Revisiting 00s US Indies #27

Bryan Danielson v Homicide (ROH Reborn: Stage Two, 4/24/04)

I thought this was really good, but probably didn't need to be close to half an hour. Homicide turned heel the night before by flinging a fireball in Joe's face during their title match. It led to a big post-match brawl with the locker room clearing out and the ring being torn up and one of the funniest Gabe calls ever as he tries to sell the madness, shouting "OH MAN HOMICIDE'S COMING UP TO THIS AREA! I'M GETTING OUTTA HERE AAAAAAHHHHH!" Like he's being hunted down by a ravenous monster in a 70s horror. Still, Homicide is now on the wrong side of honour and he is a dangerous and unpredictable man. This is probably my favourite stretch of his career and he comes out pissed before the match even starts. The crowd start a HOMO-cide chant as that was a source of much amusement in 2004 so Homicide picks up the ring bell and fuckin throws it in the crowd! He was awesome in this and not just because of the fan interactions, though they was obviously great (tells another fan he punched their mother, spits on someone, throws chairs and flips the ringside table). The matwork early on is all solid stuff and they mostly nail the subtleties so it doesn't just look like time-killing. The STRUGGLE and all that. You expect that from Danielson anyway, but it's been a minute since I've watched Homicide work a slow-burner like this so I was digging it. Homicide works the neck for a brief spell, then on the floor he punches the guardrail and his selling is top drawer the rest of the way. Obviously Danielson goes after the hand and any match where someone's hand is worked over is immediately 12 stars and I don't make the rules on that, I'm afraid. He bends the fingers, stomps on them, incorporates finger-bending into already nasty holds like a seated abdominal stretch and an Indian deathlock. I also liked how they never completely dropped the neck stuff after Danielson took over. Homicide sensibly went back to it towards the end, and there was a nasty STF spot made doubly awesome when Homicide couldn't apply it properly because he couldn't lock his fingers. CONTINUITY! Danielson's neck also prevents him from bridging more than a few seconds on Cattle Mutilation, which I thought was super cool. Homicide mule kicking him in the balls to set up the finish was a nice bit of character-development as well. I can't wait to check those Rottweilers-Joe/Lethal tags again and this was a nice start to Homicide's run of terror.

Revisiting 00s US Indies #26

Bryan Danielson v Alex Shelley (ROH Arena Warfare, 3/11/06)

Okay so I guess I lied when I said I wasn't for watching this. '06 is maybe my least favourite year of Danielson's ROH run (or the part of that run I cared enough to follow. I stopped paying attention to ROH in 2008). Everything was just so LONG. I get that it was Gabe who booked his title run like that, but regardless of who was deciding he needed to go a full bastard hour with Colt Cabana I was burned out on him that year and haven't had much interest in revisiting it. I remembered this being another lengthy affair. I've been enjoying Shelley more than I expected though, and my friend told me it was thirty three minutes rather than a hundred and three. It was in fact just a shade over half an hour and honestly I didn't think it needed to even be that long. HOWEVER, they're in the old ECW arena here - a first for ROH - and Danielson explicitly says before the match that he's going to show these fucks a proper technical exhibition. He'll show them how a REAL wrestler does it, so a match like this in that context makes some sense. Prolly. The pre-match stuff was tremendous and Danielson was a hoot messing with the old ECW faithful. "That little girl can NOT fuck me UP!" He then threatens to punch the little girl in the face and backhand her mother, then a few minutes later nearly hops the rail and the little girl just looks at him in disgust. Some portly guy in the crowd says something or other and both Danielson and Shelley have a go at him. My favourite part of the match was the early matwork, which lasted about ten minutes or so. They interspersed that with Shelley throwing a rager on the mic about not telling the burger-flipper how to do HIS job so why is that guy telling Alex Shelley how to wrestle? I guess it's heel v heel as neither guy attempts to endear himself to the fans, and in fact both actively show contempt for them at several points. Shelley might be a mat wiz but he's not out-wizarding Danielson on the mat in the year 2006 and Danielson clearly finds great amusement in that. Shelley tries to work the leg and it lasts about a minute before Danielson puts him in his place again, then I guess just to show him how it's supposed to be done he starts picking apart Shelley's leg. Goes for the surfboard stretch, does the ooohhhh part as the crowd anticipate the payoff, then flips them the double bird and says "fuck you people" before just stomping Shelley's knees into the mat. Shelley eventually takes over and works the neck and shoulder for the Border City Stretch, and I guess this is ultimately used to set up Sliced Bread #2. Because he tries it at a few different points and can't hit it, but it's always looming in the background after Shelley's run through all of his other stuff. Danielson hucking both Shelley and Nana into the front row right by the little girl, her mother and the same portly guy from earlier ruled, as did his crazy somersault dive. That dive is one of the best ever because of how reckless and ungraceful it always looks. Finish is excellent with Danielson yet again having Sliced Bread #2 scouted and reversing it into a cradle (the exact same cradle Shelley scored a huge nearfall off of earlier, which is another awesome touch, particularly as Danielson's whole M.O. on the night was apparently to show up Shelley at every turn). So yeah, this was probably better than I expected. I don't feel like I wasted half an hour watching it and that...possibly counts for something? 

