Phil Schneider

William Regal vs. Dean Ambrose, FCW 10/13/11 - EPIC PAS: Man alive this was a corker of a match. It is worked very similarly to the other big 2011 King Bookers courtesan v. Switchblade Conspirator match. Regal cuts a great promo about how his inner villain has been reawakened and he is at his vicious best. This is probably the most violent Regal we have seen since the Benoit series. He and Ambrose just lay into each other with nasty uppercuts and forearms, and Ambrose threw some nice clotheslines. Eventually Regal takes over, trapping Ambrose's arm into a turnbuckle and smashing it up which is something I have never seen before. It is pretty great that 20+ years into his career Regal is still breaking out new tricks. Regal then delivers some nasty armwork including finger manipulation and trapping him arm in the ring steps. Ambrose does a great job of selling, basically working the comeback entirely with his other arm. He comes off as a really tough motherfucker screaming at Regal while getting beaten on, and surviving some big exploders and escaping the Regal stretch. Just great stuff, it felt like a hugely important match to both guys, and after the match Regal felt like a killer and Ambrose felt like a future star standing up to a legend. I saw Finlay v. Callihan live which really helped my appreciation of it, but on first view this was right up there with that, and anything else in the world in 2011. ER: Yeah this was great. It was a double surprise for me as I followed the link Phil sent me and thought it was going to be a fun 7 minute match...and then realized there were 7 MORE minutes waiting in the next part. This really feels like the best Regal performance of the last 2-4 years. He's had other great stuff in that time to be sure, but this was twice as long as most of those matches and really felt like he could stretch his wings (and clearly showed that he has no problem filling time in matches). It's matches like these that make me want to dive full in to FCW, but nothing else there could possibly compete with something like this. Regal was just a beast in this, playing a role I don't remember him playing in a long time. And clearly Regal is great at playing the ruthless killer. Finlay must be kicking himself for thinking of the awesome ring skirt spot, but not thinking about hooking a guy's arm through a turnbuckle. Shoot, I even bought the struggle to get Ambrose' arm out of the turnbuckle, just kicking around like a trapped animal while the ref struggled to pull his arm through. I loved how Regal sold the clothesline/hammer fist to the face. It looked like his orbital bone exploded. There wasn't really anything that DIDN'T work about this, from Regal's awesome mule kicks, all the arm work, the forearms, everything. This was really a great, great war. I would've have loved to see another Ambrose comeback spot, but still this was so awesome.

