JJZ: So as far as I can remember I haven't seen anything from Santino Bros Wrestling before. They are a California promotion and school. Now I've always been a Brody fan but Tyler Bateman has never really moved the needle for me. Not saying I dislike him but I've never seen a match of his that totally sold me on him. I remember hearing that these two had some great matches so I was excited to pop this on. I'm a way bigger fan of the 30 minute iron man over the 60. It's wrestled with more urgency and this match had a slow start but picked up very quicky. Honestly this did not feel like 30 minutes at all. I really liked the booking of the falls. One fall I don't believe I've ever seen before or the psychology of why it mattered at the timing of the fall. Everything was hit clean and looked tight. The only negative I can see is someone talking about the end but honestly I liked it too. Makes me wish I was following the storyline going in. I hope you enjoy but now this will probably open some more conversation.
CJD: This match had a lot to it, even for a half hour ironman. I personally like the full hour if it's a big show main event once in a blue moon, but also prefer the half hour in most every other circumstance. One thing I don't like in a half hour ironman is when they only have a fall or two... what was the point of the stip? This match clearly doesn't have that problem. Some of the falls were really interesting, like you said. The live commentary over the PA is always weird to me, I give these guys lots of credit in this intimate venue for not letting the wisecracks and crowd banter throw them off too much. I loved the personal feel of the rivalry between these two. The mind games from Bateman, the little bits of dialogue back and forth, the physicality that implied a familiarity. Some of the mirror spots and such didn't look perfect but more often than not when something wasn't executed cleanly they played it to get over the constant struggle. Bateman really impressed me here and I'm blown away to see he's 40 and has been wrestling for 20 years. No wonder he feels like a veteran matador masterfully corralling a baby bull at points in this match. I really enjoyed watching this, although I felt it had some issues with the pace being too stop and go, maybe taking that criticism I have of some half hour ironman matches to the extreme. And I'll be honest, I didn't care for the overall finish at all. So I'm going to pull out the spoiler tag in this post and ask you this. Which fall did you think was so unique and what did you like about the overall finish? I'll close out the spoiler free comments with this. After nearly 200 matches shared here at PIF this one still stood out to me and in a good way. Great little big piece of pro wrestling here.
JJZ: The fall I really liked was the one were Bateman no sold a move for a second then collapsed and King got a fall off of it. I thought it was different and in a match like this it worked really well. Now the finish of the match I didn't jump out of my seat and say "That was great!" But after thinking about it for a few minutes I was happy with something I didn't expect. I was worried they might do a tie or the 2 count then they ring the bell. But not knowing the promotion I had no idea this could happen and makes me want to look into what happened on the next show.
CJD: I loved the DVD that looked uggggggly in the lift and drop and got King a fall. Was that the same one? It caught me off guard in a good way. I feel you on the finish and I think this is setting up a 3 way so there's that. I just hate to see such a great performance from both guys only to have something out of left field decide the final fall. If they had introduced an outside element earlier, like in one particular Friday match we had a few weeks back, I'd have probably been better with it. But even then I just don't care for the DQ from someone unrelated giving the opponent a fall. It just feels like some lazy 90s booking. I'd rather have an anticlimactic ending like the examples you gave. Even if they're a bit more predictable. Still, I was really high on this match.
No comments:
Post a Comment