Revisiting 00s US Indies #25

Necro Butcher v Monsta Mack (GHW, 10/20/06)

Another one for the 2006 Necro Butcher hit list. What a year that maniac had. This was probably only about the seventh or eighth best match he had that year but it ruled in all of the ways you'd expect a Necro Butcher/Monsta Mack match to rule. Right away they crack each other in the jaw and from there it escalates to them recklessly brawling in the crowd. I love this venue they're in. It looks like the inside of a barn that a goth's turned into a nightclub. If you told me this happened in the Glasgow Cathouse I'd have believed you. Necro and Mack fight up the bleachers and I've mentioned AMBIANCE in almost every one of these Necro write-ups so far, but it's a pertinent point to make and the lone cameraman trying to follow this madness really does capture the chaos superbly. He has to sit his camera down on the apron for a second to hop the rail, all we can hear in the background is shouting and the crash of stuff being battered off other stuff, then when the camera pans around again Mack has just full force launched a chair at Necro's elbow from fifteen feet. Necro takes an insane running powerslam on the floor and Mack takes an even more insane suplex off one of the benches. Mack throws open chairs at Necro like he's trying to pin him to the wall, paying absolutely no heed to those chairs ricocheting dangerously close to the woman sitting in the stands right next to Necro. Necro's bar fight bit is the kind of thing I like fine in moderation, and I haven't seen him do it in ages so this one totally worked for me. The finish itself might've fallen a wee bit flat, but every punch they threw before it scrambled YOUR brains just watching. Mack headbutting Necro as hard as possible in the cheek was also vile so maybe I'll change my mind about that finish. 

Revisiting 00s US Indies #24

The Briscoe Brothers v CM Punk & Colt Cabana (ROH Reborn: Stage Two, 4/24/04)

Shtick! This was like 20 minutes long and for about 15 of those minutes it felt more like something you'd see at the Tulsa Convention Centre. The atmosphere helped a ton. They're in Chicago and naturally the Saints are never going to be booed, not when they're going for the tag titles against another heel team, so they go full on babyface and play allllll the way to the crowd. I'm not sure if they mic'd the ring up differently or it's just because there's no commentary, but you can hear pretty much everything the wrestlers are saying in there, how they interact with the referee, the shit-talking between both teams, etc. It was really cool and added a nice wee layer to things. I've never really cared one way or the other about Colt Cabana, but all of his sorta-comedy was great during the babyface shine and Punk even got in on the act as well. They call the Briscoes chicken-fuckers and of course the crowd start up several "you fuck chickens" chants throughout the match. Cabana asks Jay for a battle of the running shoulder tackles, but as Jay hits the ropes Cabana casually trips him and Jay is left checking his teeth. The Saints do an awesome sequence where Punk gives Jay an atomic drop, with Jay's foot landing directly in Mark's balls, then they tie both Briscoes up so Jay is essentially putting Mark in an Indian deathlock while Punk and Cabana have each of them in a camel clutch. It was a great opening stretch. When the Briscoes take over on Punk we get even more shit-talking, and the Briscoes are great shit-talkers. Mark spits on Cabana to draw him in the ring and I love how we can clearly hear the referee trying to reason with the wrestlers, telling Mark he understands that it's illegal for Cabana to be in there but he has five seconds to get back out. The last stretch is more along the lines of your big time finishing run with everyone in there at the same time, big nearfalls and double-teams and the like, but I thought the escalation was fine and it didn't just feel like them flipping a switch and dropping the more "traditional" aspects to get there. Really fun match. I'm almost tempted to watch the Joe/Punk matches again.

Revisiting 00s US Indies #23

Austin Aries v Samoa Joe (ROH Third Anniversary Celebration - Part 3, 2/26/05)

I liked this way more than their Final Battle match and thought it was pretty tremendous. It plays off the title change in obvious ways, but not to the point where it feels like they're forcing any learned psychology or whatever, and for a change I thought Gabe was good at getting the story across without being in-your-face smarky about it (also he doesn't shout DANGEROUSSSS at the top of his squeaky lungs once so that was welcome). Didn't hurt that Joe and Aries were both great on the night. Joe won't be surprised by Aries' explosiveness again and it'll be hard for Aries to reel off a combo like the one that won him the belt. Maybe the stars aligned that night and it's hard to imagine they'll do so again. Aries takes lots of powders early when he can't make anything stick. Everything he tries gets shut down and Joe is almost toying with him, dismissive and confident that Aries can't hurt him. Loved the bit where Aries tried to drag Joe to the floor by his leg, so Joe flipped it by walking back with Aries still clutching that leg. When Joe turns it on and finally goes out after Aries he wipes him with a tope, then Olé kicks him so hard he knocks a bunch of the front row on their butts. Aries bleeds and Joe puts an awesome mauling on him, working the cut and generally dominating him. Great bit where he has the STF but rather than hooking in the crossface he just digs his fingers into Aries' forehead and tries to peel off his scalp. Aries' bursts of offence come sporadically but they keep getting shut down. He sort of flirts with going after the leg, that doesn't work for him either and any combos are interrupted, including the crucifix bomb/head kick/brainbuster/450 that he won the belt with. He hits the first three individually at different points, but it's never enough to keep Joe down (the head kick looked spectacular, though). Then he misses the 450 and Joe throws those brutal grounded knees to the head. Cool finish as well, which shows how resourceful Aries is, even if he maybe had no clue that he was actually turning the choke into a pin and it was just a desperation attempt at escaping. Either way he looked tough as nails for hanging, smart enough to (maybe) think on his feet, and Joe looked like a wrecking ball who almost certainly would've won had he just shifted his bodyweight a little. 

