This is a guest post from Justin Knipper.
1) Mike Santiago & Ethan HD b Judas Icarus & Eli Surge
So since it took forever to get into the venue we didn’t end up seeing much of this match, maybe half of it or so. The door staff at the Hawthorne Theatre spent an inordinate amount of time checking bags and IDs, but that’s usually how it is, I’m told. The venue was packed, and aside from a few rows of seats around the ring, this was mainly a standing room show. Not ideal short people (like my wife).
The action we caught upon entering was hot. The crowd were pretty into the locals, DOA’s Mike Santiago and Ethan HD. Santiago is an understated and underrated technician who shines at making others look great. Ethan HD has elements of both Cody Rhodes and Finn Balor. Judas Icarus and Eli Surge are a team of young, speedy Canadian flyers who often work for ECCW. Like I mentioned, though, we caught this match in media res and bodies were everywhere. At times I thought this might actually be a four-way match. The crowd chanted ‘FLIPPY SHIT’ during this one, which I think was supposed to be an ironic compliment. The DOA guys grabbed the win here.
2) Schaff b King Khash Schaff is another local DOA guy and the crowd absolutely loved him. ‘The Baddest Motherfucker on the Planet’ was up against Pacific-Northwestern freelancer King Khash. Decent match with the crowd big-time behind big Schaff. King Khash is a decent wrestler but suffered a bit from his own offensive style clashes. The pro wrestling aspect of his game was fine, but his fake-MMA schtick looked phony and I thought it was the weakest aspect of this match. He then did some sort of forearm scissors submission with no science behind it. I figured he assumed the crowd would suspend disbelief for him until the next spot. It’s a shame when a big monster-type wrestler has to sell these inane pro-wrestling submissions and takes me out of the match. When you have someone with a legitimate background in submission grappling on the card, like Matt Riddle, it makes guys like King Khash look terrible. This nitpick aside, this was a good, relatively simple brawl. Schaff won with a torture rack into a power bomb variation.
3) Carl Randers & Clark Connors b Kaine Jaiden & Nick Radford
Carl Randers jobbed to Braun Stroman once. I knew I’d seen him before. His partner, Clark Connors, came out gently sipping a beer in one hand with the rest of the pack in the other. I didn’t get this. He has a great look and presence, but I don’t think the beer thing did anything for him. Was he supposed to be drunk? Kaine Jaiden is a young guy who I’ve seen at DOA in the past and is an amalgamation of popular high flyers from New Japan in the indies with only a few original moves of his own. Nick Radford’s gimmick was that he was a ‘typical Portlander’ and came out with a buttoned-down cardigan and a tumbler of coffee in hand. His tights had a pride rainbow on them. I suppose it’d be funny to people in the PNW, but I doubt many people would understand the gimmick outside of this area. I don’t want to rag on the guy because there is a good chance this character wasn’t even his idea, but these types of gimmicks only ever get over in town and, while sort of entertaining, it did feel a bit cheap and provincial. He was a decent wrestler, though. Everyone was, sort of, though Clark Connors was the obvious standout from the pack. It’s obvious to fans when a wrestler comes off as someone playing wrestler versus someone who actually is a wrestler. Some of the dudes in this felt like they were doing pro wrestling cosplay, unfortunately. Basic babyface vs heel match, with Dollar Tree Ricochet and Coffee Guy taking the brunt of the heel’s offense throughout. There was one spot when Radford did that spinning cradle pin and Connors was in the corner, sort of out of position and according to kayfabe could just as easily have stomped Radford out. Aside from a smattering of neat-looking ‘flippy’ moves (the crowd chanted ‘FLIPPY SHIT’ again during this one), Jaiden was quite bad. His offense was sloppy and his selling was borderline offensive in how cartoonish it was. Wrestling and pandering have and will always be bedfellows, but there is a line that wrestlers have to learn. Feel out what the crowd knows and cares about and what doesn’t. Don’t insult the intelligence of a crowd that more or less ‘gets it’ by selling like you’re on Looney Tunes. This match also featured Redford smacking the turnbuckle a LOT, but it was no use: Connors and Randers picked up the win here.
