Tuesday, April 6, 2021

As I Locate Intricately Independent


Super Dragon VS Brian XL - APW Central Coast 6/22/2003

CJD: When I played forward a B-Boy match to you I was honestly hoping we'd end up knee deep in some early 2000s indy randomness. Well I think I ended up working myself brother because I certainly didn't expect to play a Brian XL match back weeks later. But here we are! I honestly have no opinion of Brian XL from back when and he was good in this. His selling was definitely less than consistent but he did get the crowd behind him nicely and popped me with some genuine hope spots. Super Dragon is putting together the blueprint for his bully match beating up smaller flippy guys that would help take him from promising young worker to one of the best in the world. He's our 2x MDTSOCWWKD Champ this week and if we can talk about him for a second, I doubt his career played out how he would have liked. But I hope he can appreciate that the flip side of that is that with how great he still was with a lot of What Ifs along the way, is that his career has that much more mystique and excitement to dig into years later. Who else would I legitimately be excited to watch wrestle Brian XL? And once again, the joke's on me, because I ended this match equally excited to see what Brian XL you come back at me with.

JJZ: Man oh man. Early 2000s indy wrestling at its finest. I'm loving this journey and hope we can stay here a while longer. The first compliment I'll give this match is that it has more substance than I expected. Loved the leg work by Dragon, he went back to it several times and XL did a good job selling. I know it's probably weird to point out this simple psychology  but it rarely happened during this time in the independent wrestling scene! I was kinda shocked. This was a true hidden gem baby cakes. Also Dragon was his usual laying it in self but BXL gave it right back. Super entertaining and don't get me wrong, I love that no-selling car crash style. That was the height of me going to  indy shows and soaking in every moment. And as far as XL, I don't remember him being this good at all. Like never. I honestly can't remember a specific match I've seen him in before. But I'll remember this one.

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