Fire Ant/Jigsaw/Nick Jackson/Player Dos/Helios/Green Ant/Frightmare/Cloudy vs. Soldier Ant/Mike Quackenbush/Matt Jackson/Player Uno/Lince Dorado/Carpenter Ant/Hallowicked/Cheech, CHIKARA Cibernético Increible (10/18/2009)

Commissions continue again, this one coming from frequent contributor YB. You can be like them and pay me to write about all types of stuff. People tend to choose wrestling matches, but very little is entirely off the table, so long as I haven’t written about it before (and please, come prepared with a date or show name or something if it isn’t obvious). You can commission a piece of writing of your choosing by heading on over to www.ko-fi.com/elhijodelsimon. The current rate is $5/match or thing or $10 for anything over an hour, and if you have some aim that cannot be figured out through simple multiplication, feel free to hit the DMs on Twitter or Ko-fi. 

This was the annual Torneo Cibernetico match.

For the uninitiated or simply less initiated, this is an eight vs. eight tag team match with a set entry order or batting order to make it more easily understood, but since many of you are less American and/or big nerds, it means you can only tag out to the person next in line (or they have to come in next if, under lucha tag rules, you leave the ring). There are eliminations through the usual methods, and should one team have more than one man left at the very end, the will have to fight until one is left.

It can — in that it has in the past and will in the future — result in some of the better and more memorable CHIKARA matches ever, such as 2005’s one-hundred plus minute one (loved it at the time, plan on never ever watching it again so present me can never find what I’m sure are a thousand flaws), 2010’s all-time CHIKARA bullshit masterpiece of the CHIKARA team vs. the BDK which was one of the best of that year, and 2012’s similarly great CHIKARA vs. ROH edition.

That is not entirely the case here.

More often than not, these matches have some unifying story, if not tying together most of the major ones in the company. Usually team captains who are feuding and a month away from meeting in a blow-off match at the end of the season. It doesn’t always lead to the greatest combinations at the end or winners, CHIKARA being CHIKARA and all, but there’s usually a guiding concept and a focus behind everything.

Except in 2009, when — as CHIKARA seemed to do most of the year, likely sensing the chance afforded by the sudden change in Ring of Honor — the match became more about simply delivering a great match.

There were two major problems with this.

Firstly, a little less impactfully, was the choice to split eight tag teams up in a parejas increibles style, which is both a novelty that wears off after about half the match, and also something that doesn’t feel explored nearly enough (the two might be related). I’m not really sure how it would work with the batting order unless the got a little boring with it, at least at the start, but I think that might have solved some of the issues this had with repetition, if the company was always so inclined to make this edition of the match a lighter and faster fireworks-based display.

Secondly, and more obviously, it’s a little long and not everyone is all that great in it. There’s a longer Lince Dorado vs. Frightmare section in the middle that’s real real average where the match first begins to lose momentum, but in general, they go too fast from the start for a near fifty minute thing, eliminations or not. That first third or first half or so is a lot of fun, a million moving parts and them all mostly working crisply, but when nothing develops out of that and it never really escalates into a higher level fireworks show, combined with some more flubs and miscues coming later in the match, something gets lost. There’s a moment when the go to a mini dive train when the pace and intensity begins to mount, only to then go back to a lighter medium-grade back and forth, and it feels like it never totally finds its footing on such a high level again. The match, again in a CHIKARA Cibernetico, also misuses its assets, opting to showcase the Pinkie Sanchez in disguise fraud Carpenter Ant as its winner, and never quite becomes all it can be as a result of these choices.

Peak CHIKARA (07-11) being what it was though, something about it still works.

Between the pace, the gimmick always keeping things somewhat fresh, a line up this good (at the time), and a construction that at least keeps enough quality pieces around until the end even if a loser idea is the focal point, there’s something entertaining happening far more often than there isn’t. The combinations of guys like the original ants, Hallowicked, Quack, Jigsaw, the Bucks when they were just fun little flip dealers, the same for a masked Ricochet, etc., are all really good, and if underachieving, it’s a match that is almost always offering up good wrestling, and that very often drifts into great wrestling, as poorly organized as it all is.

