[2001-02-03-IWA-MS-1st House of Hardcore Anniversary] Jerry Lynn vs Colt Cabana

[GSR]

You can clearly see the influence of the British style on Cabana’s work in the initial exchanges and trading of holds. Side headlock and as it looks as though Lynn is about to escape, Colt grabs a handful of hair to prevent him from doing so. He backs Jerry into the corner and unleashes a couple of forearm smashes to the chest. Lynn switches position and fires back with a pair of hard open hand slaps. Irish whip to the opposite corner, but as Colt comes rushing in Lynn leaps up over, hooks his arms and takes him down with a lovely sunset flip. Both men duck under lariats so Colt changes tactic, throwing a dropkick to try and catch his opponent off guard. Springboard flying forearm followed by a scoop powerslam for a two. He misses a right but, after backdropping Jerry over the top rope, doesn’t realise that he’s landed on the apron. Cabana blocks having his head rammed into the turnbuckles then does what Lynn had planned, to him. He fails to connect on the attempted shoulder to the mid-section as Lynn sees it coming, jumping up out the way and catching Colt with a leg drop to the back of the head sending him tumbling to the floor. Back inside and Lynn with a quesadora bulldog (sounds much fancier than a wheelbarrow into a bulldog!) and Ace Steele (who is cornering Colt) has to alert the official to Cabana’s foot being under the bottom rope. Colt floats over on the bodyslam attempt, hits a huracanrana but then runs into a tilt-a-whirl backbreaker. The cradle piledriver is countered with a backdrop before they run through a ‘Guerrero/Malenko’ sequence of pinfalls and reversals. Belly to back by Jerry for a near fall as Colt gets a shoulder up at the last moment. Another wheelbarrow, but this time Cabana pancakes Lynn to the mat. Middle rope moonsault is missed and Lynn with a perfectly executed jumping tornado DDT. Spinning neckbreaker from Colt and now both men have been a fraction from putting the other away. The Irish whips is reversed and Colt goes crashing into the referee. Gut wrench suplex and Cabana gets the visual three as the ref is still KO’ed. He heads to the top rope for a big splash when Steele turns, shoving him to the mat. Cradle piledriver and Lynn takes the win.

 

This might be a bit dry for some people’s tastes but I thought it was a good match and it was cool to see Cabana in a singles bout with someone other than Punk. Admittedly even though Jerry Lynn is a veteran, Colt matched him in the wrestling department and looked pretty darn impressive for someone with less than eighteen months of experience. I wasn’t fond of the ref bump with how the match had gone, but in saying that, it was one of the more believable ref bumps that I’ve seen in this project. I’ll be watching plenty of Lynn throughout 2001 including most, if not all, of his WWF run.