Revisiting 00s US Indies #22

Bryan Danielson v Necro Butcher (PWG Giant-Sized Annual #4, 7/29/07)

This was great fuckin craic. Danielson/Necro feels like a match-up that should've happened a few dozen times, but I get why it didn't and BECAUSE it didn't it manages to have that Indie Dream Match feel to it. And there's nobody better at working Indie Dream Match than the Necro Butcher. The early grappling was great, just super gritty with Danielson trying to stretch Necro out and Necro fighting like a mad man to avoid it. We all know what Necro is by now and mat wizard isn't it, but he absolutely does add an awesome sense of struggle to holds, sort of like an Ian Rotten with his meth head Battlarts. There's an authenticity - maybe even a by god LEGITIMACY - that lots of guys held up as good mat wrestlers never capture. Danielson offers up a knucklelock so Necro punches him in the stomach and throws headbutts, because of course he does. He throws two clonkers, then Danielson reels back to avoid the third and rolls Necro onto the mat, at which point he starts grinding his knuckles into the newly-opened cut on Necro's forehead. The brawling on the floor ruled. Necro recklessly throws chairs at Danielson and appears to cut him open above the eye, then whips a plastic bag out his pocket and tries to suffocate him! When Danielson starts throwing chairs in return Necro leaves himself wide open like a true maniac and gets smashed in the face with at least three lobbed chairs. Loved the bit where Danielson tried to go for Cattle Mutilation and Necro smashed him in the face with the back of his head, then tried to gouge his eye out while Danielson was trying to hook those arms. Necro's hobo Holyfield punch flurry, Danielson's crucifix elbows, everything in the last couple minutes was hit with a thud. Just an awesome ten minutes.

Revisiting 00s US Indies #21

Samoa Joe v Necro Butcher (IWA-MS, 6/11/05)

An absolute slaughterhouse of a thing. Pretty much every time I watch this I'm mesmerised by the insanity of it all. Joe is this unrelenting force who's run through everyone on the indies for a couple years now. Necro is a hideous mutant Resident Evil boss who cannot be killed. Joe tries to kill him anyhow and it makes for the greatest filthy seedy brawl in history. The AMBIANCE is incredible as this crowd of black tar dealers are just astonished by the brutality on display. They're nuclear hot for all of it, from the opening strike exchange to every instance of Necro almost having his head and face caved in. Necro splitting his own head open trying to headbutt Joe was wild and then Joe powerslamming him on his FACE is still about the most insane spot ever. Or at least it would've been had he not hit the exploder later. It's still the one and only time I've seen anyone take an exploder suplex on their forehead and the fact he did it on concrete off the bastard apron is kind of unfathomable. I know some people hate the commentary. Obviously it's insidey and silly, but I've always liked it for the fact all three of them are clearly having the best time watching it. "He done kicked him in the fuckin head!" Joe covered in Necro's blood as he knees and kicks him into oblivion is the damndest finish of them all. Maybe the best ten-minute match ever. 

Revisiting 00s US Indies #20

Carnage Crew & Justin Credible v Rudy Boy Gonzalez, Hotstuff Hernandez, Fast Eddie & Don Juan (Weapons Match) (ROH Death Before Dishonor, 7/19/03) 

Man what in the fuck is this feud?! How has nobody talked about these guys doing this much all-time ridiculous level shit to each other? I thought the Round Robin Challenge II match was a little better overall, a bit tighter and they sold the magnitude of all the crazy bumps better, but fuck all that because this was balls out lunacy. If you're going to do a wild hardcore plunderfest then this is pretty much the gold standard. Fuck yer Steen and Generico v Briscoe Brothers, not a one of them have anything on Fast Eddie. The first few minutes were mostly standard fare, but like their last match even the garden variety stuff looked like it was hit with as much force behind it as humanly possible. DeVito smashes a cane over Fast Eddie's back and Gabe drops what is probably his best and yet most Gabe line ever: "It's a good thing he didn't see THAT one comin'! Cos he is legally blind." The blindness is reinforced as Eddie and Hernandez try to do a stereo missile dropkick (while Juan has Masada sandwiched between two chairs), but Eddie jumps late and connects with little. Credible and Rudy Boy head into to the crowd for a little wander...and then every person involved decides they're going to do at least one outrageous thing that they can show their grandchildren in thirty years like this is the time I almost died in front of 600 people in New Jersey. Masada hits a spider German off the top to Fast Eddie through a propped up chair and I'm not joking, this is the single most ridiculous bump I've ever seen in my life. I was legitimately in shock and burst out laughing like some sort of maniac. I had to record it on my phone and send it to five different people and how he never crippled himself I'll never know. DeVito gets suplexed kidneys-first onto a ladder that's propped up between the top and middle turnbuckles, Loc fucking OBLITERATES Don Juan with a chairshot to the back of the head, Hernandez hits a HUGE running powerbomb to Masada by launching him into a sea of standing chairs, there's a double neckbreaker from the ring apron through two chairs on the floor, Fast Eddie the poor bastard gets chucked as a body projectile from inside the ring to out and thuds nastily on the wooden floor, someone gets spike piledriven off the apron through a table, Hernandez dies off a tope suicida, just a laundry list of stupidity. This was life-affirming. 

