For Old Times' Sake

Joker vs Axel, Match 632 (UCW)

This match looks familiar - Axel and Joker going at it again, bound to no rules whatsoever - yet it is not a simple retread of the other times these two wrestlers' paths have crossed, going back to the company's infancy. I can't put my finger on what's different about it, except to say there's something about its tone that seems fresh and new.

My guess is that the match was shot last year. Haircuts and opening dialogue make me think it was shot about the time Joker and Angel Estrada returned to UCW in the spring of  '17. The evenly matched antagonists regard each other not just as longtime adversaries but as adversaries reuniting after a long separation.

As I expected, it's a topnotch match, layered with cruelties and risky tactics as likely to backfire as to pay off. These are two superior technicians who have often pushed each other into peril - just for the crazy fun of it. Their strongly contrasting personalities only thinly disguise the fact that they similarly enjoy putting personal safety on the back-burner from time to time for the sake of extreme combat.

The end result is a match that puts Axel into some tight pinches, in which he is far from his usual imperturbable self and his ultimate triumph is far from the done deal it usually is. And, with Joker in the mix, there's always the possibility of mutually assured destruction.

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