Millenium Pro Wrestling "Shock to the System" 11/3/01
by Digable James Cobo

All it takes is one event to galvanize the indies again.

The US indy scene's not typically *about* innovation. Sure, there's innovation by the boatload present - such as earlier this year when RevPro was creating a whole new style of junior wrestling, or when American Dragon was showing the world that there's room for a new type of uber-credible junior wrestling - but unlike in, say, Zenjo or EMLL, that innovation doesn't happen in a void. More than anywhere else in the world, the US indies are a place where people pick up the banner of their heroes and try to show that they can do it too. It's very reactive and organic and, if you like following wrestling, VERY cool to see. And it's also got a built-in advantage in that when the indies start to lose steam, all it takes is one event, match, wrestler, show - whatever - to get the fire back into the whole scene, because if they can make it, then HELL! so can anyone else.

As you may have heard, there was this little APW show about a week ago - king of the...ah hell, I forget. The praise for KoI was DEAFENING, with the main quibbles with the entire tournament being vocalized by ANYONE coming down basically to the selling issues of one wrestler. The moment the reaction to the show started coming in, I realized that, exactly as expected, this would end up being one of those shows that gives the whole indy scene a jump - not because of the platitudes being heaped on the show, but because of the CONSISTENCY of the platitudes heaped on the show. I mean, let's face it - I cheered for RevPro until my e-larynx collapsed, but it wasn't until positive reviews started coming in by the bucketload that the fed exploded onto the scene. KoI proved that even in today's inconsistent indy world, shows where gimmicks are held to a minimum and where consistency is put on a pedestal can get recognized and DEAFENINGLY cheered.

Goddammit, I wish I'd been there.

BUT! I did go to MPW last night, and seeing as how it was, for all intents and purposes, the first major indy show since KoI, you get to reap the benefits of me piling pleonasms as high as the eye can see in the effort to discern if KoI really *did* have the hard-charger effect that I'd imagine it did. Where to begin, where to begin...

THE SHOW

Unfortunately, I have to begin at the beginning, which would be Adam Pearce retiring from the wrestling scene, ostensibly for good. I only saw Adam once, so take my word at what it is, but in that match he grabbed an unmotivated, rusty Messiah and dragged him by the ears to a decent little match. I wish I'd been able to see him at the KoI, since I'd have been really surprised if he'd turned it DOWN for that huge-ass show, but I guess I'm lucky I got to see him at all. So I'll just say good luck to Adam, and hope that he pulls a Foley on us all.

1. Pinoy Boy vs. Logan X Pinoy Boy's ascent to Pretty-Decent-Wrestlerdom continues, as he manages to drag SOMETHING out of this match. I'm guessing that this match was signed to the card a half-hour before belltime, since it was basically a game of Your Sequence/My Sequence, but for what it's worth, I've seen infinitely worse. Pinoy Boy's starting to move VERY fluidly in the ring, to the point where it may actually be worth his time to STOP working on his fundamentals (I know for a fact that he can stop working on back bumps - Logan X would throw these punches that would miss by a good four inches, but Pinoy Boy hitting the mat would make it sound like he'd been shot) and start working on advanced stuff like highspots and match planning, because the only real fault of the match directly attributable to Pinoy Boy was his one blown dive. In six months, he could be something. And although I can't really talk about this match without bashing Logan X, I'm not going to say he's worthless - it's clear from watching him that he's passionate about wrestling, which can't mean anything but good stuff. But he definitely needs to work on his fundamentals, primarily when it comes to making his moves look convincing. His stuff looked pretty uniformly sloppy - not necessarily dangerous, but just really ass-ugly. And GOOD GOD HIS STRIKES, by which I mean you could have fit a football between his fist and Pinoy Boy's chest. It was clear who was carrying who - Pinoy Boy was carrying Logan to a match that probably hit about 1/2*. But I bet both guys are dedicated to improving, they could have this match again in six months and it'd be at least a star higher.