Revisiting 00s US Indies #19

Low-Ki v Necro Butcher (Knockout or Tapout Match) (IWA-MS, 12/16/06)

Fuck me. This doesn't have the AMBIANCE of Joe/Necro or the dream match buzz that the first Ki/Necro had, but I might've liked it better than both. The first Ki/Necro was Ki committing a mauling for about 75-80% of it. Necro of course will die for our pleasure and take a hellish beating like no one in history so that dynamic worked. This time, in kayfabe terms, they're a little more familiar, and they work like that. They still murder each other to a stupid degree, but it's worked way more even and I liked how they structured it a bit more than the first match. I thought it was pretty much amazing, basically. It might actually be closer to 60/40 in favour of Necro and I genuinely don't remember seeing Ki ever take this much of a hammering. Necro throws some of the meanest chops ever while Ki is flat up against a wall, so he can't even rock back to absorb the blow a little. At one point Necro picked him up, walked over to a stack of scattered chairs and gave Ki a backbreaker across a couple of them, clearly not trying to land the move in a particular way (the safest way, for example) and just dropping him all shoulder blade and ribcage across the chair backs. He was stomping Ki in the head and face and his bare knuckle hillbilly boxing never looked wilder, the bit where he punched Ki in the cheek from a tree of woe position being especially awesome. Obviously Ki gave as good as he got and then some. There are 206 bones in the human body and Ki must've kicked or stomped every single one of Necro's - roundhouses, short punts, Kawada kicks, koppu kicks, the entire repertoire and Necro took them to the femur, the ribs, the jaw, the ear, the toes, the shin, the spine, the skull. This was also a match where Ki hit a top rope double stomp to Necro's back while he was bent over the back of a chair. In pretty much any other match that would've been the nastiest thing to happen. It was horrific and Necro sold it like he had internal bleeding and for second there I believed it. It was probably only the second nastiest thing to happen in this as Ki full force knife edge chopping Necro in the willy had me hooting in shock. How Necro never puked up his gummy bears I'll never know. Honestly, I didn't love the finish as it felt like a bit of an anticlimax, BUT the name of the game (or part of it) is tapout so I guess it's my own fault for discounting that it could've happened in the first place. Necro's resume in 2006 is ridiculous and this is another corker you can add to the list. 

Revisiting 00s US Indies #18

Jimmy Jacobs v BJ Whitmer (Falls Count Anywhere) (ROH Fifth Year Festival: Finale, 3/4/07)

Still probably my favourite singles match either guy has ever had. Where their big cage match blowoff lost me was when they started having folk bring weapons and stuff to the ring and it became more about the big spots and kickouts of those big spots than the pure, unfiltered HATE and DISGUST and MALICE and whatnot. This was just a brawl around the building and the one weapon they used was the railroad spike, which was always an amazing part of the feud anyway. Jacobs was so good around this period, really an incredible brawler and character worker. I don't remember where I read it now but someone made the comparison between him and Eddie Gilbert and it's pretty much dead on. Much smaller guy, amazing brawler with an equally amazing wrestling imagination. He got thrown down every fucking stair in the building here, chucked across a bar knocking drinks everywhere with his head, yeeted into a stack of heavy non-folding chairs, thrown into half a dozen walls and at one point Whitmer tried to throw him off the balcony. For a second I thought he'd actually let him do it as well. Little things like Jacobs clawing Whitmer in the eyes to escape stood out and on offence he was a maniac, hitting a lunatic plancha off the balcony being the highlight. Once they get to the ring it doesn't take long before Jacobs stabs Whitmer with the spike, and say what you want about BJ Whitmer but that guy will go HARD with the plasma. He bladed every time Jacobs spiked him and the blood was visibly spraying out of his forehead at one point. Jacobs wiping the blood over himself and lying underneath Whitmer as the latter crawled around dripping blood was unbelievable. They didn't spend a ton of time on the ramp - they didn't spend a ton of time doing anything, which is partly responsible for me liking it so much - but everything there looked good and that finish was as brutal as you could want. I've called this the 00s version of Duggan/Sawyer for years now. I guess you can't really compare something with a reverse rana fighting spirit bit to Duggan/Sawyer and it probably had a little too much actual wrestling for the comparison to stick, but it's still the high point of straight up no-nonsense ROH brawling from a period where brawling was what the promotion did better than anything.

