Vine Inspiration

Matt Vine vs Kim Chee, PPW #205 - 7 July 2018, Woodstock, Illinois (Premier Pro Wrestling)

SPOILER ALERT:  This is not a review. It is an elongated spoiler. If you hate spoilers, click on the link above and watch the match before reading or even glancing any further.

What's not to love about a big hardy wrestler who chews gum while kicking ass and beats his chest like a gorilla from time to time? And he's Polish-American, a fact with historic resonance in professional wrestling: Killer Kowalski, Ivan Putski, Rob Van Dam, and Chris Masters, among many others - all of them strongmen who play very rough.

This is a big vs little match, not a genre I'm particularly fond of, though occasionally there's one I'll warm up to. This one is less offensive than most because its violations of known laws of physics are small and minimal. Kim Chee's ace in the hole is the iron claw, a profoundly silly signature move but one I'd nevertheless defend to the death. After all these years, it works as theater. It's Chee's one "believable" shot at defeating Matt Vine.

All Vine's moves are schoolyard bully moves, so he's a guy I can't help but like. He makes me smile as he noogie-attacks Chee in the first GIF below. Despite a couple of hope spots, Chee is chum for the amiably quick-tempered heavyweight. The masked wrestler deserves his whipping on the weight of his safari shirt and shorts alone. The way Matt casually sits on Kim's chest in the fifth GIF below, leg arching over the pipsqueak's face, is typical Matt Vine, a seemingly effortless bravura move.

Matt Vine moves slow compared to most 21st-century wrestlers, a point in his favor in my book. He draws his torments out and gives the fans time to feast on his body ... and his opponents', when they are less body-shy than Chee. Lately at live shows I've been noticing the ways pro wrestlers start selling their moves five or six seconds in advance - Vine's wriggling fingers in the second GIF below, for instance, and the stomps in the eighth - drawing the crowd's eye to the target or else preparing them for the climax. (These gestures might work less well in underground wrestling because there is no live audience, though I think I'd enjoy them purely for their dramatic effect.)

Matt Vine's cocky smirk as the ref raises his arm as victor (last GIF) may be a poor man's Randy Orton, but it fits Vine beautifully, too.

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