Forever Forward Friday

Marti Belle VS Dani Jordyn - Brii Combination Wrestling Queen of the North 2 1/31/2020

JJZ: Alright! So I watched a lot of matches to get to this one that I'm playing forward to you. So I've gotten to see Marti work both face and heel. And I got to say I think she is better as a face. She has great fire and is really good at getting sympathy from the crowd. This is my first time seeing Dani Jordyn and I was impressed. She had some good shitty heel tactics and did some nice trash talking during the match. This match isn't the longest but it's another from a tournament so I can forgive that. The announcers do a great job of giving the back story to both women and puts them on my radar even more. Also this is another promotion I wasn't familiar with so I'm extra excited share this with you.

CJD: Is this the first match from 2020 we've shared on PIF? If so, that's very much in the spirit of Forever Forward Fridays and I'm glad to see something this recent. This is the sort of match that if I was there live wouldn't stick with me a ton, but would leave me thinking I need to see more from both ladies. Solid work that plays to both their strengths. I agree completely that Marti has that natural babyface quality that you can't teach. Dani Jordyn looked equally comfortable pissing everyone off and her bootleg List of Jericho gimmick is a smart little piece of business. I'm curious to dig into more of her work next week.

Forever Forward Friday

Marti Belle VS Mia Yim - NWL KC 4/15/2017

CJD: I had one of those weeks where I watched this match, really liked it but had a few issues, watched a bunch more good Yim stuff, but in the end came back to the beginning. So here's what I didn't like about this match. Glancing at the run time, I expected a good bit more than what we got, and I did indeed think they had more story left to tell. And the match is introduced by a male talent in character and is followed up by an angle with male talent that's as long as the match. But this is the first women's match this promotion ever ran, so give them some credit, it's a hell of a way to kick the division off. I didn't even mind the introduction bit because it quickly established a strong face/heel dynamic, and I enjoyed the ring announcer's (who looks like he just did a children's magic show) hammy reactions to the local heel. I want to watch more of this promotion just to see that guy give pep talks to the crowd in between matches. And the strong babyface performance from Marti Belle paired with Mia's cool as a cucumber nasty heel work setting the pace was exactly what kept me invested in this. I love performances where you can tell there's something to prove, a chip on the shoulder, and it was palpable here with every stiff shot and every go for broke bump. I watched a lot of Yim this week and our second Forever Forward Champion would be a top prospect for me if I was drafting a women's division. I especially appreciate how after watching her in opening matches, title shots, comedy matches, and Monster's Ball matches, she thrives in such a variety of situations. That's not an easy quality to come by.

JJZ: First of all, wanna be Joel Gertner getting kicked out of the ring was a great way to start the match. Wrestling at its core is good versus evil. And that's what this match was. Now I'll agree it felt very rushed. They really could have slowed this down at times but the energy these women brought was serious. I felt like both of these ladies knew the importance of the match being the first women's match in the promotion. So I'll grant them that and chalk it up to extreme focus on winning a historic opportunity. It was fast paced and the moves had pop. I enjoyed it very much but did want more. Excited to see more from Marti and keep this moving forward.