Essentially, a fireworks show that never really builds and lacks the grand finale of the great ones, but that still offers up enough bright lights in enough interesting patterns to be worth my while.

The match isn’t perfect. Above all, it might be an example that in a match like this, you have to turn it up or go somewhere at some point. All the same, there are no major infuriating sins, it’s a forty to fifty minute long match that never becomes excruciatingly long, and there’s just too much breezy and good wrestling in it.

It’s just a little too much fun not to like.

***1/5

AJ Styles vs. Rey Mysterio vs. Ricochet vs. Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Robert Roode, WWE Raw (9/23/2019)

This was an elimination number one contenders match.

I’m not gonna tell you you have to see it.

You don’t, really.

What it is is thirteen or fourteen minutes of cool moves, that’s constructed incredibly well and led by two of the best wrestlers of all time in Rey Mysterio and AJ Styles. It’s not going to make a single list, except maybe like best WWE TV matches in this specific September, maybe. It is, however, less talked about — both overall and in hyper-niche circles full of people who know about deeper WWE TV cuts — and a match that impressed me more than a lot of the other big multi-man WWE matches this year (primarily those prestige ass gauntlet attempts that are never ever able to recapture the 2013 Bryan magic) and a bunch of other stuff that I watched and either was not moved in the slightest by or found too boring to write about in what is, essentially, just combing for anything this year I didn’t get to initially.

Basically, I liked it more than I expected to, and since I had never heard about it, I thought someone out there might too.

AJ Styles and/or Rey Mysterio is almost constantly in the ring holding the hands of everyone else in there, and the match is relatively short enough for how many people are involved that the less skilled or currently skilled guys like Nakamura, Ricochet, and Roode really only have to do a few things here or there. Ricochet only has to the big sensational things, Roode has to do a few things and be a base/foil for Rey in the last ninety seconds, and Nakamura really only has to hit a few knee strikes. Everything else is either offense from one of the greatest offensive wrestlers ever, a bump from one of them, or something set up between the two of them (and while again limited, AJ and Mysterio seem more and more comfortable together every time).

Mysterio beats Bob Roo with the 619 and Frog Splash.

Really good and borderline great television bullshit, light and breezy and full of cool stuff but exactly short enough to not ask anything too overzealous, anchored and built around two of the best television wrestlers of the century so far. Inessential, but another reminder of just how easy it all can be.

three boy

Adam Cole vs. Ricochet, WWE NXT Takeover Brooklyn IV (8/18/2018)

This was for Cole’s NXT North American Title.

I’ve always had a soft spot for this match.

That is not to say I think it is one of the best matches of the year. That is not to say I think it is even the second best match on this show or probably even a top five match of this specific weekend. If you factor in SummerSlam the next night, various independents (including one in Ireland that won’t be written about for Reasons, but that had one of the best matches of the entire year, even on rewatch with some value lost. not sure why I felt like disclosing that here, but this is where it is being disclosed. move on.), and all of that, it may not make the top ten.

But I like it a lot.

Especially considering that these two, at this point especially relative to the last seven or eight years, are not exactly my favorite wrestlers. The NXT version of Adam Cole is probably my least favorite one, even if he hasn’t been totally ruined by this point (not allowed to have thirty minute singles matches yet), and any version of Ricochet once he goes bald, stops ever working as an antagonist, and becomes a Good At Everything style wrestler is also real far from what I would consider any kind of ideal version of him.

The trick is probably that this is only fifteen minutes.

You can still lose a few minutes here and there, there’s one real annoying strike exchange, an NXT Face or moment or two, and Ricochet still feels the need to show off that he can do hard elbow strikes (seriously guys! he’s not just a high flier! he’s a Real Wrestler!), but they have so much less time to waste on nonsense, or things that are not really cool.

