[2001-01-20-FWA-Unknown Quantity 2] Doug Williams vs Scottie Rock

[GSR]

Williams establishes himself as the heel by telling the fans to “sit down and shut your mouth”.  When he starts getting grief off some young kids in the front row he questions “shouldn’t you be in your bed?”, which is so British.  Rock reminds me of a poor man’s Justin Credible, only with slightly more hair.  Williams insults some “hard man” in a Metallica T-shirt, and then informs the crowd if they don’t keep the noise down and cheer for him he’s going to leave right now.  Of course he doesn’t, although teases that he will on two separate occasions.  After getting outmanoeuvred on the wrestling front Williams complains of a non-existent hair pull before going on another walk around ringside.  Headstand escape from the headscissors.  Single leg takedown by Rock and Williams does that ultra cool reversal of his where he turns it into a side headlock.  I remember thinking that was so great the first time I saw it and it’s still cool as.  Rock dumps him with a couple of belly to back suplexes.  There’s clear daylight between the dropkick but Williams still takes to the outside for a breather.  He’s stalling this one like a good ‘un, even taking a seat at the timekeeper’s table.  When the referee starts counting him out he thinks better of it.  As he’s about to return to the ring Scottie goes over to grab him but Williams snaps his neck across the top rope.  The heeling continues as he uses the ropes for additional leverage on the Figure Four chinlock as well as the modified Indian Deathlock, the official catching him on the latter.  There’s a nice added touch on the rear chinlock where he bends Rock’s own hand behind his head, grabbing his elbow to pull back and apply even more pressure.  The crowd know as someone yells out “you’re hurting him!”  Butterfly suplex for a two.  Rock catches him with a headscissors, sending him out to the floor.  Running flip dive over the top rope, although Scottie hits his heels on the metal barricade.  Back inside, Williams with a snug European uppercut.  He spends too long jawing with the crowd as he climbs the turnbuckles and Rock falls into the ropes causing him to crotch himself.  Top rope Frankensteiner for a near fall.  Rock struggles to get on Doug’s shoulders before hitting a side rana.  Williams blocks the leaping rana, turning it into a sit-out powerbomb.  A great looking ‘Chaos Theory’, however it’s only a near fall.  I’m not sure about having folk kick out of that.  Williams goes for it a second time but they end up running into the referee, bumping him.  Rock counters anyway with a rollup, getting the visual pin as there is no-one to count the cover.  He goes over to check on the official but as he turns back around turns into a swinging DDT that gets Williams the win.

I didn’t watch any of Doug Williams when he worked in TNA so don’t recall ever seeing him work as a heel, even moreso as a heel in the UK.  What he did here was basic stuff but effective for this crowd and environment.  Interesting to see things like the headstand escape, the reversal into the side headlock and the ‘Chaos Theory’, all of which would become staples of his repertoire.  I went and re-read what I wrote about his match with Maverick Wilde last year and the ‘Chaos Theory’ was also only a transitional move then.  I suggested that maybe the reaction it got from the crowd would lead it to become his finisher.  Not yet anyway.  Enjoyable match all down to Williams and one that I’m glad I decided to check out.

[soup23]

Doug has improved a good bit since we saw him in 2000. He seems more confident in his abilities an when to place his nifty matwork spots and stuff like the Chaos Theory. I watched the Jody Fleisch match from earlier in this show and found it disjointed and barely a template for the best aspects of Fleisch in the future so it was refreshing to see that this was a much more advanced prototype of the wrestler Williams would become. Rock was a warm body for big portions of this but did have a good tope and improved his timing as the match progressed. A good match overall. ***1/4 (6.5)