finish as John Boy tears the mask off before getting the GargaNo Escape on to win when SDS is too busy protecting his face to block it.

***