Lord Steven Regal v. Fit Finlay WCW 4/29/96-EPIC Well this is as great as you remembered it being. It really had the ragged, out of control feeling of a violent fight. All of the big highspots felt totally organic, nothing was set up. When Finlay put his foot through the window, it felt like a crazy fuck, wild with rage, throwing a kick too close to a window. The smashing each other with bumpers and slamming each other into doors wasn't even the most violent stuff in the match. For example Finlay is choking Regal with a seat belt, and just smacks him right in the mouth. Regal's elbow drops on the hood were also really beautiful. Regal's piledriver on the roof of a car felt like a finish, and it also felt like he was just trying to get the fuck out of there. I remember being incredibly annoyed at the time at Bischoff yelling at the cameramen to pull into a wide shot. The camera men don't pull back very far, and I think it actually adds to the sense of insanity, makes this feel like an out of control fight, as opposed to Heenan telling hack jokes. William Regal v. Tommy Dreamer WWE 11/8/09-EPIC I was on the fence, this is a 8 minute match against Tommy Dreamer, can this really be an epic. Fuck it, this was just too great and Regal was just too awesome for me not to give the full E. Dreamer took a crutch shot in a street fight the week before and the bolt penetrated his triceps, so he is coming into this match with a big white wrap on his arm. Regal is on that arm like a fat kid on the last piece of pinata candy. Really the best example of Regal as vicious WWII prison guard. He just tears and pounds on the wound, he is someone with so many ways to hurt you. Meanwhile Dreamer does a great job of selling the injury (which I am sure hurt like a broken heart) while throwing in some really exciting comebacks. I loved how he went for a DDT, only to Regal hurl him down using the arm, still Dreamer was able to catch him in a one armed spinebuster. Finish was awesome. Dreamer is rolling, finally getting the advantage, but Regal rolls to the floor, grabs the arm rings it over the cable, while Dreamer is recoiling, Regal flies into the ring and hits the running knee right on the arm. Best Tommy Dreamer match ever, and a hell of performance by Regal William Regal v. Steve Austin WWF 11/29/01-EPIC PAS: This is a strap match from Smackdown and just a hellacious brawl. Regal has the strap to start and he taunts Austin Bugs Bunny style by pulling it away from him when Austin tries to grab it, after the third time, Austin flips out and just attacks, and it goes at that pace. They brawl into the crowd with Austin viciously strapping Regal up and down the stairs. Regal takes control after backdropping Austin off the announce table, which is a nutty bump for a guy with a broken neck to be taking on TV. Vicious brawling Regal is one of my favorite of his approaches, and he just lays into Austin with forearms and strap shots when he get an opening. Austin was amazing in this too, I hadn't watched a Stone Cold match in so long, you forget what a charismatic motherfucker he really was. He stops mid brawl to toast Earl Hebner with a beer, and then smashes it on Regals head. I even liked all of the four corner spots, which is usually the problem with strap matches. Austin was awesome at the end countering all of Regal's attempts to stop the turnbuckle slapping, before the third buckle he nuts Regal, and pulls him into a stunner before the fourth. I didn't remember this match at all, and it was totally awesome. ER: Austin was my favorite wrestler in the world in 2001, and I had never ever seen this match before. This must have been right after he turned face after the year long heel turn (which I loved but you know how much it fucked everything up). The Regal C&A is going to be real fun because up until Finlay joined WWE, Regal was a guy who I don't remember having a lot of great WWE non-Benoit matches. I remember the RVD Wrestlemania match being way better than I expected, and there was a 90 second Lance Storm match where Storm botched a dropkick and Regal kicked the shit out of him...a Dick Togo match....There has to be other stuff. He's a guy who's been in WWE at total of 12 years, but I just can't think of much. You start thinking there must be all of these hidden gems, and then you "discover" a "hidden" gem of a match between him and fucking Steve Austin, the most popular wrestler in the world. It's not exactly crate digging, but it's like finding a live Television album that you didn't know existed, but had been out for apparently 10 years. This was a GREAT match, worked at a nice brisk pace, and both guys looked killer. Austin was taking some of the most insane weekly bumps on TV during this time period. While Christian and Rey Buccanero were having weekly contests to see who could bump over the top to the floor the most times during one match, Austin had a busted neck and was taking Germans and doing superplexes and taking high backdrops on all surfaces. Fucking insane. Their crowd brawling is spectacular as it never sinks to Shane Douglas "loosely grabbing a guys head and walking around" levels. Austin punches Regal through the crowd, then whips his fucking face with a belt through the crowd! Everything about this rules. Regal's chest welts up, Regal's forearms look nasty, Regal gets dumped on his head when Austin tugs the strap between his legs, neither guy does a slo-mo crawl to touch all four corners, Regal whips back HARD and makes the Stunner look amazing, crowd loudly hates Regal, all the leverage spots look legit, just awesome. It's odd to find a hidden gem featuring the most popular wrestler in the world, from free TV, from the most popular promotion in the world...but this was it and it was so damn awesome.