2. Jason Allgood vs. Rising Son Pre-match, Allgood said something about how there was one cruiserweight who he had his eye on. Guess how everyone reacted to that. I think this may have been Son's first chance to really carry someone since the SotR, and in that respect he did a pretty good job. All of his spots were pretty crisp, he sold Allgood's moves like a champ, and judged as an indy spotfest, it was paced pretty well. Allgood did his best to keep up, although if you're going to trade spots with Rising F'n Son and your biggest move is a diving spear, you're GOING to get outclassed. But about halfway in, this started to go to hell; up until then, it'd been a decent, basic match, but when they started bringing in the peak of the match, it turned into a total Your Sequence/My Sequence match. Not that there's anything espeically wrong with that, but Allgood's spots looked markedly non-crisp. His spots had a LOT of hesitation going on, especially in the diving spear off the stage, which I'm guessing was supposd to be the climactic spot of the match, but ended up looking like a diving...flailing white guy. Son eventually won it, which led to Allgood turning heel by wasting him with a chair. I deeply hope that Allgood's ditching the Britney Spears gimmick with the heel turn, regardless of how over it is with the crowd - there were way too many spears during the match, largely so that the audience could yell out "Britney!" or whatever. Allgood's another one who's clearly passionate about wrestling, and he clearly already knows the basic fundamentals. Now he needs to work on polishing them into viably crisp elements of a match - making his moves look crisp, wrapping his hands around a concrete sense of building the match to specific spots, incorporating selling into the overall structure of his matches outside of Your Sequence/My Sequence. As for the match itself, I'd call it about *1/4. I'm betting rematches between them will be better, since this was another match that I bet got thrown together at the last second, but we shall have to wait and see.

3. Phenomenal Phil vs. Crayz Phil isn't the worst worker in the world, but he's not up to the herculean effort of dragging something out of Crayz. I mean, Phil does work pretty crisply, and actually seems to have a decent grip on selling in terms of using it to pace a match (although the match never really got focused, so I couldn't tell if he was able to use selling to actually tell the story) but Crayz...I mean, I'm sure he's a nice guy and he's good to his momma, but as a wrestler he's really, really awful. Unmotivated garbage brawling is about the worst kind of wrestling that there is, and this didn't even have any props or blood to redeem itself. At one point Crayz actually sat Phil down in a chair and walked off. I should have followed his lead. Call it * and move along.

I think this was where Vampiro came out and did an interview less notable for what was said than in the way it was presented (best summed up by pointing out that the interviewer - who looked like he ate the guy who ate Bastion Booger - had only his first question and his "final" question. FUNNY). But the word "fuck" was bandied about quite a bit, o ho ho ho hoo wee. My virgin ears turned bright red.

4. King Faviano vs. Hardkore Kidd A nothing match, but it wasn't terrible. I think that can be largely attributed to Favi keeping the comedy to a minimum and Hardkore keeping the hardcore shit to a minimum. Hell, the transitions were probably the best up to this point, which was probably a byproduct of them being so basic. The end result was a really well-paced match which built towards Favi's (GREAT-looking) senton, although I forgot almost everything about it the moment it ended.

5. Super Dragon vs. B-Boy I have no idea why they decided to put the best match of the card smack in the middle, but that sure is what they did. I also have no idea why the crowd was - and this isn't exaggeration - totally dead silent, considering that this is the match that most of them probably came to see. And I have no idea why people would pay money to see a show only to moronically attempt to get themselves over at the expense of the best match on the card, holding up signs that draw attention away from the guy they're allegedly cheering, let alone the stupidity of vocally making fun of jews at a JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER.

But in spite of all that, this was one hell of a match. I wouldn't be a lick surprised if this was Dragon's soundest match since the SotR finals - the selling was for the most part amazingly consistent, the build followed it hand-in-hand, the matwork parts in the beginning ultimately had a function, and they played off their old matches EXACTLY how they should have (diving shotei, apron iconoclasm reversals, dodging the phoenix that Dragon transitioned to a Juji for his first win). Better yet, the moves that they DID add for this match were really appropriate, like Dragon's Sakuraba chops (Dragon altering his style to show off for the fans and innovate his way to the win) or B-Boy's Ace Crusher counter (since American fans would almost think it's American [seeing as how it's such a popular, high-profile move over hyar], he was using the one school of wrestling that Dragon doesn't emphatically source - namely, US prostyle - to catch him by surprise). Ultimately, it all added up to the kind of psychology that made RevPro the greatest indy in the US for the first six months of the year. The match came off like the blowoff to Misawa vs. Kawada, if one filled Misawa's role with Kobashi and gave 'em state-of-the-art junior movesets. From the outset, they played up the history above all else - the first move Dragon went for was a Psycho Driver, the move he used to put B-Boy away with at the Rev J. Better still, B-Boy would play up his hunger for winning, putting a little more attitude into his strikes and a little more intensity into his escapes. Then, on top of their preexisting history, they worked in a story exclusive to this match: Dragon worked B-Boy's legs and arms first, until he discovered that it wasn't working, so he switched to working the back and neck with power moves, while B-Boy focused entirely on the neck and shoulders of Dragon. And from those focused strategies, the story of the match became clear: Dragon was trying to beat B-Boy via a flashy move to show off for the crowd, while B-Boy was just trying to WIN - and in the end, that's what he did. And the AJPW mark in me can't help but love the fact that they ended the series with an AJPW death-move (the Emerald Flowsion).