Ricochet, and I guess also Adam Cole, also have some remarkably cool stuff to do.

Cole’s mid-moonsault Superkick to an upside down Ricochet is the obvious one people always go to — and for good reason, it hits perfectly and looks even more impressive in slow motion — but there’s more than just that. Ricochet takes a real gross Christian style bump (the tumble over the top to the apron from a sitting position on the top buckle) in transition, and the Fosbury Flop and leaping Rana over the top to take Cole off the apron to the floor also pretty spectacular too. Furthermore, they’re also all set up very well in the match, either being in the exact right place or like the Superkick or Rana, being built up to by what came right before it and having real value in the matcch (Ricochet catching the Shawn/Shelton superkick, leading to a totally unique new way to do it & Cole rolling to the apron for safety at the end, but finding none, going right into the finish).

Given how much will go wrong in the future in NXT with matches like this, it’s genuinely very impressive how much this got right, although anyone who thinks REALLY highly of this on like a match of the year level is a genuine psychopath and should be put in the SUPERMAN II space jail.

One of the great triumphs of the NXT system, as maybe one last time, they put these more limited wrestlers in a position to show off all of their strengths, and severely limit their ability to put their weaknesses on display.

What a concept.

***

Undisputed Era vs. Ricochet/Mustache Mountain, WWE NXT (6/27/2018)

Three great ones (aired) in three days.

Of the three, this is the best one. That‘s not to say it is without sin. In the process of moving the match back home to Florida, you get some NXTism creep in, particularly a real goofy NXT Face from Kyle near the end of the match when he gets caught doing something, meaning he stands still for like ten seconds in shock while Ricochet dives on him. There’s the sort of smaller scale goofy stuff you’re just going to get from most of these guys too. For the most part though, it comes close than the other two towards being the best match that it can be. 

Largely, it is just a better version of the six man tag from the United Kingdom Championship Tournament show that aired two days prior.

It has the obvious advantage of increased familiarity and a better aim (a match that sees the British — one of whom is, you know by now — lose, even as protagonists, is always at the advantage to one that asks me to cheer their success), but Dunne to Ricochet is a significant upgrade in a match like this. It‘s a point that could be argued either way in another match, but in a pure fireworks show against wrestlers like Cole, Kyle, and especially Roddy, Ricochet offers so much that Dunne cannot. Not only that he’s a more exciting and more practiced babyface hot tag than Dunne, who could be fairly called wildly wildly wildly out of his element there, but he takes bigger bumps, and on a more basic level, he simply has bigger and cooler fireworks to contribute to the overall show. 

What also really works here that didn‘t before is that the match makes a significant change in the first half in terms of who is getting beaten up this time. You can also put a lot of it down to Kyle being meaner than ever in control or Cole feeling like an even scummier basic moves and cheating grifter than ever, but so much of it simply comes down to putting Bate in that role, rather than Seven or a rotating third man. Now that Tyler Bate doesn‘t have to handle part of the hot tag run like he did in the six man, or like he did in the tag team title switch, he can be the man isolated and put in peril, rather than his tag team match. The zit eater is not without sin, but he is infinitely more likeable, naturally sympathetic, and has flat out better wrestling instincts than the old sex creep on the apron. 

Essentially, this is a match that fixes some of the talent-based and/or role-based issues in the two previous tags, and then that works in the same ways those did as well.

The big final third, our traditional fireworks show, is again real great, and also probably the cleanest and most spectacular one yet. Like how Roddy, Kyle, and Cole being in there helped British Strong Style channel their obvious influences a little better than usual, adding in another guy in Ricochet who has actually done a bunch of high level tag, six-mans, and the like fireworks shows before helps even further. With the numbers stacked more in the favor of people with experience doing this successfully rather than simply imitating the originals, it instead turns more and more into Bate‘s significant talents (and his partner’s more modest ones, I suppose) simply being plugged into another one of those steady and easy hits. 

