[2000-08-19-JAPW-Night of the Main Events] Low Ki vs Homicide

[soup23]

One of the most intense collar and elbow tie ups starts this off. It looked completely hateful and vicious. Some more intense grappling follows where you have small touches like Ki grabbing Homicides shirt to hang onto positon. Homicide takes a powder to the outside. Homicide then starts to target the leg for the next 15 minutes and it is some of the most gripping stuff of 2000 so far. Cide varies his offense and his attack and Ki is excellent selling from underneath. No matter what Homicide does, Low Ki wont go down. Homicide gives some clubbing clotheslines right to the face that made me cringe. Ki is able to hit a flash Ki Krusher to get back into the match but then he winds up and absolutely pastes referee Hansen with a kick that sounded like a shotgun going off. Montoya takes the opportunity to interfere and Billy Reil comes in to stop that but accidently hits Ki with a chair. Homicide hits the Cop Killah and gains the pin. Such hatred here and everything was worked cleanly. The finish is bullshit but sets up the next chapter in this feud. What a great match. ****1/4 (8.6)

[Migs]

Man are these guys intense. The way they work the collar and elbow at the start sets this up as so much different than what else is going on in indy wrestling at the time. The fun thing is that they understand that they can get big pops out of smaller highspots because of the way everything is fought for. I enjoyed this way more than the Dragon-Spanky match from the same day - Dragon's on his way to wrestling in a way that keeps up with these guys, but these two are already there and having classics.

 

Love the spinning elbows into the chairs - it's like a Van Daminator but not as a contrived!

 

That kick that Hansen took looked and sounded wicked. If you're going to do a ref bump, that's a fucking ref bump. I didn't mind the gaga here as the awesomeness of the 2/3 of the match was so great and they had wrestled to such a stalemate that it felt like something weird needed to happen to actually end the match.

[Edwin]

Yeah, this was pretty good. The collar and elbow tie up was indeed intense and it was awesome as its a lost art. Homicide targeting Ki's knee was perfect for this match as Ki's primary offense flows through his kicks. That head kick on the ref. was brutal. I agree, if you're going to do a ref. bump, try and pull one of like that. Fantastic finish to this too with that brutal Cop Killa from Homicide on Ki. Very good stuff.

 

***1/2

[AstroBoy]

Strong match. They both really go for it with the grappling and locking up and it's just these little gritty moments that take this so much farther. There is an incredible intensity and legitimacy to all we're seeing between these two. I could have used a little stronger leg selling from Ki but that's deep nitpicking I think. The miscommunication spot with Reil and the chair also comes off pretty laughably bad but this was really good overall.

 

***3/4

[Tim Evans]

I agree with you guys about this being really good and heated. They beat the hell out of each other. So much so that the crowd eventually gets into it. I liked the spot where Ki punches the chair into Homicides head. They liked it so much they did it twice. The ref was super annoying so I marked out when he got his head kicked in by Ki. The finish with Billy was weak but Ki took the Cop Killah like a champ. Right on the head. Good match.

[ohtani's jacket]

This was some intense shit. I kind of wished the fans would shut up and appreciate the intensity of the bout but I guess that is all part of indy heat. I didn't really get the story stuff at the end but it didn't matter. These guys match up extremely well and bring an intensity to the simplest holds that you wish was true for wrestling as a whole.