[2000-05-12-TWA-Victoria, TX] American Dragon vs Lance Cade

[soup23]

Danielson is in a long form match here and this is the main event. Danielson cuts a heel promo and does a pretty good job of it to be this early into his career. Well we have another milestone for Danielson, his first really good singles match. Here he is a straight heel bumping huge for Cade’s offense. When he is on top he shows some good arm work that gives a good grasp of his development and fundamentals. The main component of this match that makes it click is the violence. These two really went after each other and Bryan’s chest is bleeding and all sorts of red. Cade looks like a strong prospect here and a potential predecessor to the line of cowboys in wrestling. Ref bump which is annoying but Danielson pulled the ref in the way. He then tees off with a kick straight to Cade’s head. Spanky runs in and hits a missile dropkick on the referee. He revives the ref in time for Cade to hit the chokeslam and win. Spanky dances afterwards as Cade throws up the hook em horns sign. ***3/4

[AstroBoy]

I wasn't as high on this because of a couple of things. One -- although his best efforts -- I don't think Danielson's offense played well against Cade here and didn't get over very well as a legitimate threat. Also for as good as his pre-match promo was, Dragon didn't convey a ton of personality when he worked over Cade. He bumped big for Cade and put over Cade's offense big but I didn't think he had the personality to carry his work when he was on offense.

 

Personally I didn't think Cade brought a ton of fire either. His chops definitely lit up Dragon but I thought his strikes in general were pretty flimsy. Cade looked the part but didn't play with a ton of urgency to me. He did hit a killer lariat though. Still a fine match.

 

**3/4

[Laney]

I think this is Danielson's best individual performance thus far in 2000. He seems much more confident as a heel and he works an aggressive style, which is where he really excels. The biggest hole in Danielson's work here is that he seems to wrestle in a vacuum and ignore the crowd when he was on the offensive. He still has quite a ways to go before he becomes the great wrestler we all know and love, but I could see some shades of it here with his aggression.

 

Lance Cade was fine in this match, but I think his size was the only factor that could put him into consideration as a prospect.

 

***

[Tim Evans]

It's interesting to see Danielson work heel here in 2000 since didn't he get fired from Power Pro for refusing to work heel there? This was an alright house show match. Dragon get lit up with chops and works good on the mat. Cade has the look but something is missing. Reminds me of Bradshaw in 95.

[GSR]

RF Fancam footage of a TWA house show! Dragon looks so young without his mask and it looks like he’s misplaced his gear as he’s wearing tracksuit bottoms. He cuts a perfectly fine little heel promo on the fans until he’s interrupted by Lance Cade’s entrance music. Match is for the TWA television title currently held by Cade. They work the opening around a wristlock, and when it looks like Dragon might escape, Cade decks him with a right causing him to complain to the official about the closed fist. Lance with a side headlock, Dragon shoots him off and an aggressive shoulder charge by Cade. Fireman’s carry takedown, but Cade escapes the armbar by just launching Dragon across the ring. High hip toss and a side slam for two. Whip to the corner, but Dragon gets a foot up on his charging opponent. He goes for a crossbody off the middle, however Cade catches, then dumps him with a fallaway slam. Dragon ducks a clothesline, grabs a hammerlock and rams Cade shoulder first into the turnbuckles. Dropkick to the shoulder, and a belly to back with that left arm trapped behind is back so all his bodyweight falls on it. Lovely little armbar submission and Cade is able to get a foot over the bottom rope for the break. Running forearm in the corner. Northern Lights suplex by Dragon, but he then flips over and transitions to an armbar, again forcing Lance to scramble for the ropes. The two trade nasty sounding chops and a stiff lariat by Cade takes Dragon off his feet. RF zooms in on Danielson’s chest and you can see the discolouration and broken blood vessels courtesy of those chops. Scoop powerslam and Cade with a flying clothesline off the top for two. Quality floatover into another armbar submission, but again Lance is too close to the ropes. Dragon kicks him to the arena floor and takes him out with a suicide dive. Snap suplex, top rope elbow and Cade is able to get a shoulder up in time. He avoids a second running forearm and a pumphandle slam for two as neither man is able to put the other away. Cade goes for a lariat, but Dragon pulls the referee in front of him and he takes the full brunt of it. He’s looking for the Vertabreaker when out runs Spanky who nails him with a missile dropkick. Spanky stomps the official to wake him up and Cade with a chokeslam to retain his TV title.

 

Dragon looks so much like a backyarder in what he’s wearing here, but that is until the match starts and you can see he’s clearly anything but. It was masterful the way that he targeted that arm and shoulder; utilising a wide and varied array of offense along with some lovely transitions and counters into the submission attempts. The action between them was stiff and physical with Dragon’s chest especially showing the effects. My lone criticism would be on Cade’s punches, and when Dragon had to bump and feed for him it didn’t look the best. Still it was great to see him in a house show environment as opposed to TV where he was given longer to work and he absolutely rose to the occasion. Highly recommended.

[Robert S]

This is a huge step forward in the career of Danielson here, so big in fact that first I thought this was mislabeled and happened a year or so later. The biggest flaws here were Danielson's weak strikes (especially the chops) and that he did not "wrestle small" against Cade here, something he did much better in the TV match between those two.

[Moonsault Marvin]

Danielson starts with a nice heel promo. The match was mechanically fine, but the pacing lacked variation, causing the match to become tiring as it went on. Bryan needed to heel it up more, since Cade wasn't terribly compelling as a face. Bryan continues to show improvement, and I liked his finding different ways to work Cade's arm. Average match.