Revisiting 00s US Indies #17

Carnage Crew v Hotstuff Hernandez, Fast Eddie & Don Juan (No DQ) (ROH Retribution: Round Robin Challenge II, 4/26/03)

Man what? This has to be one of the most under the radar great matches in ROH history. What an awesome, wild little riot between six guys I've paid no attention to at any point in my life as a wrestling fan. I didn't even know Fast Eddie was ACTUALLY blind (legally, I mean) and all those CM Punk jokes were rooted in TRUTH. These guys killed each other for ten minutes with some of the craziest shit imaginable. Every chair shot looked like it would leave polka dots on a brain MRI and Hernandez literally cracked one of those chairs up the middle off DeVito's head. Masada taking a hurricanrana off the middle turnbuckle to the floor through two chairs was peak Mick Foley ridiculousness. Loc gets cut open hardway on the back of his head, Fast Eddie hits a gusher, DeVito bleeds and we get Puerto Rico close-ups on all of them. Hernandez hit two insane powerbombs in this, the second one chucking Fast Eddie like a javelin from the ring to the floor to wipe out all three Carnage Crew members. Then he goes for a tope and DeVito throws a chair at him, which practically causes Hernandez to spike himself head first on the floor like that Undertaker bit at Wrestlemania 25. A three-person spike piledriver made for a suitably crazy finish as well. There's another match in this feud a few months later and there's no way I can't watch that. 

Revisiting 00s US Indies #16

Samoa Joe v Low-Ki v Dan Maff v BJ Whitmer (ROH Second Anniversary Show, 2/14/04)

This was way the fuck better than I was expecting it to be. I figured I'd watch it anyway for the potential Joe/Ki stuff, and the Joe/Ki stuff ruled, but so did everything else and to a fairly surprising degree. You can tell Joe and Ki are the money match-up and everyone is super hot for it. They smartly limit their interactions for what I guess would've been an actual title match down the line, but I'm assuming Ki pissed somebody off too many times and it never happened. The Maff and Whitmer involvement was the most surprising part of this. They're both Prophecy members but don't actually like each other, yet they need to try and coexist for the sake of the Prophecy. Also because they'll probably be murdered by one of the other two if they don't. They don't REALLY work as a unit for a lot of this and it means BJ especially gets stomped out. Joe and Ki obliterate him for a spell and Ki just lights him up with chops. When Maff tries to step to Joe he gets hit really hard in the neck. It was good stuff. Then they do a short bit on the floor with everyone getting chucked into the barricade and at some point Joe cuts his hand open. Don't know what did it but the gash was NASTY and there's a close-up shot of blood just streaming from a wound. I'm not sure if they decided to audible the whole thing then or at least some of it was planned beforehand, but from there they go into an extended segment of Joe in peril and that ruled as well. Maff is especially great here as he starts biting the hand and Pirata Morgan style spitting the blood in the air. He and Whitmer stomp the hand, whip it into the mat, just a bunch of fun work to capitalise on something that couldn't have been part of the plan (the ref' trying to seal it up with duct tape suggests even he was thinking on the fly). Finishing stretch was red hot. Ki does a springboard onto the middle rope and as he lands Joe fucking nukes his face off with a slap to tag himself back in. The Ki/Joe showdown was honestly incredible. It wasn't the longest but sweet baby Jesus did they hammer each other. Ki initially breaks up an STF by full force booting Joe in the face, and they basically do a two-minute Ikeda/Ishikawa showdown. I guess I could've done without them having a sort of fighting spirit dick-swinging contest in the middle of it, but I can forgive them considering the rest of the exchange was so good. Finish was great too. In Ki's last ROH appearance he knocked out Maff (whether legitimately or in kayfabe terms I'm not sure, but it's Low-Ki so it could've been either or both), so when it looks like Joe and Ki are going to have their final showdown to settle the match, Maff comes barrelling into view and spears Ki to the floor. Joe then quickly turns to Whitmer and of course Whitmer has no chance, going down in short order to the choke. This might be one of the best US 4-way matches I've seen.

Revisiting 00s US Indies #15

Low-Ki v Paul London v AJ Styles (ROH One Year Anniversary Show, 2/8/03)

