[2001-01-13-MAW] CM Punk vs Colt Cabana

[Migs]

This starts with an award for Wrestler of the Year, which of course Punk thinks he deserves and does not win (it goes to Dino Bambino). Punk and Prazak's reactions to this are great, and Punk is getting pretty good heat ("Pepsi sucks!). Punk eventually wins Most Hated, and freaks out.

 

Cabana's doing a pretty good fired up babyface act here to start. Pretty solid dive for a big guy. I like that he's using the Ted Dibiase style fist drop. Punk takes over, and I like that he takes his time to actually heel it up with the crowd. Great stun gun out of the corner. Cool reversal sequence too (that's not the overused one that had come into vogue). Bit of a botch towards the end, which gets a "you fucked up" chant. There's also a spot with a chair in the corner where its hard to tell if Punk misses the chair on purpose or not. Punk refuses to use the chair once the crowd chants for it, which is a somewhat illogical but still good bit of heeling. The ref allows the chair use, which is odd given the efforts to hide it initially. All the mess still leads to a relatively clean finish with the Pepsi Plunge.

 

Entertaining match despite some missteps towards the end, and recommended as a sign post of their progress as we start the year.

 

Really amazing to see how far these guys have come in a year - when we started this project they were really green, but competent. Now they're pretty high level indy guys, although their offense isn't as state of the art as some of the coastal guys.

[GSR]

Punk and Dave Prazak interrupt some presentations that are taking place, with Prazak announcing that Punk has been voted the ‘Wrestler of the Year’ even though he’s only been here since January 2000!  Not only does this mean the fans clearly love him, but also his choice of soft drink too!  Prazak has been fed some duff information somewhere along the line as it turns out that Dino Bambino has actually been voted ‘Wrestler of the Year’.  As Punk throws a hissy fit, sitting down on the mat and banging his legs, Prazak tells him not to worry as there are more awards.  The next one is for the ‘Fan’s Favourite Wrestler’ which they again seem to think Punk has won, only this time it goes to former WWF jobber Frankie DeFalco.  Punk does end up taking home one award though, that of ‘Most Hated Wrestler’, to which Prazak’s response is “you’ve got to be ribbing?”  The crowd breaks out into a “Pepsi sucks!” chant to which Punk says how he doesn’t want to hear anyone saying anything about Pepsi for the remainder of the fucking evening!  He spots a girl in the front row and tells the audience if they want to know what sucks it’s this girl here with the number ‘13’ on her top; thirteen standing for the number of penises she can fit in her mouth at once! 

Colt races out from the dressing room and peppers Punk with a series of jabs.  Nice combination hammerlock/straight arm bar submission.  Silver King dive to the floor onto Punk and Prazak which is really impressive given Cabana’s size.  Prazak is showing the effects of that dive but Colt is right back on Punk with some Ted Dibiase style fist drops.  Punk reverses the whip to the corner and as Cabana goes for the tip up, he boots him between the legs.  He’s now taking a page out of the Tajiri play book by mocking his opponent’s suffering.  Cabana counters the German suplex and plants Punk with an almighty round the world slam.  The two exchange chops with Colt eventually flooring Punk after a vicious sounding one.  A Punk right hands sends Cabana tumbling to the floor where Prazak puts the boots to him and even drops an elbow, getting an ironic “holy shit” chant for his efforts.  Springboard dropkick by Punk.  Colt reverses the lackadaisical cover and gets a near fall off a springboard sunset flip, just like the one Kwee Wee did in the tag match on Thunder against the Natural Born Thrillers.  Things were going so well and then Punk slips when attempting a step up rana.  They quickly improvise so that Punk is back in the ascendancy and although it didn’t look good, kudos for trying.  Reverse rana by Punk, spiking Cabana on the top of his head and I’m guessing that was the move they botched previously.  Punk collects a chair and wedges it between the top turnbuckles while at the same time dealing with a heckler.  The Irish whip is reversed and I don’t know if they screwed up again but it looks like it as Punk falls to the mat under the chair.  Yup, they blew it as Colt immediately whips Punk into it.  Punk boots Cabana in the mid-section, causing him to drop the chair, and he teases cracking Colt with it but doesn’t as he’s “straight edge”.  That gets plenty of boos from those in attendance.  Split legged moonsault, but Cabana grabs the chair and places it over his own chest so Punk crashes into it.  He sits Punk on the top turnbuckle when he’s attacked by Prazak.  That has no effect and he lays Prazak out with a DDT, however the interference has given Punk enough time to recover and he hits the ‘Pepsi Plunge’ for the win.  Oh yeah, Punk is using ‘Shitlist’ by L7 as his entrance music here which is cool.

Don’t sleep on all the pre-match Awards presentation as that is great fun, especially Punk and Prazak’s reactions to everything.  The match itself was a vast improvement on what these two were putting on together last year and was really good up until that botch on the rana (I’m certain that when Punk slipped under the chair in the corner was a blown spot too).  It seems like there’s definite improvements in Punk’s work and that’ll be interesting to see as to whether that is because he’s working with his friend or because he has genuinely improved.  Punk’s crowd interactions, dealing with the hecklers are a real joy.

[AstroBoy]

I think they aimed a little too high and they could have cut 5 minutes off this at least but these two clearly have a good thing going by now.  Cabana is plenty good as a babyface on offense, especially with his early control.  Also one hell of a fist drop.  It meanders a bit toward the end and they botch a reverse rana though they cover nicely.  Punk takes advantage of some chaos to hit Cabana with the Pepsi Plunge for the win.