Following a better everyone-hits-a-strike sextuple down sequence than in the first six man, Ricochet finally gets Cole all alone while in pursuit of his singles title, only for Kyle to pull the referee out to break up a sure thing pinfall. Ricochet dives onto him with one of his more reckless looking/feeling Tope Suicidas ever (this is 100% a positive, and a good thing NXT did for him), only for the Rod Dog to immediately hurl him into the lip of the apron with the End of Heartache. Cole, as he‘s done all match, simply takes advantage of the work of his pals, and pins Ricochet for the win. 

It‘s wonderful and beautiful stuff, blemishes and all. Not exactly Horsemen/Dangerous Alliance stuff here, but the closest thing NXT could ever imaginably come to television like that, simply letting great wrestlers loose for ten or fifteen minutes, led by the best wrestler they’ve got, and seeing what comes of it. The feeling is not quite the same, but matches like this are the closest NXT has come to being an exciting weekly television show (in addition to simply being a functional one) since whoever had to fill his shoes ran out of Dusty’s old scripts some time in late 2015. 

Stellar wrestling television.

***+

 

Adam Cole vs. Ricochet vs. Lars Sullivan vs. EC3 vs. Killian Dain vs. Velveteen Dream, WWE NXT Takeover New Orleans (4/7/2018)

This was a ladder match to determine the inaugural NXT North American Champion.

Somewhere, in perhaps a more sensible world, there exists the absolute best possible version of this match.

At a few points here, we get windows into that world.

Looking at the match as a whole, from a few hundred feet away, there’s so much to love about it.

It does the thing all great multi-man ladder matches do, throwing together a bunch of different kinds of wrestlers and characters. Adam Cole and the pedophile and sort of EC3 are cowards but also all different types of cowards (big bumper in Cole, more of a show-stealer big moves guy in Dream, 90s style muscle heel in Carter) and do a lot of variations on the theme, then you have your monsters in Dain and Sullivan, and Ricochet is there to do a bunch of cool stuff as your big athletic babyface.

The match is also just filled with a ton of really really cool stuff, mostly executed perfectly. Multiple really cool Ricochet dive sequences, big guys throwing ladders into piles of guys, hurling multiple guys around at once, people being thrown through ladder bridges, sick moves off of ladders, all of that. Not only does it all benefit from that WWE production and sheen, filmed as well as possible, but it’s also done really well. There are problems with the construction in a larger sense, but in another, it at least all escalates very well.

Sadly, as it is, we live in this world and WWE and, in a more annoying sense, NXT as a brand, simply are what they are, and so this match is what it is.

Which is to say that, for some reason, this lasts half an hour.

Everything is bigger and more obvious and so fucking drawn out so they get as much juice out of every morsel as possible, and never in the sort of way I might express admiration for. Everything comes with a crazy face. There’s enough downtime between things that it becomes distracting, ALMOST like it comes from someone who thinks things either are moved on from immediately or sold like death forever with no area in between for anything else. There’s also just so much of everything, and like a third of it is totally inessential, on top of this not being anywhere near talented enough of a line up to really sustain this sort of a thing for as long as they’re asked to.

It also doesn’t help at all that, at all times, the world’s most annoying man is shouting about every move that happened and relating it to any current even he can think of so you will think he’s cool.

Having said all that, it is still a really exceptional fireworks show. On top of being the first WWE ladder match in years to really feel like they were doing new stuff (do not confuse this, of course, this is not to say it’s even close to the best of the decade), and one that despite the problems of almost everything on big NXT shows at this point, gets most of the bigger and more important things right.

A great match, and an even better two and a half minute highlight reel.

***

Spiked Mohicans vs. YAMATO/Kzy, DG Gate of Evolution 2017 Night Three (11/8/2017)

Before leaving for the WWE, Ricochet ditches the confines of his deeply boring New Japan run to return home for a little run, ending here with a reunion with his dad CIMA against two perfect opponents.

