Phil Schneider

I have been to a lot of live wrestling shows over the years, it's probably either LA Park vs. El Hijo Del Santo from the Juster Atl Lucha show, Homicide vs. Steve Corino from ROH Better Friends Stiffer Enemies or Shinya Hashimoto vs. Steve Corino vs. Dylan Knight vs. Gary Steele. Low-Ki vs Rey Mysterio Jr. from JAPW is up there too.

There are a fair number of Shooter who were really good almost immediately, obviously Volk Han but Bas Rutten ruled in his handful of wrestling matches, Ronda and Shayna Bayzler were great pretty much out the gate, all the earliest footage we have of the BattlArts guys in PWFG was very good. U-Style guys, Kazunari Murakami etc.

I am live blogging this over at Segunda Caida http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2020/11/aew-full-gear-live-blog.html Eddie vs. Moxley is as excited about a big main event as I can remember seeing

I think in many ways WWF right now (or at least before COVID) is similar to watching WCW in the 90s, much of the pushed stuff was hard to watch, but there was so much happening that you would have plenty of cool shit to scrape. This year had Daniel Bryan vs. Drew Gulak which was the equivalent of a killer Benoit or Eddie PPV match, and shows like NXT UK and 205 Live had great stuff which no one watched. Brian Kendrick is basically Villano IV.

I saw Adam Cole work Jimmy Jacobs in EVOLVE and Jacobs worked a David vs Goliath match with him, with Jimmy Jacobs as Goliath

We reviewed an awesome Paradigm Pro Show on Segunda Caida http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2020/07/paradigm-pro-wrestling-fighting-spirit.html It is a UWFI style tournament which is my favorite non Yuki Ishikawa adjacent indy shootstyle show. There is a great superfight between Stephan Bonnar and Matthew Justice and a really great semi-final and final. Haven't heard this show get much pimping before, but it is dope

I reviewed a War Games match from 2008 in AWS which was a so-cal indy fed. http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2020/06/monday-wargames-aws-total-war.html It isn't particularly amazing or anything, but it does have a great Adam Pearce performance, and maybe the craziest single dive I have ever seen, Human Tornado does a flip plancha with tremendous distance and height while wearing a walking boot. Worth just fast forwarding the footage to that spot.

They have been on a crazy uploading binge lately, so I thought they could use a catch-all thread

We have an Eddie Kingston Complete and Accurate over at Segunda Caida, if folks are looking for Eddie recs. https://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2018/09/complete-and-accurate-eddie-kingston.html

I think Black Terry is a good pick for a lucha rep.

OJ what would you list as your absolute must sees from this footage? I think Sola vs. Courdec makes that bar, but I know you were less high on Tony Oliver vs. Bert Royal then we were.

I thought Archer was really bad in that match too. If you are going to be a monster, your stuff should land with force, and you shouldn't just slowly wander around the ring making faces. On SC I said he reminded me of one of those 2000s Power Plant guys who were big and had some impressive spots, but didn't know how to string anything together or land with any force. I imagine Dustin could have a good match with Johnny the Bull, but it wouldn't be structured like this

We have either two or three more Catanzaro tags at least. Including a 1972 tag between Catanzaro/Pierre Berneart against Mr. Montreal/Mantopolous in floating ring

It will probably still be Negro Casas

This thread was 8 years ago, and we are about a week or so away from making all of this stuff available!!

We got our first big match announcement

This was one of the most viscerally violent matches I can remember seeing. Demon was a wandering dead eyed psychopath in this match, with Wagner doing a great job as a charismatic babyface fight back against a horror movie villain. I have seen plenty of matches with big weapons shots over the years, and this match was a great example of making each weapon shot a memorable moment. Demon opens up the match with by breaking a bottle over the head of Wagner, who had come into the match wearing his mask, which maybe stretched the rules a bit, but did allow for a bloody white mask which is always a great visual. The second huge moment came when a sickeningly bloody Demon goes out of the ring and grabs a claw hammer, and attacks Wagner like he was Richard Speck. He slams Wagner in the back of the head and spine, and hammers his hands like his knuckles were penny nails. It was a great bit of close magic by Demon, it really looks like an attempted murder, and I have no idea how you gimmick a hammer to the back of the head. The final huge moment comes at end of the match, after Wagner gets a bunch of close near falls with nasty Wagner Drivers, Demon’s kid runs into with a cinder block, he awkwardly stands around a bit before getting bums rushed by Wagner’s seconds. Demon Jr. gets his hands on the cinder block and smashes in over Wagner’s head, in a pretty gross tribute to Angel o Demonio, KOing him and winning his hair. Hell of performance by two guys in their 50s as they just milked every bit of drama out of everything they did with Demon leaving puddles around the ring like an un house broken puppy.

JYD was a good worker too, he was coasting in the WWF (although there is a huge list of good territory workers who sucked in the WWF), but all of the Mid-South stuff we have from him is pretty good, and some of it was really great

A music video for this match got uploaded on youtube a couple of days after it happened and I commented on the video asking them to release it in full. Seven plus years later it shows up!! Devil's Reject's Wargames are some of the coolest stuff that happened this century, and hardly anyone has seen them. This isn't at the level of the all time classics in 2006 and 2007 (and Tank was the only constant besides Rev. Dan Wilson) , but it wasn't a huge step below. The Alexander and Drew Delight opening five minutes is awesome, heated brawling, great punches and and some big cage bumps. Tank comes in and starts carving, and there is a nasty spot where Ben Thrasher gets the spike from him and drives it into his arm. Se7en is a huge guy and really good at menace, I am not sure why he never got a bigger role somewhere. The finish is crowd pleasing, although a bit lacking in drama. The babyfaces just take control, and Chunky Dragon lays into Alexander with knife edge chops and a pectoral claw until he gave up. Wargames is a great wrestling formula, all you kneed is some good brawlers willing to bleed, and that is what this delivered.

They had maybe the worst Darby Allin match I have ever seen in Black Label Pro

You know who are good commentators? The guys doing the Anarchy War Games match from 2006