[2020-07-05-Dove Pro] Keita Yano vs Rey Paloma

[Ma Stump Puller]

One usually only knows of Paloma from his goofy backstreet indie antics, but here he shows off a bit and reminds everyone that he can bloody well go when pushed. The Catch sequences they were doing here were tremendous: these two just have so much creativity together that what we get are these great clashes where Keita could do cool stuff, but Paloma would just completely school him with a equally cool counter or transition, either throwing himself around with super slick cartwheels or grabbing on a hold, keeping a frantic and consistently solid pace throughout the beginning. That bit was great, they moved on to more conventional wrestling stuff which wasn't as good, mostly focused around silly old WoS spots or some comedy. Outside of a sick Cravat variation where Keita pulls on the face as leverage instead of the neck, the rest was pretty much by the numbers for a Keita control sequence. Him doing evil laughs and aping Kendo Kashin spots will never not get old though. We had a good energised comeback from Paloma before hitting his always amazing Rick Rude-style gyrating in a heel hook to get extra leverage while Keita sells his ass off like he was being burned with hot irons. They teased a draw as Keita struggles to get up after a running back elbow with a dub spot but Paloma is ultimately just faking so that he can sneak on a roll-up.

The two have a super slick back and forth with pins before Keita counters a La Magistral by hooking the shoulders and sticking his legs on the ropes, getting the dirty win. This was a pretty great match that was basically these two doing some stellar technical wrestling with the flair of a classic 80's British WoS outing. Paloma is a enigma for quality bouts, mostly known for his comedy work, but the dude is REALLY quite amazing for being 46 here, guy could outpace most wrestlers half his age with what he was doing and at the speed he was doing it. At the same time though, the two make sure to hone in on making this matter as a match, getting over Keita having to work dirty for a advantage after initially being outstaged over and over and staying with that theme all the way to the end. It's really something to see, and Keita puts in a surprisingly motivated performance to really hammer in how good this was. Lovely little COVID-era match, one of the more slept on ones.