[2000-09-16-NECW] Doug Williams vs Maverick Wilde

[soup23]

I am excited for Doug Williams stuff throughout the project as I thought he gave a different flavor to a lot of the indie minutia that we will see over the years and that he gave some flashy touches from the WOS motif into a style that gets over with the fans. Wilde is a competent opponent here and Doug already had most of his established repertoire down with the Chaos Theory German and what not. Wilde has a cool rolling headbutt to Doug into the corner. Doug gets his leg worked over a bit and the figure four is used to flesh out the match. I will critique Doug as even though the leg wasn’t worked over for long, it was completely forgotten during the finishing stretch. The guys also seemed to be more lost in those final moments than at any other point. Wilde ends up picking up the win with a full nelson into a slam finisher. Good effort and nice change of pace. **3/4

[Tim Evans]

This is what i think of when I think of indie wrestling in the northeast. Two bland guys working a bland match that isn't very exciting. I was surprised at the botches in this. Maverick lands on his neck during a backdrop that looks like it knocks him out. He finishes the match and even cuts a promo which is impressive.  Doug Williams was ok but he was going way too fast at times and it showed with the botches. 

[GSR]

Well I never knew Doug Williams ventured to the United States prior to the 2001 King of Indies tournament so looking forward to seeing how he does here.  He should be far more capable than Mike Hollow anyway!  Another lovely, tacky ring robe from Wilde.  ‘The Anarchist’ has got an escape or counter for everything Maverick tries and you can see get more visibly frustrated as Williams outwrestles him.  Wilde resorts to an elbow to the jaw to escape the hammerlock, but Williams floats over on the attempted press slam and hits the ‘Chaos Theory’ suplex.  Surprised to see that’s only a transitional move at this point, but it does get a big reaction from the crowd.  Wilde picks an ankle off the side headlock and then drops a knee across Williams’ lower leg.  It looks like that leg is now the focus of his attack as he applies a spinning toe hold to weaken it some more.  Williams even has a nifty escape for that, however Maverick then counters the hip toss with a face jam.  A weird little forward roll into a diving headbutt by Wilde.  He reverts to going after that leg although doesn’t have the most expansive of repertoires when doing so.  Williams turns the Figure Four over, transferring the pressure to his opponent.  I like that he is still selling the leg, even when running the ropes, before an accidental clash of heads sees both men go down.  Leaping tornado DDT by ‘the Anarchist’.  So much for his selling of that leg as he’s now stopped.  Belly to back suplex for a two.  A legit clash of heads when both duck into each other, then Wilde goes and lands on the back of his neck doing the Jacques Rougeau’s reverse roll spot off a back drop.  The fans are laughing at them which is never good.  After being whipped into the corner Wilde avoids the Williams charge and plants him with a full nelson slam for the win.

Admittedly this fell apart in the final minutes with the clash of heads (guessing one should have leapfrogged over the other but both ducked) and then the blown Wilde roll, but before that I thought this was a nice primer for Williams who got to demonstrate his World of Sport style to a new market.  I wonder if the response the ‘Chaos Theory’ got here was food for thought in him deciding to make it his finisher?  I think I might be over Wilde already though as I wasn’t that impressed with his working over Williams’ leg; all very rudimentary and a million miles away in terms of aggression from what I watched earlier in the day when Scoot Andrews was trying to tear Low Ki’s knee from its socket.