Monday 27 February 2023

Revisiting 00s US Indies #40

Super Dragon v Rising Son (Revolution Pro, 1/5/01)

I thought this had some great moments and a few broader elements that were really good, without the match quite reaching great as a whole. When I opened the video and saw 30 minutes I got worried, but they thankfully never went the half hour and capped it at around 23-24 minutes. By and large I thought they filled the time well and there was never really a point where it felt like they were reaching for stuff to do. I'd never even heard of Rising Son before. He's a skinny flier type, very Blitzkrieg-ish, wearing a mask like Sunfire from the X-Men. According to cagematch he'd been wrestling less than a couple years at this point and sadly died in 2010, at the age of 33. I liked his performance in this. Most of his flying looked slick and the few things that didn't come off great were covered for pretty well, including one flip kick in the corner that whiffed badly and Super Dragon played it off as a Liger applauding Sasuke moment. The reverse rana was a bit ugly, but ugly in a nasty way as Dragon landed all awkwardly on the side of his head. This is actually one of the earliest Super Dragon matches I've seen. He was a little more jovial than I'm used to seeing him, less of a crowbarring unprofessional psychopath. The audience was comprised of some kids, one little girl in particular who was just mesmerised by Rising Son springboarding into the ring, so he worked more like a territory mainstay babyface. He still unleashed some brutality, though. A few of his chops about ripped the t-shirt off Rising Son's chest and there was one spot where he thumped the kid's head off a wall. He also took a couple insane bumps. The first was a legit Mick Foley flat back bump off the apron that looked very disgusting. The venue they're wrestling in is narrow and the ring is flanked on two sides by wall, close enough that you could reach out and touch it from inside the ring. Rising Son is in the corner and Dragon charges for a shoulder to the midsection, Son moves and Dragon just hurls himself through the ropes and smashes into the wall. It was bonkers. In the back half I thought the pacing was generally good and I liked how they played up Rising Son's strategy. Son was persistent in going for the cross armbreaker, cycling back to it even after running through some of his riskier dives, Dragon was really good in selling how much it bothered him, but in the end the less experienced guy deviated from it at the wrong time and Super Dragon put him on his head. 

No comments:

Post a Comment