Heavy-Duty

Chris Dickinson vs Matt Makowski, Shangri-La Magistral (Beyond Wrestling)

Here are highlights from Beyond Wrestling's main event in Atlantic City in September. Skull Island favorite Chris Dickinson takes on Matt "Weapon X" Makowski (in the baggy trunks). These guys don't pussyfoot around. The wrestlers combine honest-to-Pete wrestling with honest-to-Pete streetfighting to stunning effect. This is the kind of rassling burly ruffians excel at. These two are determined to stomp, pound, and squeeze each other into pulp.

Dickinson first drew my attention to Beyond in 2009 (in a brief one-sentence entry no longer linked to the match). The man is beautiful - an archetypal heel befitting wrestling's black-and-white, smoke-filled arena days, everybody in the audience dressed for a funeral. He looks almost (almost) out of place in any other setting, much less the bright outdoors of late summer. Perpetually riled up and hungry, the guy has eyes that shatter every bone in my body.

Makowski is new to me, but not altogether new. He had respectable stats as an MMA fighter in 2007-2010 and moved on to indy pro wrestling in 2019. Like Chris, he's a freelancer. With his buzzcut hair, he could be Dickinson's twin. Both are in their early mid-thirties (manhood at its peak, or so I have believed since I was thirteen), and the brawl pushes both to their limits. The match looks designed to be messy and unsafe, but Matt and Chris thrive on wreck-all violence.

Visit Beyond Wrestling here.