4) Shane Strickland b Darby Allin via TKO Wow. I expected this to be good but couldn’t imagine it’d be among the best matches I’d see in person. Because it was.
I wasn’t familiar with Darby Allin before this but have definitely read his name in news reports over the past few years. His intensity is unmistakable. He came out hissing at fans, cursing, snarling, his face half painted white, the veins in his neck and arms bursting under streamers. Raven’s long-lost Flock member. I shouldn’t even make that comparison, because Raven’s Flock was from two decades ago and Allin emanated modern, novel. No hesitation, no pandering, only hate.
When Strickland arrived the place erupted. This dude is a star. He came out of the entrance and stood for a few moments, checking out the crowd in his shades, soaking it all in, letting the crowd get out of control. Stern, cool walk around the ring, in a lot of ways the subtle antithesis to Allin. Total self-control versus manic impulse.
Strickland was doused with streamers upon hitting the ring, which Allin took immediate advantage of. He charged at Strickland and beat the brakes off him, leaving the two completely enmeshed in the streamers. This was a brawl that had this late ’90s ECW feel with a 2018 shine to it. The wrestling was crisp and intense, but what was special from the beginning of this one was it had the feel of an old-school grudge match. In everything Allin did, every strike, every insane Coffin Drop attempt, it all felt reckless, like he truly despised Strickland; a thin, well-constructed layer of reality. The two were in the crowd early on, with Allin screaming ‘GET THE FUCK OUTTA THE WAY’ at everyone while pounding him with forearms and chops. He then sprinted up the stairs and dove off the balcony, landing on Strickland with a Coffin Drop and causing the crowd to collectively lose their shit.
There was so much crazy happening in this match that it was hard to even take notes. Strickland later missed a huge 450 splash which Allin followed up with a Coffin Drop to Swerve’s back, the smack of their backs colliding perfectly audible. Collective gasps. It was a relentless back and forth and, really, I think I need to watch this one again. Allin wouldn’t give up, no matter what Strickland threw at him, establishing the idea that, if you didn’t know it before, Darby Allin is a sadomasochistic maniac. The ref called the match after Strickland knocked Allin out with a running knee and then a forearm slicer submission while Strickland kicked Allin’s head in. I’d have preferred a ‘cleaner’ ending but, booking-wise, this was a good move because this match absolutely has to happen again. Towards the end it felt like I was watching a movie—it was that compelling.
Strickland cut a good babyface promo about how great everyone is and then challenged Austin Aries for the title on the next Portland show, which they announced for July 20th. He then offered to shake Allin’s hand, who in turn did the fake-out chickenshit handshake and left the ring to a chorus of boos. Excellent, excellent match. Hoping to see a long-term program out of this.
5) Joey Ryan vs Randy Myers went to a NC. After a brief intermission, Randy Myers, the self-proclaimed ‘Weirdo Hero’ who was announcing the show (he has a great announcer’s voice, by the way), was set to face off against Joey Ryan. I wasn’t familiar with Myers at all before this; he sort of looks like another lost Flock member, though this guy has charisma out the wazoo. I think he’s supposed to be a confused gay rocker guy who may or may not be addicted to methamphetamine. That’s the gimmick, right? He’s great, and yeah, the story here is that he is kinda-sorta in love with Joey and wanted to kiss Joey’s strong cock. The crowd ate this up, and next to the barnburner from before the intermission, this had quite possibly the loudest crowd reactions. They did a bit of goofy schtick where Joey tempted Randy to touch it; Randy fought mercilessly against his own id. A bit of back and forth here until these two dudes who were pretty much The Ascension came out and started beating the two guys up. Tag match coming up:
5a) Joey Ryan & Randy Myers b Drexl & Dr. Kliever. Dr. Kliever is from DOA and looks like a character from Saturday Night Slammasters. Drexl looks like an extra in a Rob Zombie movie. They served their purpose and beat on Joey Ryan for a long time and this ended up as what you’d call the Joey Ryan Tag Match, where he takes the brunt of the beating until the ‘more feeble but fiery’ tag partner comes in to save the day, the crowd behind the fiery tag partner. The ending involved a lollipop attack, double superkicks and an avalanche dickflip, the heroes winning.
