The Damnedest Thing













This UCW championship challenge has the deadpan cleverness of a silent Buster Keaton one-reeler. It's perfect for Angel Estrada, who I've always thought was a natural comedian, though I first encountered him as a straight man (in the show biz sense) to Joker's more overtly crazy antics. Estrada is the UCW champ - or at least he was the champ as of a couple of weeks ago. I'm still scratching my head after watching Estrada take on a masked mystery challenger in Match 610.

Here's the setup, as mostly illustrated in the screen shots above. The mystery wrestler enters the ring, where the ref is waiting. After the fiascos of several years ago, UCW now requires that a ref be present for all title challenges. Before Estrada arrives, David the Flawless One enters the ring and attacks the masked wrestler. After a three- or four-minute tussle, David wins by snuffing out the challenger with a chloroform rag. He unmasks the challenger, revealing him to be Keelin, who impressed me in his debut against Derrick Cole a month or so ago. I referred to him then as a possible dark horse, perhaps one worthy of becoming the next champ.

If you think this is confusing, just wait. It gets more complicated. Flawless strips Keelin of his mask and singlet, and puts them on (with the ref's assistance!). Now Flawless is the mystery challenger. Estrada arrives with the title belt in hand. He wrestles the challenger, quite effectively, despite the distracting presence of the ref, whose shadiness Angel recalls from a previous match. Flawless puts up a damn good offense, too, in the grand, no-holds-barred style of the company, ultimately beating the champ (!), again by using the chloroform rag. So Angel is out cold, and David is officially the new champ (!), and he takes not only the champ's belt but his singlet too, switching from Keelin's singlet to Estrada's  ... 

But then ... but then (!) a revived Keelin leaps back into the squared circle, attacking Flawless from  behind. And with the ref still present to officiate over this new fight, it is a legit championship challenge in keeping with UCW's rules and regulations (such as they are). Think about this: if Keelin wins, he's the third UCW champ in a matter of minutes, exactly the kind of situation the "ref rule" was supposed to prevent. If he loses, who might the next challenger be ... the ref? Is that possible? Well, pretty much anything is possible at UCW, and this match - and I haven't told you the end of it (!) - raises the bar on the company's longstanding reputation for crazy-ass brawls. This may be the craziest and best of them all.


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