Wrestling Videos I Watch Over and Over and Over (Part 17)


   



Damian Slater vs Chris Basso, MEGASLAM 2015 (Riot City Wrestling)

I didn't realize how much time had passed since my last addition to this series.  Over a year since Part 16. I must be getting lazy. Basso vs Slater is a good place to resume, I guess. This Riot City match starts slow and friendly, then speeds up and gets more and more raucous and malicious. The steady acceleration makes for great squared-circle storytelling. Damian Slater may not win this fight, but he is definitely the catalyst behind it. He gives it its pulse and flavor. At 6', 215#, he's slightly more compact than Basso, who's an inch taller but 10 pounds lighter. Slater first caught my attention in 2010, seven years after the young Italo-Australian turned pro (at age 16). It took me yet another six years, however, to fall in love with him in this addictive 30-minute zipper-stabber. The big GIF above captures the exact moment the love bug bit me. Oh hell yeah!








Milad Akbar vs Matt DeWar, PPW #48 (Premier Pro Wrestling)
I've been a Milad Akbar fan for almost three years. Like Slater (above) he's good looking and masterful as both heel and babyface. At 5'6", 205#, he has a competitive edge on wrestlers of all sizes and builds: low center of gravity, herculean brawn. Thanks to Milad's power moves, this PPW match against 6'3", 217# Matt Dewar transcends the usual big-vs-little showdown, so much so that the fans deride Matt, calling him "PeeWee  Herman" despite his obvious physical advantages. Ultimately, Matt must resort to dirty tactics to tilt the battle in his favor, which is fine by me because his cheap shots unleash Milad's ire. Akbar proceeds to blast away at the big guy full tilt. The comeuppance is dazzling and delicious. Ultimately, the match is resolved by submission, which looks convincingly legit to me.






LS Powerhouse vs Asskickin4U, Ring Battles 3 (Rec Pro Wrestling)

I like high-def video and 20-something wrestlers, but no swimmer's-build match in 4K resolution comes even close to out-sizzling this Rec Pro match between two sturdy underground masked men heating up the room and beating the tar out of each other. The big GIF up above gives me a big stiff every time I see it, which is compulsively often. It's not like Asskickin4U (in red) doesn't put up a good fight; it's just not as good as the one Powerhouse (in black) delivers. Powerhouse is 50 pounds lighter and 8 inches shorter, but he manhandles his opponent as if AK4U were a stuffed toy ... and in the end he succeeds in unmasking the overgrown jobber, by which point I can't stop touching myself. Powerhouse went on to take on some of the high-energy youngsters at UCW, but for me nothing tops two full-on tough and grizzled veterans grabbing each other by the short and curlies. This match does something most video wrestling does not do: it makes me wish I could join in. Here, in the basements, attics, and garages, was where the grunt-n-groan tradition of fairgrounds sideshow rasslin' persisted to the early 21st century. Please tell me, somebody, that it lives on (and send links too).


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