But even aside from that, the match was fundamentally great. Both guys either looked REALLY crisp when they were doing their moves - notably the Phoenix, which may have been the best one I've ever seen him do - or REALLY dangerous by intention - notably Dragon's springboard leg lariat and B-Boy's Shotei Of All Shoteis (I swear to Christ, Dragon took it RIGHT in the FUCKING FACE), which just looked like DEATH. And their selling of individual moves was - if taken out of context - really convincing, too - B-Boy hitting the ground like he'd been shot for the Psycho Driver, Dragon's selling the SSP->Ace Crusher more convincingly than anything else, B-Boy's escapes from Dragon's leg grapevines. The match was paced EXCEEDINGLY well, now that I think about it - like all Dragon matches, it was divided into sections (the matwork section, the intermediate power move section, the dive section, the end section), but this one had more psychology in the individual sections than just about any other match on the card had in its entirity. And you know what made it all work? The SELLING. For about eight-ninths of the match, the selling was believable to the point where it masked the exhaustion setting in from wrestling a 20-plus minute match, but not so believable that it totally removed the threat of certain moves. Theoretically, B-Boy's concentrated attack on Dragon's shoulders and neck should have made it next to impossible for him to land the Psycho Driver, but Dragon did it after a period of B-Boy not locking submissions on it...and at the same time, one of the turning-point moves in the match was Dragon's (FUCKING RIDICULOUS-GREAT) springboard leg lariat, and it made SENSE, since B-Boy hadn't been working Dragon's legs as much. Very cool, very subtle, and a very complete match by technical criteria.

But at the same time, as good as the selling was, it sure did go to hell at the end. I'm sure that B-Boy's selling can be explained away by saying that on that night, he had enough "fighting spirit" - or whatever touchy-feely term works best - to pop right back up after the Psycho Driver or for the Shooting Star Diamond Cutter, or that he was so deflated by Dragon kicking out of the Millenium Suplex that it took him a few seconds longer to get up, but that's not really fair to the match. Likewise, since Dragon was playing the unstoppable-killer role, it makes sense that the early matwork that keyed on his leg (as well as midway through the second section when B-Boy started to attack it in earnest) should have played a larger role. I'm not denying that these flaws were there; selling issues are pretty much par for the course in the indies (hell, pretty much everywhere, come to think of it). And for a match with as much built-in history, it might have made more sense for Dragon to go to the jujigatame for the finish, seeing as how that's how he polished off B-Boy the first time. They're flaws that keep this match from hitting the status of the real classics that Dragon had earlier in the year in the tag on April 13th, the SotR match with Excalibur, or the SotR final - or hell, arguably the first match with B-Boy. But in any other year, I seriously doubt that there would be a legit competitor for indy MotY against this one - it had it all, and the flaws were noticeable. Add a hot crowd, remove self-centered, hostile fans, and those flaws get masked right up. But flaws in a **** match aren't really that noticeable unless you're looking for them, and Saturday night I can honestly say that I was caught up in the drama of a very, very well-executed match.

This would be where the intermission went.

6. Tecnicos vs. Rudos The moment these guys came out, I started internally howling about why this match had to follow Dragon/Son instead of opening the show, because it was about a million, billion fast, well-executed spots per second. I think I need to learn precisely who's who, because these guys are starting to REALLY impress the shit out of me; somehow, the fact that they had a match that was worlds better than their one for Version 4.0 doesn't surprise me, given that they got a few more minutes. I think I was most enthused by Ghetto Max, who after the last match these guys had, I couldn't have picked out of a lineup. Here, though, he spent the lion's share of the time, and if you excuse him blowing his big run-up-the-ropes-for-his-big-dive during the Dive Clusterfuckery Section, he worked smooth as silk. Little Cholo was really good, as usual, as was Silver (Silver?) Panther...aw hell, this was Right Good. Nothing you'd remember, of course - last time was more abbreviated, but it DID have that powerbomb on the floor that made people suck in air really quick - but good enough for *1/2. And that doesn't NEARLY reflect how fun it was.

