This was a B Block match in the 2017 World Tag Team League.
Even moreso than The Briscoes’ match the night before, this is an absolute treat.
While The Briscoes had been great consistently and relatively recently, to the point that it wasn’t surprising so much as it was a joy to see them against another tag team on their level again, The Rottweilers hadn’t teamed a whole lot in the last few years. One of those matches was really great and one of the most fun matches of the decade so far, but it was against old friends, and it was also nearly two years before this, and two years can be a long time. Homicide hasn’t exactly lit the world on fire in the 2010s and definitely not in more recent years. Low Ki is also Low Ki, a deeply temperamental lunatic who you can never really predict the results of from one match to the next, even if something has the opportunity to be remarkable. This is a match that, while I don’t think it could ever be bad, I could have easily seen not being all that great.
Fortunately, it is not only great, and better than I would have imagined, but it is flat out one of the very best matches of the year.
In large part, there is something to be said for the power of simply throwing four all-time great wrestlers in the ring and letting the thing rip. Homicide and Low Ki are motivated in ways they haven’t been since that 2015 Beyond Wrestling match against Da Hit Squad, with Homicide moving like, if not 2003, at least 2008. A real pep in his step, a ton of energy, taking bumps he doesn’t have to, doing little things that make the match better and more interesting (nearly doing a full rotation into the Tope Con Giro anyways when Thatcher cuts it off because he’s already doing the rotation is not only charming as hell, but makes it feel like an actual dive cut off, rather than someone stopping short so that the dive can be cut off as a set spot), and seeming like a real force of nature again. Low Ki isn’t quite as much of a revelation, already having given out one of 2017’s singular best performances five months prior, but he is just as much of a force of nature as always.
Mostly though, it is the choice this match made that sets it apart.
In the same way that Ringkampf essentially had a Briscoes style match the night before, this is a Rottweilers match through and through.
Homicide throwing a fit early on when outwrestled by Thatcher to take a page out of the first Homicide/Danielson match in April 2004, the match breaking down into a brawl around the building employing everything they can find worth using, and made complete with a bombfest in the back half that’s always way more chaotic feeling than most others like it. It’s not only a great reminder of just how great The Rottweilers are and of how different they are, but an unbelievable show of versatility from both WALTER and Timothy Thatcher. Ringkampf fits into a match like this so much more naturally than I think anybody would have expected, but that in retrospect, makes all of the sense in the world, leaning on physicality and authenticity above all.
While it’s not the sort of fight either WALTER or Thatcher usually has, it is still a match that feels like a real and genuine struggle, and so obviously, two masters at making other kinds of wrestling matches feel like that succeed in this way too. That same intensity, crispness, escalation, and sense of desperation they’re able to put into matwork and more traditional wrestling gets put into a frantic kind of a brawl, and it works maybe even better here than in their normal environment.
The match largely splits itself up into Thatcher/Homicide and WALTER/Low Ki pairings, and while I’d like more, given that the universe eventually gives us Low Ki vs. Timothy Thatcher a few years later, and given how great these pairings are, it’s hard to be too upset. They’re both perfect for each other, clashes of styles that not only brings out the best elements of all four, but casts them in the most interesting roles. Both Rottweilers are undersized and have to go wild to adjust, rather than the more even Ki/Thatcher match up, which not only gives the match a little more flavor, but also kind of explains why it went the way it did. To keep up with a big man at the peak of his powers, Low Ki has to go wild. Likewise, to avoid getting into the ring too long with Thatcher and being taken out of his element, Homicide largely forces the match outside and into a brawl.
In addition to the interesting way that the match is constructed, it’s also approached in an impressive way strategically, building to the specific result in the way that just makes the most sense.
Following Ringkampf’s success the day before when finally operating as a team, Homicide and Low Ki effectively do a louder and more pronounced version of the tactic that The Briscoes tried to use, splitting WALTER and Thatcher apart. It works for them in the way it didn’t for the Briscoes, because they go so much bigger with it. You can’t keep WALTER or Thatcher at bay, really, but when Low Ki double stomps the big guy off the top onto the ramp to the ring, they have the chance to do what the Briscoes never quite did, and gang up on Thatcher. He keeps taking Homicide one on one, but even as elder statesmen, nobody can take The Rottweilers two on one.
Homicide and Low Ki break out the Doomsday Ace Crusher, and while it’s not their best double team, it is certainly the only one that anyone could reasonably imagine Timothy Thatcher taking, and it nets them a feel good borderline upset.
Ringkampf goes one for two so far, but more importantly, two for two on the weekend in terms of next level endearingly great wrestling matches (they will go three for three, but we’re not gonna cover that third match here for reasons that are apparent if you look that Night Three card up) with legendary tag teams. That each feels like a totally different match and is them stepping out of their comfort zone is a bonus, as is the way they’re able to make each match about the other team. It’s unbelievably impressive stuff, leaving no real doubt in my mind that despite their inconsistent team-ups, there is currently no better tag team alive.
One of the most joyfully executed, most interesting, and one of the all-around best feeling matches of the year.
HANDWERK 