6) Nicole Matthews d Xia Brookside. A solid, interesting match. Nothing flashy or out-of-this-world, which was necessary coming off the last two matches. I want to use the word ‘basic’ but that somehow seems inappropriate for this match. Canada’s Nicole Matthews played a perfect heel here, with her black singlet covered in sequins, her nasty, indignant facial expressions. An authentic feel here, like she’s been around the ring for a while now. There was something throwback-ish about her, like someone from the ’70s or ’80s, something grimy in her attitude, how she carries herself. I have a feeling she’s an underrated mechanic in the ladies’ game right now. The UK’s Xia Brookside, on the other side of the ring, is the total opposite, and in a variety of ways. They look different, to begin with. One is a woman, one is a girl. Light colors versus darks. Bouncy electronic music versus, well, not that. Hard-hitting against a softer touch (I’ll get to that). Brookside, daughter of GISM fanatic and WWE trainer, Robbie Brookside, looks like she could moonlight as a pop singer. She is bubbly-bright, almost sickeningly cute. She looks like one of the girls you’d see come out of the NXT Performance Center, those freakish athletes with backgrounds in other sports. Matthews looks very much like a pro-wrestler. Make what you will of that.
I mentioned it earlier, how this was a relatively simple match, and it worked. It cooled the crowd down a bit because the last two matches were wild, but people didn’t lose interest either, really. Fans seemed intrigued by the matchup, with some behind Brookside from the get-go, with others eventually shifting their support to Matthews because of how smooth and cool she was. I remember she rocked Brookside with mean chops on the apron, and later on landed a beautiful snap Northern Lights suplex with a high bridge for two. Brookside is athletic and has a natural knack with timing, though she has a tendency to not follow-through with any of her offensive moves. Her kicks are hesitant, her elbows on the softer side. I hope she finds her groove over the next few years. Matthews won, which shocked a handful in the crowd. This match was exactly what it had to be.
7) Matt Sydal b Matt Riddle. While people were extremely stoked to see this, there was definitely a feeling of fatigue among the standing room crowd. Maybe that plus being pretty close to 11 p.m. was the reason it was on the short side. Both came out to tons of streamers and screaming. Riddle is a huge guy in person. Both wrestlers sounded like they had a good amount of female fans in the crowd. This may contribute to the recent indie boom around the world . I figure it’s easier for guys to take their girlfriends to an independent wrestling show when the main event stars actually look like stars and not, like, lumpy, soupy old dudes with spray-on tans. Once both wrestlers were in the ring, I overhead a younger female fan turn to her friends and shout ‘THEY’RE BOTH SO HOT!!’
The match began with ground work. Riddle worked over Sydal’s leg and foot with authentic-looking toeholds and heel hooks. A bit of back and forth, then some fan service crowd brawling. The aforementioned young female fan got her hands on either Riddle or Sydal and mouthed ‘HE’S SO SOFT’ towards her friends.
Looking back at my notes from the show and I notice that I didn’t take any for this match. If you’ve seen either of you guys wrestle in the past, you wouldn’t get many surprises. Maybe some extra flying around from Riddle, but in general, Riddle played the big-guy submission game with a whole buncha knee strikes, while Sydal standing moonsaulted and namaste’d his way to a victory by landing his take on the Shooting Star Press. It was art and a pleasure to see up close. It’s the 5-Star Frog Splash of Shooting Star Presses.
So yeah, this couldn’t have been more than fifteen minutes long, which was sort of a bummer, but it was still good. They both cut promos after the match, putting each other and DEFY over, talked about how they’d return in July, etc. Riddle got in one last ‘Bro’ and the show was over.