Spiked Mohicans along with that entire first few years of Ricochet in Dragon Gate at CIMA’s side, to me, represents the artistic peak of Ricochet’s career (give or take the El Generico series in PWG), and a show of just what he could have been. Largely held by the hand and plugged into a system rather than asked to lead himself, Ricochet was not only allowed to lean entirely upon his unreal athleticism, but cast in a position he’s rarely been cast in anywhere else. He is not an especially likeable presence, and his turn as an arrogant athletic marvel from 2010 through 2012 or so is the only real time he’s worked as a character too, and that his matches haven’t insisted on carrying an extra burden with them.

This match isn’t exactly a return to those ideas. The Ricochet who shows up here is still bald and bearded and ripped 2017 Ricochet. He throws out some power moves, strikes more, and in smaller doses, is as frustrating as he’s been for a while now. It’s a farewell stop that he didn’t have to make on his way to a big money contract, it’s not the sort of thing that’s really outright maddening, but it is what it is. 2011 Ricochet isn’t walking through that door.

However, it also isn’t not a return to those ideas.

Just by virtue of so often being against Kzy, and of teaming with CIMA against a wrestler like Kzy. Having become Dragon Gate’s best babyface in the year since Akira Tozawa left and with Masato Yoshino slowing down, Kzy is the sort of wrestler who sort of naturally brings it out of people, or at least naturally casts them as antagonists, turning every match in which he gets to really cook something up into being his story. When Kzy gets worked over for the middle of the match, even if Ricochet isn’t taunting him constantly or doing overtly showy spots (in an antagonistic way anyways), he’s still working from above against one of wrestling’s most compelling underdogs, and so thinks sort of work themselves out.

Mostly though, it’s just a great fireworks show.

Four wrestlers with a ton of real sick offense put on a stellar display in front of a typically receptive Korakuen Hall crowd. The Ricochet vs. Kzy run at the end is especially great and in general, Ricochet looks better than he has in a real long time here, cut down in large part to the most sensational pieces of offense in the finishing run, and plugged into a few key spots.

The only real disappointment is the end result, with Kzy losing to the Meteora followed by Ricochet’s Shooting Star Press, but again, that is the game we are playing. With extra eyes on the proceedings and in a big spot that matters, CIMA was never going to allow himself to lose, or more importantly, to be on the losing team, and so we get what we got. Usually, it happens in matches that aren’t nearly as much fun as this was.

A lovely departure from Dragon Gate for Ricochet, showing one last time that even if he can’t be fixed entirely anymore, there is just something about this environment that brings out the most acceptable version of him that exists at any point in time.

***

Prince Puma vs. Mil Muertes, Lucha Underground 3×21 ~ “SUDDEN DEATH” (6/7/2017)

This was a BOYLE HEIGHTS STREET FIGHT.

Again with these two, I don’t think they ever topped their first match.

There are a few reasons for that, not just that the first and highest stakes version of a thing is often the one that feels the most important and that sees the absolute best they’re capable of.

Part of that is also because that got to be a longer match. Part of that, and this is maybe the most important part, is that that was a normal match and not a brawl, which is not the environment in which Prince Puma/Ricochet does his best work. It’s also something that doesn’t always feel super genuine in Lucha Underground, either being the coolest thing they’ve ever done when it works right, or the sort of thing that most of their gimmick matches hit inadvertantly, where it’s very clear from a lot of the editing and how cleanly spots and set ups and weapons work out that this is a TV show first and foremost.

Again with these two, it still rocks.

Really, it is fun as hell to see Ricochet, mask or not, hurled into and through a bunch of things and it is also as fun as hell (not more fun than hell, standards must be upheld) to see a guy as cool as Mil Muertes throw people into and through stuff also. Combine the two, and shockingly, two great tastes taste great together. That theory holds true even here, when this match — the brawling and weapons version of this match — is something we’ve seen before, or to extend the metaphor, is a taste we’ve already experienced.

One thing they do add in successfully now is a better finish than the last time, or at least than the last time that Prince Puma got to win.