Lord Steven Regal v. Arn Anderson WCW 10/9/93-EPIC This is the battle of the two greatest Television champions in a classic 15 minute TV Title main event. Arn works the arm Anderson style, cranking a nasty hammerlock, while Regal breaks out some slick WOS reversals. Including the Saint full nelson counter which is one of my all time favorite British wrestling moves. Regal takes over when he chucks Arn to the floor and Sir William pops him in the ribs with the umbrella. Regal then goes after the midsection including a sweet flipping senton, and a neck crank with a knee on the stomach which looked really nasty. This builds to a classic TV title time limit run, with Arn going full bore to get the pin and Regal trying to run out the time. That is a finish which can be hard to pull off, I have seen plenty of bad versions where the guys are stalling or timing their moves and pins badly. Here we have the two masters of the TV Title match, so the final desperate face run is timed great, and we get the spinebuster at the perfect moment, with the clock running down right as the ref counts two. Excellent match, great use of the gimmick and it really got me amped to check out more of the Regal TV title stuff. Lord Steven Regal v. Arn Anderson 2/20/94-EPIC Tremendous match, pretty much a textbook TV title style match. Both guys target a body part, Arn with the arm, and Regal with the neck, and they go after them. Lesser wrestlers working this style will just go back to the same holds (even Flair pretty much just works the leg in the context of the figure four), but both Arn and Regal put on a ton of different locks and they all look great. It makes inherent sense, if you can't get a submission with a cravate try a crossface, hammerlock doesn't work use and arm stretch. Arn works a great hammerlock, bodyslamming Regal, turing him into a pin while holding it. Regal meanwhile wrenched the hell out of Arn's neck, cranking cravates, cracking him in the mouth with crossfaces. The brawling in this match was great too, Arn has a really pretty right hand and Regal was just vicious with uppercuts and headbutts. Finish run was very exciting as they worked the countdown with Arn desperately trying for the belt and Regal stalling. The crowd was super into the match at this point, chanting USA and popping huge for Arn's spinebuster. Finish was pretty surprising, as Regal gets the pin by holding onto Dundee's umbrella with 15 seconds left. It was a twist in a good way as everyone was expecting either an Arn win or a time limit draw. 1994 maybe the best in ring year in wrestling history, and this felt on the level of the other great matches of that year. If this looks like something on paper you would like, go watch it, it truly exceeds expectations.

Regal is one of my Segunda Caida Complete and Accurate guys. I will repost some of my Epic reviews Steven Regal v. Tiger Dalibar Singh South Africa 1987-EPIC What a great discovery, a hell of a match and a window into a wrestling scene I had never seen before. Despite the pleas of U2 Regal decided to play Sun City. Singh is an old World Of Sport guy and the promoter of the fed. The crowd seems to be almost entirely South Asian, which isn't what I expected from a 80's South African wrestling show. So obviously Regal is working heel against a ethnic babyface and is great at it. We start with some very WOS style mat work with Regal hanging on hard to a wrist lock while Singh flips and spins him around. Singh is a solid grappler and built like a tank. Once he gets rolling, he bumps Regal all around the ring. This is the most athletic and theatric I have ever seen Regal bump, he is really at a Curt Hennig or Ric Rude level during parts of this match. Match breaks down into some pretty nasty brawling, especially after Regal grabs a fall on a missed body press. Regal goes after Sighs stomach, and the crowd got very animated, we might have gotten another Soweto Uprising if Regal had been able to pull out the win. Lord Steven Regal v. Shinya Hashimoto NJ 4/16/95-EPIC Holy hell what a war! Regal takes it to Hashimoto and beats the shit out of him worse then anyone this side of Tenryu. Especially early he just overwhelms Hash, breaking his nose with a palm thrust and painfully wrenching his limbs. Hash fires back a little bit, but Regal has a bunch of nifty cut offs, stepping on the inside of his knee or catching him with a knuckle to his eye. There is a great moment where Hashimoto goes for a kimura and Regal breaks it by driving his forearm into Hash's broken nose, then on the way up he gives Hashimoto a short little kick to the eye. When Hash finally gets the advantage he lands huge, with a huge jumping kick and some shoulder separating chops. They go back and forth with Regal pounding at the smashed nose, and Hash unloading with kicks. Regal is a really underrated in ring bumper, he just gets spiked by Hash's DDT (after previously reversing twice), before going down to a cross armbar. Crossing the line potato shot Regal is probably my favorite iteration of Regal, and this was as violent as the nastiest moments of the Finlay feud. Just a treat.

The match description intrigued so I check it out. Very good stuff, and the kind of thing I wish AJ did more later in the decade. Really loved the constancy of the brawling, Kawada kept flinging wild kicks from the ground, Taue kept slipping in headbutts, not setting up spots, just digging in and fighting.

Yeah pretty sure that was just one of my talking points which no one agreed with.

You should watch the first two matches too http://board.deathvalleydriver.com/topic/6...bracket-7-v-10/

He was working Indies a couple of years ago, so No.

Yeah how could you like that terrible finish?

