Fire Ant vs. Francis O’Rourke, Wrestling is Respect 4 (9/29/2013)

All-time dream match, provided you have exactly the same sort of deeply damaged brain as I do and have the right opinion that Fire Ant is The Greatest Babyface Of All Time based on a match from thirteen years ago.

Not all it could be, of course.

It’s fucking WRESTLING IS.

And yet, it’s Biff vs. Fire Ant. I don’t know, it’s hard to get too annoyed. I grew up with IWA Mid South shows where stars would show up and two-thirds ass it and seeing a dogshit AJ/Daniels hour broadway on a 2005 PWG show that they clearly didn’t actually want to do. Guys not doing their absolute best on smaller shows doesn’t really bother me, so long as there’s still something to enjoy, and these guys gave a lot of stuff in this to still enjoy. Biff beats the hell out of Our Hero, and Fire Ant’s still the best. Wonderful comebacks, great strikes, stellar looking offense in general, etc.

It’s not as big as it could be, but with seventeen people in the crowd, I don’t know that they could have summoned the atmosphere to make the most out of that anyways.

Biff wins with his Tazmission aka THE FRANK CRANK because this is basically CHIKARA and everyone in CHIKARA who first made a name outside of CHIKARA has to have some bullshit CHIKARA thing added onto them.

Again though, Biff Busick vs. Fire Ant! I simply cannot summon the energy or vitriol to stay mad about anything that happened, because finding out this happened at all feels like a gift from God.

***

Hallowicked vs. Francis O’Rourke, WIA Supremacy (7/7/2013)

Sadly, the mat is not quite so wet this time.

This is perhaps not THE VERY BEST that these two can do against each other but it’s a sub fifteen minute match where every moment of the thing is really really good at minimum. Hard grappling, real mean striking, offense that all flowed perfectly and made sense, the whole works. The sort of match you’d turn on after reading “Hallowicked vs. Biff Busick” on a match listing somewhere and be incredibly satisfied with in the end. A match up with an incredibly high floor, so even a match like this that flies closer to floor than ceiling still feels great.

Biff wins with a Tazmission that’s dubbed THE FRANK CRANK.

Even while pretending to be dead, CHIKARA finds a way to get its hands on everything and make it just a little sillier for no real reason. Everybody always has to be this fucking CHIKARA version of themselves, it’s a real pleasure that Biff got out of this sort of sphere before the company actually made its proper comeback in mid 2014 and he got dragged into being mind controlled by a roving gang of frog birds from some place that only exists in a comic book.

Anyways, it’s Biff vs. Hallowicked, it doesn’t disappoint.

***

Drew Gulak vs. Francis O’Rourke, WIA Judgment Day (7/6/2013)

Again, Francis is Biff Busick’s bullshit little CHIKARA name because everyone has to be like some CHIKARA branded version of themselves. To go with that, one of the Batiri assholes is on the call with some non-descript goon and calls the entire match in a high pitched half-screeching voice. I can’t tell you to watch a match featuring that. I can’t. Some of you have given me money, there’s a trust here.

AND YET, IT’S BIFF VS. GULAK SO WHATEVER, YOU SHOULD WATCH IT.

The defining feature of this is not the grappling or them beating the god damned shit out of each other. That happens in every match. It’s why this is one of the great pairings of the decade, but it means that the presence of such things in any of their matches isn’t some novel thing to be blown away by. The thing here is actually that this match is conducted in the single sweatiest ring I’ve ever seen.

Next to wrestling shows to happen outside while it’s raining like the Okada/MiSu anniversary match in 2018 or Hogan vs. John Studd in Puerto Rico in 1985, I’ve never seen a wetter canvas. I can’t honestly remember other wrestling canvases that I would describe as wet at all, actually. It’s outright moist. It doesn’t help that this is July and there’s almost no way this building has AC,  so it gets worse and worse. Within like five minutes, the thing is covered and they’re slipping around when they run, they can barely climb the ropes, and it’s so wild to see from these two.

For the most part, it makes this way more interesting?!

There’s a recklessness to it now with them occasionally losing footing on suplexes and doing accidental head drops or falling into Lariats and landing in weird angles with them. I’m sure it was horrible to experience, it doesn’t seem like any fun at all. But it was a real blast to watch, and it’s a credit to these two that they were able to have the sort of match that such an environment only ever added to.