You know, for a wild spotfest triple threat, this was probably one of the best of its ilk that I've seen. It was like the best possible version of a Beyond Wrestling match where they just went out and did as much awesome looking shit as they could. You're not listening to 2 Chainz for deep story raps and you're not watching this for the psychology or narrative structure or whatever. My low bar hopes for threeway matches are basically that there isn't a ton of one wrestler needing to lie around selling something for an inordinate amount of time while the other two pair off, and that when they inevitably try some elaborate shit it doesn't take half an hour to set up and leave me tuning out. I thought they mostly nailed that balance between selling and getting shit in here, and while some of the stuff was elaborate, it wasn't ridiculous and that elaborate stuff wound up being cool as fuck anyway, so I'll accept the tradeoff. There was even a bit of role-establishment as well, with Ki and Styles being the indie superstars and the guys folk had pinned their hopes on for solidifying ROH's seat at the big boy table, while London has never had any of that hype and thus essentially becomes an underdog babyface. Ki and Styles were never dismissive of him as such, but there were a couple points where they doubled up on him just to get him out the road so the all-star match-up could take place. Some of the stuff they all did was nuts and things I've never seen before or since, which is quite incredible considering this happened in 2003 and the level of INNOVATION~ wrestling his strived for since then. Also helped that everything looked like it hurt like a bastard. London hit one missile dropkick to the back of Styles that I thought gave him whiplash. I rewound it and slowed it down and the back of his head about touched his shoulder blade. Even struggles over a top rope move were good because Styles would just whack London in the kidneys with nasty forearms, Ki would do what he always does and hit everyone really hard, they never messed about up there for ages, etc. The final bit with all three of them on the top rope was about the least contrived version of that particular threeway trope I could ask for and the finish itself was great. Shockingly enjoyable match. I know why they didn't but they should've stuck the belt on London that night because the crowd were SO ready for it. 

Revisiting 00s US Indies #14

CM Punk v Doug Williams (ROH Second Anniversary Show, 2/14/04)

Really fun little match. This was a tournament semi-final (to crown the first Pure Wrestling Champion) and felt like it, but in the best way possible. They never tried to do a ton, kept things fairly simple as it was both guys' second match of the night, and crafted a fine wee narrative in a cool and interesting way. I'm not a HUGE CM Punk guy but he was a hoot in this. He's coming off a big angle at the start of the year where the Saints give Christopher Daniels a Pepsi Plunge through a table, putting Daniels on the shelf for a while and pretty much establishing Punk as the top heel in the company. So he acts like a shithead, stalls for time when Williams' trippy WoS stuff is too much to handle, gets into a shouting match with fans, generally dials the heelishness up past a mild 6 or 7. Williams has a sort of goofy Bob Backlund vibe, almost naïve in how he approaches things, as if he assumes that this being Ring of HONOUR means Punk won't stoop to dishonourable methods. Clearly he was a fool but his Euro-style matwork was pretty fun and Punk got to practically stooge around for it, then he'd try some of that Euro matwork of his own and he'd get taken to school. It was the richest poor man's Buddy Rose v Johnny Eagles you could want in 2004 ROH. The leg work in the back half was really good and I loved Punk doing the facewash bit in the corner, but doing it to the knee while Williams was tied up in a tree of woe. I don't think I've ever seen that before and it allowed Punk to shit-talk people in the crowd while he was at it. Finish was cool as well, with Williams hitting the Chaos Theory but the leg giving out on the bridge and it essentially forcing his own shoulders to the mat. Super enjoyable ten minutes. 

Revisiting 00s US Indies #13

Samoa Joe, BJ Whitmer & Adam Pearce v Chris Hero, Necro Butcher & Super Dragon (ROH The 100th Show, 4/22/06)

I always thought that ROH and CZW, in their own ways, were sort of the spiritual successors to ECW. Some of those reasons are admittedly pretty stupid, like the E-C-Dub/C-Z-Dub chants. Others make a little more sense (or at least they do to me and to be honest it's really only myself I'm here to amuse anyway), like how both ran out of Philly and CZW even briefly referred to the ECW Arena as the CZW Arena. ROH took up that ECW position as the #3 promotion in America for a while there, and at one point were probably closer to supplanting TNA as the #2 than ECW ever were to supplanting WCW or the WWF. There are a number of scumbag parallels between Heyman and Zandig. Both promotions had their very different but very niche fanbases, even if ROH's philosophy was based on Good Wrestling and CZW was always more of a deathmatch fed than a garbage fed (I don't use garbage fed derogatorily). Either way it was pretty fitting that both combined to produce the best ECW style brawl of the lot. 

You could make a decent case for this being the career match of every single person involved. I'm not saying I'd personally make that case, but I wouldn't argue with anyone who did. It's carnage from beginning to end and everything that was good about the ROH/CZW feud. Joe was incredible here and felt like the biggest badass in the world. The stuff with Necro was unreal. They pair off in the ring and Necro sets up two chairs like he's going to put Joe through them. Joe gets up and elbows him a bunch in the face (stiffly) and the crowd start a "Joe's gonna kill you" chant, then Joe spins the chairs around so they're back to back and there's an audible "oh Christ he's ACTUALLY gonna kill him here" reaction because fuck man, you know Necro would let him. Then he suplexes him on the backs of the chairs, people losing their mind, Joe surveying the carnage of his own making, a god in his own domain. Hero, who was also awesome, had scurried away at some point, and there's an amazing shot of him in the crowd amongst the ROH fans with this "oh my days I can't believe he fucking did that" look of horror. Fittingly enough the Hero/Joe exchanges were great. Hero was a complete douchebag and his obnoxiousness ruled so people were just DYING for Joe to mangle him, which he did more than once. I've never cared about Adam Pearce but he either bladed the side of his head like a maniac or got split open hardway and bloody and battered Adam Pearce stumbling around wellying people with chairs is the very best Adam Pearce. The fist fight with him and Necro was perfect, a couple vagrants fighting to the death over a tin of beans. Whitmer is another guy I can't be bothered with and yet he made magic here. He took two of the most insane bumps I've ever seen, first having his head double stomped while it was placed through the back of a standing chair, then taking a Psycho Driver off the apron through a table. Other than committing those two acts of murder Super Dragon was actually a bit inconspicuous in this, though you can absolutely imagine him going full Tracy Smothers in the crowd and goading someone into a fist fight by calling their girlfriend a manky bitch. 