I don't think I have ever seen a Muraco match where he has had an above average perofrmance

Pretty sure that is a one of the outtakes from Zero Dark 30

I am trying to think about all the early ROH shows I saw. I haven't watched in a while, but Epic Encounter was really good. London v. Dragon was one of the first Danielson classics, Styles/Red v. Briscoes I remember enjoying, I always liked the Special K scrambles and the main event was fucking awesome live with Dusty, Iceberg, Boyce Le Grande brawling with random Doghouse guys in the audiance.

I just checked this out and really enjoyed it. I was an MPRO superfan back in the day, so I am surprised this slipped by me. I loved the Sasuke dive with his robe, he looked like Batman jumping on a thief. Shinzaki has a tendency to slow things down in his singles match to a snails pace, but this kept rocking pretty fast. Probably Shinzaki's career match, and one of Sasuke's better singles.

Derrick King maybe?

Yeah me too, Dundee might be the best "on a pole" wrestler in history

Totally bizarre spectacle. This is set up by a shoot angle with Snowman coming out of the audience at the TV studio and interrupting a Lawler interview. He accuses Lawler of ducking him because he is Black and they have a really frenetic pull apart. That leads to this match and it was one of the most realistic "guys aren't cooperating" matches I have ever seen. Lots of wild swinging awkward punches and cool Lawler takedowns, there are parts where both guys are going for the eyes which is kind of what you would expect in a racial tinged street fight. Crowd is totally electric, you get the sense they really got the crowd to buy into the whole angle. Reminded me of a Southern Fried version of Onita v. Aoyagi. Match is pretty short (about five minutes, although the footage maybe clipped) and that keeps this from the Epic pile, but it is definitely worth seeing, and something unique for Lawler.

Nakano was totally awesome in this match, the crowd is going apeshit chanting his name and he is cheap shotting the fuck out of Meada, hedbutting him on the break, constantly kicking and kneeing him in the back of his head, totally leaving it in the ring against the king of the mountain. But man fuck a Maeda, he completely sleepwalks through this, Nakano is working his ass off, but Maeda never really sold, never really seemed to get angry when he got cheap shotted, never seemed to worry when he was knocked down. Totally sandbagged the match, which is two shows in a row, he worked Funaki and Suzuki in the next two shows, those are going to be tough to swallow unless Maeda woke up.

It has been kind of a chore to get through these undercard UWF matches, I am hoping the Fujiwara sundae makes up for the overcooked Takada boiled chicken. Some nice kicks here and there, and some moments of fire by Anjoh, but this wasn’t good.

Not a Fujiwara classic, but match of the show for sure. This is Yamazaki’s big win, so Fujiwara worked from the top more. This also had a lot of dueling leg work, with Fujiwara really struggling and cranking for each submission. Yamazaki was landing a lot of body blows which Fujiwara sold with some of his awesome drooling sells. Still this was a match with a similar story to Nakano v. Maeda and Nakano was way more demonstrative and energetic then Yamazaki. I liked the post match show of emotion by Yamazaki, but it felt like I needed more of that in the match.

Yamazaki was in my top OJ 80’s ballot match, and some of my least favorite matches on the set. This may be the period he started to get good, as this wasn’t just Fujiwara dragging by the neck into something watchable. It is also possible that this was when Anjoh started getting really good and Yamazaki was yet again along for the ride, but I am giving him the benefit of the doubt.

This is a matchup that can be really great, but this wasn’t one of those times. Really listless for large sections of the match, with neither guy showing much emotion. Individual spots were okay, but this felt like they were sleepwalking. They heated it up for the finish, but at that point it really was too little too late. This was the worst match on the card which is pretty bad for you two biggest stars.

This was less of a brawl then their matches usually are, as they seemed more interested in really hitting the mat hard. Of course being Maeda and Fujiwara they interspersed the counter wrestling with some violence. Meada counters an ankle pick with a WOS leg stretch and Fujiwara responds with a diving headbut right into Maeda’s mouth, and Maeda counters a leg grapevine by drilling Fujiwara in the mouth and then the back of the head. Fujiwara is truly the master of the wrestling finish, as they basically switch the awesome finish of the Miyato v. Suzuki match, with Maeda using the choke to counter the ankle pick. This wasn’t their best match against each other, but fuck that is such a high bar.