[2018-10-28-PROGRESS-Chapter 77: Pumpkin Spice] WALTER vs Zack Sabre Jr

[paul sosnowski]

Available at Progress On Demand.   WALTER defends the Progress World Title.    Talk about it here

[Cap]

I need to watch this match again, but on first watch I was sort of blown away by it. I thought it was really well executed, nuanced, and compelling.  I feel like the degree of difficulty on this story was really high. They have wrestled each other so many times in pretty high profile matches and they have told a different story each time. This one played off all those, especially their Progress match from NOLA.  It wasn't as loaded with big chops and flash offense, but they really made everything count. I am going to try to revisit it soon.

[Childs]

I agree. Thought this was great. I can't say with certainty that it was their best match, but it might have been. Everything these guys do well was on display. The sense of moment-to-moment competition was tremendous. 

[SmartMark15]

Really enjoyed this. The constant sense of struggle here is the best thing they've got going. Commentary as well as the ring work really sold the threat of WALTER's power matched against ZSJ's ability to grab a limb and tie you into knots. Thought that story was told exceedingly well in the ring and some of the early exchanges were great because of that. I also liked that the early stages allowed WALTER to show off his ground game with some really gruesome looking holds particularly when he was going for a Crab. Personally though, I prefer the Drago-esque murderer WALTER from OTT to this more competition based PROGRESS version. That's a personal choice but it's also clear in the crowd atmosphere. The blurred heel-face lines means the crowd never got worked into a real fever pitch. Still, a really great display of how to make wrestling look constantly competitive and make every move feel earned.

****1/4