[2000-01-22-ECCW-Insanity TV] Tony Kozina vs Disco Fury

[Loss]

This was a good showcase for Tony Kozina, who feels like a big fish in a small pond in this environment. He reminds me a bit of Neville in terms of his style, and probably needed to work with guys better than him to keep growing as a wrestler. Still, he looked excellent here. Disco Fury is an okay base, but there's a clear difference in talent level here, and that made the match a little uneven at times. Still, it's obvious Kozina is the star of this promotion. ***

[Stiva]

The only time I've ever seen Kozina is when he showed up on some random late-era TNA show and worked some dumb shit with Davey Richards so it was my first time seeing him actually, you know, wrestle and I was impressed. He's got good high-flying offense, he's a really good, athletic bumper with some great rag-doll style selling (a bit like the Kendrick we've seen) and I think, the only thing going against him is his size and I think that would probably be the case, even now. Still, he seems like a guy who may have got an ECW run if that company had survived the year. Nevertheless, a good little match that sees Kozina win but takes a powerbomb through a table after the fact to build things further.

[GSR]

Tony Kozina is really small, barely standing above the top rope. A couple of lovely takedowns from him though, first off a side headlock and then off the arm bar. Disco reverses the whip to the corner and Kozina goes crashing into the turnbuckles with force. Missile dropkick by Disco and it looks like he’s about to do a nip up, realises he can’t and decides against it, getting back to his feet normally. He tosses Kozina through the ropes to the outside and comes off the top with a cannonball (which the commentator calls ‘the mirrorball’). DDT onto the protective mats covering the concrete and he follows that with a leg drop from the apron. He pulls Kozina back into the ring but the official spots that he’s got his feet on the ropes as he’s making the cover. Big running splash in the corner. Kozina reverses the whip to the opposite one and Disco takes the Flair bump over the turnbuckles and to the apron. As he points to his head thinking he’s outsmarted his opponent, Kozina nails him with a dropkick sending him tumbling to ringside. With Disco back up on the apron, Kozina brings him back in the ring (outside in) with an awesome leaping top rope rana that gets a two. Elbow off the middle for another near fall. Disco counters the top rope frankensteiner into a pin attempt, but poor camera work means we miss seeing how. Swinging neckbreaker by Kozina and he still can’t put Fury away. The finish comes not too long after as Kozina hits a tombstone piledriver and then lands the 450 splash for the win. Post-match he’s jumped by the ‘Glamour Order of Discipline’ who attack him with a trash can while one of the commentators says that Kozina is a Dave Republic guy. Fury assists the ‘GOOD’ and they superbomb Kozina through a table. Republic is out but the audio is too quiet and we can’t hear what he has to say. He eventually flees the arena and into a waiting limousine as the ‘GOOD’ chase after him.

 

Kozina is a name I’ve heard/read plenty about but don’t think I’ve ever seen him before this. I really liked what we saw of him here: he’s got good fundamentals, his work looks tight, can sell and can fly. The only thing holding him back is his height, the guy is tiny! He is the kind of person I thought would excel in TNA’s X-Division, but a quick check of wiki has him wrestling one match against Davey Richards in 2015 and that’s it, which seems bizarre that he didn’t get more of a look there based on his talent (surely his height didn’t hold him back that much?). According to cagematch he’s had about a dozen matches (mainly dark) for ROH, a handful of matches for the WWF/E and is still wrestling a regular schedule today in 2018. Disco didn’t show much and was the polar opposite of Kozina.