7. Vampiro vs. Messiah I just wasn't very impressed by this match. Vampiro's strikes looked good and for the most part he wrestled pretty crisply, but his moveset seemed tame, and it didn't feel like he was putting any logic behind them. Now MESSIAH, on the other hand, seemed like a whole different wrestler since I saw him at 4.0 - he seemed motivated, willing to die for My Entertainment, and was utterly unafraid of doing some very unexpected highspots. But like Vampiro, he wasn't really taking the match in any real direction - they seemed like they were just doing stuff and seeing where it would lead. The only thing which I remember being built to at all was the table spot, and to give the devil his due, it worked pretty well - but knowing what Vampiro's capable of, especially in terms of intensity, and knowing NOW what Messiah's capable of, I wanted more. I'd peg the match at about *.

8. TNT vs. Excalibur vs. Scott Lost (Elimination Match) I was LOVING THIS A LOT, believe it or not. TNT, who underwhelmed me greatly on the Super Dragon Evolution tape, made a BIG impact here - and considering how many dingo-ate-your-baby jokes I had lined up, that impact is nothing to be underrated. He seems like a very capable power junior who could stand to work on transitions (I'm aware that he might have looked so good here because his transitions didn't need to be anything more than break-up-something-between-the-other-two-guys), sort of a SUWA-Lite. Given a few matches here, he'll be able to establish his presence, and then I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if he turned out to be somebody locally. Excalibur was Excalibur - consistent, stiff, willing to die, and very mindful of the progressing match. It's hard to realistically want more, and I'm very glad that he got to stick around the whole match, since there were large parts where it seemed like he was holding it together. Scott Lost essentially played the role of the spot machine - he was there to do his spots (which, unlike when I saw him do them at Version 4.0, didn't seem too contrived) and set up the Reyes match, but ultimately his effect on the match was minimal.

But even outside of individual performances, this was a decent little match. I loved the way it was used to set up TNT's probable role - a loose cannon willing to do anything for the win. He'd Pearl Harbor Excalibur, he'd Pearl Harbor Lost, he'd hang back at just the right moments...he was really the star of the match. This became especially apparent when Lost got eliminated by a sneak attack by Ricky Reyes - TNT carried his parts of the match REALLY well (as Excalibur looked to be a little shaky following one of those only-in-SoCal neck trauma bumps that he looooooves to take). The pacing was, for about three-quarters of the match, pretty uniformly good - the bumps kept getting bigger and bigger, the selling sections kept getting longer and longer, and the transitions became more heated. Unfortunately, after a certain point, there's nothing else you can really do - when Excalibur ate that WICKED brainbuster and Koppo Kick, there wasn't anything that TNT really could have done that would have looked more brutal, unless he'd pulled a gun out of his tights. And that phantom kickout REALLY didn't help a damn thing either. But as far as being a model of indy nu-spotfests, where stiffness and neck death are the words of choice, this wasn't too shabby. I'd call it about **1/4, which is probably about as high as I'd give a three-man match. I hope that we get a feud between TNT and Excalibur, since both look like they have strengths in their game that complement each other nicely, but this was good enough :)

9. Ricky Reyes vs. Frankie Kazarian This was made on the spot in retribution for Ricky tombstoning Scott Lost (aren't they supposed to have a match for the MPW tag titles coming up?). I'd be SHOCKED if this match had been booked before the show, because it was very much the definition of an exhibition match - both guys pretty much just threw out all the moves they knew and cast selling and pace to the wind. The transitions were typically just that one guy would be dominating the match, then miss a highspot and the balance would shift. All fine and good I guess, but I question the decision to put on a match like that, especially one where the possible quality could be SO high, after the transition-fest of Dragon/B-Boy. Hell, towards the end, they seemingly just said "fuck it" and threw even those transitions out the window, doing something like seven BIG suplexes in a row between them and popping back up. And the finish, where Kazarian jumped up after taking that cool-ass dangling German suplex that I don't know the name of - a move which had nearly incapacitated him a few minutes earlier - made me cringe. I'm not saying that either guy needs to work on anything here, because I have tape that proves Kazarian's better than this match, and I have plenty of firsthand knowledge that DAMN SURE CEMENTS that Reyes is better than this match. I DO think the match would have benefitted enormously by cutting it down by about five minutes, since less time would have made the no-selling portions less effective, but that's an issue for the bookers to deal with. The match was probably about * or *1/4, and I hope that they get another shot at it so that these two can show what they're really capable of.

10. Tech IX vs. Big Hardcore Red The only thing I remember about this match before exiting stage left is the Line of the Night, directed at Tech IX: "It's like ten seconds into the match! Dive, you bitch! What kind of a wrestler are you?"

Then I left and congregated with Doron and Co and never looked back until the exodus from the completed show began.

Digably Yours,
Digable James Cobo
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