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.
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