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.
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