They paid homage to ECW with the finish as well. It was overbooked to hell and back and you know what? It was fucking perfect. Earlier in the show Claudio became the first person ever in ROH to receive a handshake from Christopher Daniels, almost in a passing of the torch moment. He then came out at the start of this and stole Zandig's barbed wire bat, as Zandig had obviously tried to stick his nose in because he's Zandig. Zandig comes back out again at the end and when Claudio appears you're thinking he's here to even the odds. And of course he turns on ROH, saddles up with his old buddy Hero and CZW use their numbers to score the win in ROH's house. Joe staring a hole through them as they celebrate with their section of CZW fans would shrivel your testes and I love how the show went off the air with BJ being carted out on a stretcher while the CZW music blares over the speakers. This is one of the absolute peaks of ROH and maybe a top 5 match in its history. 

Revisiting 00s US Indies #12

The Briscoes v Samoa Joe & Bryan Danielson (ROH The Battle Lines Are Drawn, 1/10/04)

I wasn't sure I'd like this much as the last Briscoes match I watched from around this period was, how you might say, dogshit. But this was really good, right there in the sweet spot between your traditional southern tag and peak ROH workrate, but never being ridiculous even at around 25 minutes (which it didn't really need to be but we can deal). It had a fairly simple story told well - the Briscoes are the tag champs and a natural unit while Joe and Danielson are the dream team, albeit a dream team of two very different individuals. The latter pretty much dominated the first half entirely, but they did it in very individual ways. I don't think there was a single acknowledgment from either that they had a tag team partner they could work with, other than one moment where Danielson held Mark Briscoe in place so Joe could come in and take over. It worked for them and they looked a league above the Briscoes. Danielson was so good in this, grabbing Mark's arm and just ragdolling him about, telling Mark to hit him before taking his head off with an uppercut. The closest the Briscoes came to sustaining offence in the first half was briefly isolating Joe, but then Jay threw a chop and shouted like he enjoyed how INTENSE that chop was and Joe fucking slapped his teeth out for being dumb. The Briscoes were clearly working in tandem though, even if it was something as simple as a blind tag from one of them to get the other out of trouble. Eventually it paid off in the best way possible, with the ULTIMATE double-team transition, when Jay hoisted Danielson up from the blindside and Mark hit a Doomsday Device. Danielson sold the hell out of it as well, and considering he'd been in full control up to that point he really needed to so it might look like he was in actual danger. He crawled to the edge of the ring and went limp over the bottom rope, which let Jay and Mark take turns standing on his neck while the other goaded Joe into the ring. From there the Briscoes worked like a team and did all the things good teams do - quick tags, keeping Danielson isolated in their corner of the ring, running distractions where necessary, hitting actual double-teams, all the things Joe and Danielson didn't do. It played into the finish as well. Danielson makes the hot tag and Joe comes in swinging, but he lets himself become preoccupied with humiliating Mark on the floor. He's tossing Mark around and hitting ole kicks, asking the crowd if they want another one, soaking up the moment, while back in the ring Jay hits a Jay Driller on a still-woozy Danielson. If Joe had been paying a little more attention he might've been able to break up the pin, maybe stop the move from happening altogether, but as it is Mark is able to hold him back long enough for Jay to get the 3. I don't see myself watching a ton of Briscoes matches again but this was good stuff. 

Revisiting 00s US Indies #11

Necro Butcher v Super Dragon (PWG BOLA 2006 - Night 2, 9/2/06)

Another example of a mid-2000s indie dream match knocking it out the park. This had a sort of old school territories feel to it with Necro bringing his madness from the Great Lakes out to Cali, like an Abby or Sheik rolling into Memphis and wreaking havoc. Necro's wearing cowboy boots with thumbtacks stuck to the sole. Dragon's mask is all-time great and he has that aura of a psychopath with the thick gut and bush league bodysuit; the sort of thing a serial killer flung together in his basement. It felt like a true spectacle before they even locked up. Then it felt like an even truer spectacle as soon as they did. This wasn't as viscerally insane as Necro/Joe but in some ways it might've been even more brutal. Necro/Joe was like the scene in True Detective where McConaughey tries to drag a meth head biker through a gangland warzone. That was complete chaos with the underlying sense that anyone could get caught in the crossfire. This was a different sort of chaos, a bit more channeled, a bit more primal, but even without the blood it might've had even more moments where you can't believe they've actually done this to themselves. Some of it was grotesque - the backdrop Dragon takes on the stage where he could've shattered his coccyx, the curb stomp on the chair, Dragon double stomping Necro's FACE (disgusting), basically every strike they threw. On Necro's end the striking made up an awesome part of the story. Reckless punches to the temple are a staple of every Necro murderfest, so Dragon takes the initiative early and smashes his hand to bits with a chair. Necro sells what may have been a very legitimate broken hand the rest of the way, going to these borderline-untrained punches almost as a last resort, throwing absolute hand grenades that might hurt himself but will hurt Dragon a whole lot more. Dragon responds with hellish elbows and punts and straight up chops Necro in the face. Every chair shot was outrageous and Dragon chucking one full force at the back of Necro's head is the greatest prison riot move in history. In matches like this it can sometimes be hard not to finish things on an anticlimax, just because they've put each other through such ridiculousness beforehand that you can't quite buy someone staying down for whatever happens at the end. That was absolutely not the case here as Dragon's Psycho Driver on the chair was a fucking absurdity. Honestly, I didn't think it needed to be 27 minutes long as it did lead to a bit of laying around. On the flipside, I'd glad they took that time in between all the hellish shit to sell a little extra, when the alternative would usually be cramming in even more hellish shit and it all being a bit too much. So you accept the tradeoff and walk away happy, if maybe a little dirty for enjoying two lunatics doing this to each other. 

