I'm A Sol Man

Samuray Del Sol VS Davey Richards - Grendel Wrestling 4/30/2022

CJD: On the heels of the announcement that Vince is back on the board of WWE I'm not in the mood to share one of their uploads. And I didn't have great SDS options available to me otherwise. This match immediately came up but you know we feel similarly about Davey Richards. Eventually I gave it a shot and hey, it's a pretty damn good little match. Not as good as your Sydal find by any means. But I will say this about Davey, in terms of his old tendencies to push every match to try to climax 20 times and then have an even bigger finish after that, I haven't seen that side of him in a long time. And as a grizzled vet a lot of his way too serious mannerisms are at least a bit easier to get over. I actually liked his performance a little more than Kalisto here. This match was simple, it felt more like an opener than a main event, but given what I had to work with I dug it. And I'm not going to lie, I'm getting some sort of sick satisfaction making you play a Richards match back!

JJZ: You sick bastard. Forcing me to watch and play a Richards match back is the booty of all the booties. J/k. I'm interested to be honest. I loved that intro for Sammy boy. I'm liking the GLOAT nickname. Super fucking happy Richards dropped the yelling with his moves thing. I always found that annoying. I'll fully agree this felt like an opener not a main event. Honestly I would've been a little pissed if that was the main event of a show I went to. Just saying, but for the match they were going for they did a good job. This match had a cleaness to it that I think all independent wrestlers strive for. Like you said to me off the record the commentary wasn't great but I was into the promotion on a whole. The finish was nice and not over done. No Richardidis in this one!

Been On Top Of The World

Matt Sydal VS Samuray Del Sol - PTW 11/26/2022

JJZ: I enjoyed playing this match forward because it showed another dynamic of this era of Sydal. In his match with Martin last week it was more of a Matt leads and Dante follows kinda match. And in this one I got more of a Matt proving himself to still be a top player in the flip flop foodchain. While SDS was proving he took that spot. This was such an excellent example of great smart thought out high flying wrestling. No wasted movement and everything made sense for when it was hit. The only negative was I didn't like that I could call the telegraphed finish. I'm more familiar with Del Sol's WWE run so I'm super excited to see what you throw back at me.

CJD: My man, pots & pans. I'm over here goofing around posting top albums of the year on the PiF Instagram while you're in the lab doing the research bringing the absolute FIRE!!! I wouldn't say I'm a Kalisto superfan but I really mean it when I say this is what it looks like to master your craft. There is no delay between thought in these two men and action. And every action is precision. Even the slight missteps are beautiful, but the beauty of this match never loses the sense of struggle. You covered the king of the mountain vibe between these two perfectly. I loved the approach to this match, the different sides to Sydal as you mentioned. There were some similarities between the performances this week and last, but his selling, his aggression, and his psychology were very different. I'm just blown away by the polish these two had for what I'm assuming was a very limited amount of work together previously, if any. If ever there was an argument to work everywhere, with everyone, as often as you can, play this match for them and have them look up the careers these two have had. Malcolm Gladwell would be proud.