Every single Biff vs. Gulak match is a blast, and every single one of them is worth seeing. This is the rare one though that’s worth seeing for reasons beyond “it’s Biff vs. Drew, moron, watch it”.

But like seriously, it’s Biff vs. Drew, moron, watch it.

***1/4

 

Drew Gulak vs. Francis O’Rourke, Wrestling is Respect 2 (3/24/2013)

Francis is Biff Busick under a classic Weird CHIKARA Name (which I will not be calling him because fucking come on), which means hey, it’s Gulak and Busick again!

Stunningly, it’s great!

This isn’t the proto GRAPPLEFUCK match that their 2012 Beyond match was, as they’re given a main event spot and slug it out and throw each other around just a little bit more. The truth is though that Biff Busick was never really a Grapplefuck sort of guy in the way Thatcher and Gulak and later ZSJ were. He could adapt and work that match with them because he’s a really incredible professional wrestler, but he was always more of a Bryan Danielson type who would mix things up more. Hard grappling, but also a real nastiness on more traditional offense and very hard striking. He has some European Uppercuts in this match that I’d put up against just about anyone else’s ever in wrestling history outside of Claudio’s very best. There’s some delightful and insane pieces of offense. Prior to this match, you can look at Biff’s stuff and see that yeah, this guy is good and he’s going to be great. After watching this match, you mark March 2013 down as the point when that stops being this future text prediction. He is great now, point blank.

Gulak has been great, but 2013 is similarly his big breakout year as a full on top 20-30 best in the world level guy. He largely cedes the floor to get Biff over here, but every small detail is pretty much perfect. Great little touches at the end wind up helping Gulak out, like lifting Gulak by popping his hips to stop the Half Nelson Suplex, and Biff’s feet managing to get caught on the ropes, so Gulak can turn out and drop him on his face. It’s a fortunate accident for Gulak, but the ending absolutely isn’t. He manages the Gu-lock out of a roll up, and this time when Biff tries to roll to grab the ropes, Drew lifts his arm up just enough to grab Biff’s wrist, roll over away from the ropes, and Biff’s forced to tap out once again.

Another positively wonderful match between them, and yet another harbinger of a wonderful and far too short lived trend in independent wrestling.

***1/4

 

 

Mike Quackenbush vs. Drew Gulak, WIA In the Abstract (2/17/2013)

Wrestling Is had a bunch of different subpromotions (Art, Fun, Awesome, Intense, Respect, a C word? Cool? anyways they all spelled CHIKARA together) as part of some weird CHIKARA bullshit. I don’t know. Honestly, by this point they’ve lost me and I don’t especially care to be found. It’s all actually good as hell, because Wrestling Is [x] gives people time to just goddamned wrestle.

I could not think of two better CHIKARA guys that I’d rather see just goddamned wrestle. Quack’s a shithead, whatever, but this is him totally in his element and it is so easy to watch.

It’s a fifteen minute or less opening match on a B show, but that doesn’t particularly matter with this pairing, because they’re just gonna grapple for virtually the entire match anyways. It’s a pairing that isn’t hurt at all by the circumstances meaning they’re not going to go “big” with it, and in all probability, may have been helped out by being allowed to just riff it out down on the ground. It’s another of these wonderful 2012-2013 proto GRAPPLEFUCK style encounters, the best thing to happen to independent wrestling all decade stylistically. Everything they do is cool, crisp, and smooth, and while it perhaps lacks the violence of Timothy Thatcher at his best or the wizardry of Zack Sabre Jr. at his best, there’s always a clear competition going on at the heart of the thing.

Teacher and student is the heart of it, but that’s not all that it is by the end. The match begins that way before branching off into a struggle for pace as much as it’s each man trying to top the other. Quackenbush needs things to be faster to win, and he has more flash and showmanship to the things he tries to do. In contrast, Gulak stretches Quackenbush out with more aggression and what seems like a stronger sense of purpose. Quackenbush is versatile in the way someone in his position always is and often has to be, but Gulak is young and dogmatic, and wants to make Quackenbush tap out. He rarely goes for anything but a submission, and even gets a little dirty at the end by going after Quack’s bad wrist. Quackenbush is versatile though, and turns the match into the faster sort that Gulak is less suited towards. The rigidity of Gulak’s attack costs him, and Quack is able to outmaneuver and get him into the Alligator Clutch for the win.

A wonderful wonderful thing. A technical clinic wrapped up inside of something broader and much more universal.

***1/2