The major problem with a lot of their rematches of that initial contest was that, when presented straight up, Puma beating Mil Muertes — even removed from him being an undead monster — is a pretty big ask in terms of believability. It’s not a huge size difference exactly so much as it is these two specific wrestlers. I do not believe he can cleanly defeat him, or at least that he can out and out pin him entirely on his own.

In this match, they remove “entirely on his own” and “cleanly” and come up with a finish that not only makes that result a thousand times more palatable, but that genuinely whips ass and that should end any match in which it happens.

Mil Muertes survives the big move flurry that beat him in their last match that could end by pinfall, discounting Grave Consequences III, and is about to run through him like he always should. Only, this time sees Vampiro get up for some Lucha Underground reasons that I am a solid season and a half past caring about and hand Prince Puma a brick. Mil charges in again, only for Puma to swing and break a brick across Mil Muertes’ skull. It looks great both in the crack and the dust that comes out and the angle which it’s shot at, becoming the rare Late Period LU spot like that that moves past the TV presentation to still hit on a lizard brain sort of a level.

Undead, not entirely human, whatever, a brick across the face is a believable finish to any match, and if Prince Puma has to beat Mil Muertes (he doesn’t, but Mil’s booking is another thing entirely), this is one of the best ways to do it that they’ve come up with yet.

This is still something of a tired pairing as a result of the decline of Lucha Underground in it last season and a half, but it’s still one of the last things they have that’s anywhere near this good or this reliable, as this match well shows. Once again, a glimmer of how much fun this show used to be, and occasionally, how much fun it still can be.

***

Will Ospreay vs. Ricochet, NJPW Best of the Super Juniors Night Two (5/18/2017)

This was an A Block match in the 2017 Best of the Super Juniors tournament.

In 2016, I actually really liked this match up.

(The first two times anyways, EVOLVE and then the famous one.)

Definitely, it was dumb and flawed, certainly ideologically offensive, and all the other stuff I don’t need to go into again, both because I already wrote about it and also because it was one of the most annoying pieces of Disc Horse I’ve personally lived through on the wrestling internet. Mostly though, it was one of those things that just worked. Slightly different generations of fliers getting mad at each other, a real energy to it all, and the exact right balance to the match that stops it from ever entirely feeling like two guys just jerking off out there. The exact best case scenario for these two and these two against each other.

This match loses that balance.

In 2016, Ricochet and Ospreay had an ultra memorable match that succeeded because it knew exactly what it was, and did that exact thing as well as possible. In 2017, they reach for so much more, don’t have anywhere near the grip that they imagine, and come up with a lot less they had on the last go around.

Still, I’m not going to say this is bad.

For all of the bits where overly complex stuff falls apart or where there’s a real mid level apron spot that feels less important and nasty than lame and convoluted or the long (loooooooooooong) strike exchange spots that seem shoved in there as yet another attempt by both men to show that they’re Great Wrestlers, there’s still some genuinely spectacular stuff there. Ricochet’s work in control is also better than usual, again accessing a kind of natural meanness and unlikeable nature that he hasn’t tapped into quite so often in years (again, a key to Ricochet’s peak being like 2010-2013 was working like this so often), even if it was all ultimately a little foolish given that Will Ospreay is among the least sympathetic human beings in all of professional wrestling. Some of the new ideas they have on offense are real stunning as well, and while this is a match that goes like twenty to thirty minutes, there is a stellar sixteen or seventeen minutes here that might have been the sequel that they badly wanted this to be.

Mostly though, it’s just A Lot. Too long, too complex, and in general, just too much.

This is a match that clearly feels the weight of expectations in a way their past work didn’t, and it’s never totally able to shake this off.

It’s had to call this particular match a warning against sequels when it comes to wrestling like this, when the December 2016 OTT match is out there and is genuinely awful while this is just Not Great. All the same, it’s a clear attempt and failure to top the original hit, and yet another display that when it comes to wrestling like this, lightning rarely strikes twice in the same place.