Revisiting 00s US Indies #10

Samoa Joe v Chris Hero (IWA-MS, 5/29/04)

These indie dream matches from the early-to-mid-2000s are a whole lot more palatable than the indie dream matches that were happening when I stopped actually following any indies. Same goes for most of the dream matches in WWE/NXT today. Things like this feel a little more special to me as well, I guess partly because we're now so far removed from 2004 that there's a sort of personal nostalgic longing for this period in time. I don't really give a shit about most of the indie stars of today, but these were some of the first guys I saw when I started watching the indies to begin with, so even if neither would be particularly high on a favourites list they *were* a bit of a gateway to a new world of wrestling (I miss The Wrestling Channel, FWIW). This was also like 18 minutes long and it never felt like they were actively reaching for epic (or maybe that never started happening anyway until Joe/Punk II was given the vaunted 5 biscuits by big Davey Meltz). It felt organic. The crowd was tremendous, almost like a low-key Joe/Kobashi crowd where you knew these people were beyond hyped to be seeing these two wrestle. Nothing felt forced, none of the chanting was ZANY and the lengthy Let's Go Joe/Let's Go Hero bit came off like it was born out of genuine excitement. The matwork section to start was good stuff, but the crowd were bubbling and ready for some bombs and all credit to Joe and Hero for recognising it, moving away from the matwork and smashing each other very often and very hard in the teeth instead. The heat was consistent and people were getting exactly what they wanted and you could tell the wrestlers read it. Nothing about this was worked in a vacuum, all of it was tailored to this specific crowd, and in the eternal words of Tracy Smothers THAT is called working, motherfucker. Some of the strike exchanges were outstanding and Hero threw some of the best forearms and elbows of his life. Joe wasn't quite the legendary figure he'd become just yet, but Hero going blow for blow with him was significant. Then they play nicely off Hero being on a bit of a losing streak, where he hits the Hero's Welcome but rather than pinning Joe he drags him up to attempt another. He should've held firm on his initial play though, because it only allowed Joe to reverse it and eventually come back with the choke. He had Joe where he needed him and he flew too close to the sun. 

Revisiting 00s US Indies #9

Bryan Danielson v AJ Styles (ROH Main Event Spectacles, 11/1/03)

Is this their best match? A lot of these indie legend match-ups have happened so often and in so many places over the years that it's hard to keep track. Hell, these two had a match this year that according to legend was pretty great. I can't keep up with all that shit but I certainly don't *remember* having seen this before...and I feel like I'd remember it because it was indeed really good. Dragon was in a surly mood on the night and it seemed to rub off on AJ, if not immediately then certainly as time wore on. The early matwork looked nice and tight and Danielson zeroed in on one AJ fan who'd been giving him shit, so every nasty stretch or yank of a limb was directed at him. "Get in here and see who can't wrestle." At times it felt like he might've been trying a wee bit TOO hard to heel it up, but I don't mind that and wrestlers being super vocal is rarely something I'll complain about. The stars aligning and Gabe deciding to watch the match from the crowd meant there was no Gabe commentary and so I'll take a match-worth of Danielson shit-talking all day and every day as an alternative. His work on AJ's arm was great, just rough and mean and it all looked legitimately painful. There was one part where he snapped AJ's wrist around to an audible crack, then stomped the elbow as Styles rolled around in agony. AJ going after Danielson's leg as a response was good stuff as well, especially when he started matching surliness. Danielson getting chucked recklessly knee-first into the guardrail and then shouting "stay back, dickhead!" when AJ followed up was awesome, in an almost indie dream match comedy spot sort of way. Danielson calls AJ a pussy and asks if that's all he's got so AJ goes buck wild and tries to stomp his head into the mat. The stretch run was really good as well, transitioned into with Bryan hitting an incredible leaping European uppercut out the corner, and they captured that real sense of struggle right to the end. Danielson fighting off the Styles Clash with all his might only for AJ to hit a one-armed version was totally badass.