[2021-04-08-GCW-Josh Barnett's Bloodsport 6] Matt Makowski vs Heddi Karaoui

[Edwin]

This was a really good match. First time seeing Karaoui and I was really impressed. He's a French wrestler who's apparently spent years in Mexico and he busts out some wicked lucha submissions yet he makes them look credible in shoot style ala Alexander Otsuka (obviously not as fluid as he's less experienced in the style). Makowski is always a guy who impresses me when I see him but unfortunately he usually works smaller shows which fly under the radar for the most part. As every other time I've seen him, he was incredible here. Some of his strikes here were questionable but he threw a pretty wicked knee in the clinch. There's some neat throws in this as well with Karaoui hitting a nice slam on Makowski and Makowski dishing out a beautiful judo throw. This however was very grapple heavy and developed on the mat for 90% of it and it featured some grittiness and some nifty exchanges including Karaoui's sick lucha submission attempts and Makowski even making a sharp shooter look credible in a shoot style environment. Makowski's chaos theory into an armbar ala Mighty Mouse is one of the coolest finishers in modern wrestling. Not to nitpick but there's some flaws to this, such as some questionable strikes, a weak looking crossface from Karaoui and nasty armbreaker that was basically brushed off by Makowski near the end but this was still really good regardless. I wouldn't mind seeing a rematch between these two and I definitely hope we get more Karaoui in Bloodsport matches.