Heroes and Villains









At UCW I can barely tell the heroes from the villains. The dirty tactics are more or less the same. They both double team. They both go for low blows from time to time. Often the only distinction is appearance. The heroes tend to have Bambi eyes and moppy haircuts begging to be pulled. The villains have sharper jawlines and dramatic aquiline noses. The bad guys spout better wisecracks. The good guys are more apt to get boners, huge boners. Just an observation.

I used to think I didn't like tag team matches. I still don't like too many things going on at the same time. I like to concentrate totally on one shudder-inducing hold at a time. At UCW, though, the tag team matches are often the company's best bets for entertainment, especially ones with at least one top-drawer hero and one top-drawer villain, in the present case [match #394], Axel and Eli Black, respectively. Added points for the agonizing suspense before either of these guys had faced each other one on one*--and, to this day, for Eli's constantly thwarted attempts at defeating Axel, the company's iconic square shooter.

At Axel's side is Michael Hannigan, like Axel a former UCW champion. The two make a formidable team. Eli is somewhat handicapped in that he partners with Diego Valentino, a newcomer, yet one whose debut (against Axel) displayed a clear penchant for wrongdoing. Eli's ace in the hole, however, might be that he has (apparently) handpicked the ref for today's fight: Eli's "boy" Vincent Stone (check him out as Eli's sidekick in this excellent match from November). 

This match has too many good moments to summarize all of them here. Let the screen grabs above suggest the varied tactics and circumstances that pack the 30+ minutes of match #394. From beginning to end, the action is both shudder-inducing and boner-inducing on both sides of my video screen. And the final three minutes provides one of the best jaw-dropping reversals in the history of UCW, a promotion that takes devilish delight in surprise endings. This one is a doozy.

I don't think there's a single second in this match that I didn't enjoy. It left me feeling exhilarated, sexed-up, and shocked--the crosscurrent feelings barely distinguishable. The best bits of action, to my surprise, were the most jumbled and perplexing. Everybody is in top form in this one, but the heat factor rises noticeably every time Axel and Eli square off.

* A two-year wait that climaxed barely a year ago.

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