Hiromu Takahashi vs. Ricochet, NJPW Wrestling Toyonokuni (4/29/2017)

This was for Takahashi’s IWGP Junior Heavyweight Title.

A match like this is always a gamble, a roll of the dice, and this time they throw them down, it just so happens to turn out pretty well. Not like, the highest possible score you could get, but pretty good. Certainly enough that I find it worth praising, not only given how poorly it could have gone instead, but also given that like ninety to ninety five percent of this is incredibly fun.

Not to confuse any of you, this is an enormously dumb match.

It is all fireworks.

This cake is at least half frosting.

However, these are some good ass fireworks and it is some rich ass frosting. This is what I want out of matches like this. If you’re going to just do offense, you need to make it cool, make the most of it somehow. If you’re going to do something, commit with your entire heart, and that is what this match does. This is a contest between two maniacs, and while Hiromu is deranged on a nearly unrivaled level, Ricochet does his best. It’s the sort of manic Ricochet performance that we haven’t seen in a while at this point, the sort of thing he’s learned not to waste on EVOLVE or most PWG shows, but to save for the big stuff, televised or in front of a whole lot of people. It makes him less fun to watch on those smaller shows, but with an effort like this, it is hard to be too mad when those bigger events do come around. For Hiromu, it’s maybe the nuttiest performance he’s given outside of a Dragon Lee match yet. Gross bumping, bigger risks than usual and more of them than you’d expect, clearly once again motivated by someone who not only wants to do a match like this, but who is really great at doing matches like this.

It’s not perfect, even for this sort of a match, sadly.

They go a few minutes too long, the fireworks stop going up so high or flashing quite as brightly. A TIME BOMB kickout feels unnecessary given that everybody in the entire world knows Ricochet isn’t winning the title or any New Japan title, as he has been obviously been WWE bound the second he can get out of that Lucha Underground contract. People who have never seen wrestling know where Ricochet is going. Nobody has to pretend, it just hurts the move to let him do that. Likewise, Ricochet begins throwing a little too many strikes out there and it very briefly borders on becoming another one of these bullshit 2014-2017 Ricochet matches where he seems intent on showing what a Great Wrestler he is, rather than simply being great.

Hiromu and Ricochet pull the match back before too long is spent in this sort of area, but briefly, it does cross over from being dumb fun and becomes actually stupid. Even if it is impossibly hard to define, there is a difference, even if it only exists in that sort of Potter Stewart way. You know it when you see it, and all that. I know it when I see it, and the vast majority of this match was on the right side of that line.

On the second pass, Hiromu shuts Ricochet down with the TIME BOMB to hang onto the gold.

Tremendous dumb guy wrestling.

***

Drew Galloway/Will Ospreay/Lio Rush/Ryan Smile/Redacted vs. Ricochet/Sami Callihan/Dezmond Xavier/AR Fox/Jason Cade, WrestleCon Super Show 2017 (3/31/2017)

This is the year that WrestleMania Weekend becomes a whole thing, like ten thousand independent shows, and no match is a better example of how god damned annoying that was than this one.

A bunch of stuff in a row that ranged from decent to deeply awful and spiritually harmful, a ton of schtick as everyone was very tired from working like 20 shows over three days (Sami Callihan may have had the greatness forced from his body once and for all over the course of this weekend), a few cool things, but mostly an annoying match that lasts forever. The repetition of the previous year’s Ricochet/Ospreay Sequence going into a minutes long ten man dance contest is an especially lethal combination that is both hazardous to your health and a perfect example of this bullshit song and dance style of independent wrestling, before the stunt show resumes. The entire match feels like mandated fun, and that sequence illustrates that, and the entire ethos of the thing especially well.

If you’ve got a keen enough ear, you can hear the faint sounds in the background of WrestleMania Weekend leaping over a shark somewhere off screen, or at the very least, the sound of those jet skis hitting the water on the way down.