Out of Hand

Coleman Free vs Angel Estrada, Match 553 (UCW)

I met Angel a little over five years ago and liked him instantly. He has a dry, quick wit and a taste for good-natured ribbing (giving and taking both). At least as much as his sworn frenemy Joker, he can make me laugh. He also keeps his matches lively and tough. Match 553 finds Angel in an odd situation (for him), a babyface turn in response to hot-bodied Coleman Free's heel turn at the beginning of the match. The turns happen quickly and with no warning. Coleman makes a friendly gesture, an openhanded promise of good sportsmanship, and Angel, in spite of his usual wariness, is touched by the gesture and reciprocates, only to get kicked in the midsection before the bell sounds.

"No hard feelings," Coleman apologizes, but only after Angel proves not to be the pushover Free expected his lanky opponent to be. Angel can't help his hard feelings after the double cross, and says so. To which Coleman says, "Just trying to win, you know?" and then rakes his fingernails down Angel's face. So the heel turn is no simple misunderstanding. Coleman loses his cute faster than a stripper sheds his tear-away pants. Not only will Coleman  do whatever it takes, fair or foul,  to win a match, he shows an undisguised relish in hurting his opponent, hardly hinted at in his previous videos fighting UCW's Fab Four: Austin Tyler, Axel, Eli Black, and Chase Michaels. Usually this extreme degree of backstabbing entails the corruptive influence of Quinn Harper. (Could it be?)

I can't say that Angel takes to his new role easily. He's still got a mile-wide mean streak and an instinct for the low blow, but then that's the way things get done at UCW. Even Axel's not the squeaky clean hero he used to be. As the still shots are meant to suggest, Free vs Estrada is exciting and brutal, brandishing fantastic give-and-take action all the way to the nasty end - another reiteration of the company's very good year in 2017. The final five minutes is career defining for both Angel and Coleman, with a vicious stomp session and an excruciating figure-four arm lock seemingly cinching up the match, but then, out of nowhere, a sudden reversal and three scary and surely unsurvivable pow-pow-pow punches to the cock and (joy of joys) an old-fashioned three-count.


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