Weekly Watchlist 003 - June 30 2024

 Another week down, another weekly watchlist!

Some of you may have noticed the sidebar for "Matches of the Month" has shrunk. I've decided that instead of outright deleting the list I've kept for the month, I'll instead compile them into a post here simply called "Matches of the Month." As of right now, I won't give each match its own review, as most of them will already have one, instead I'll give each a sentence or two "review." Just something to give a bit more context as to why I picked the match. 

 

 

Here's what I watched this week. And it was a busy week folks, let me tell you.

 

Stephanie Vaquer v Mercedes Mone - AEW Forbidden Door  - 06/30/2024

Making sure the ladies know the rules. AEW

 

I know I'll probably get a lot of heat for this, and I also know I'm in the minority, but I never really cared for Sasha Banks/Mercedes Mone. She's been around since I got back into wrestling at about the end of 2015 and always been a prominent figure in WWE's women's division. She's had matched I've enjoyed and compelling rivalries but I can't really say she'd done anything to really win me over. I was around for her back and forth title trading with Charlotte (from July to December, the title changed hands 5 times, if you were curious) which did her absolutely no favours,  all the way to her walkout at the end of her time with WWE, whether you feel it was justified or not.

I understand that this is absolutely an unpopular opinion, and I can't really pinpoint it on any one particular thing about her, her personality, her promos, her ring work, pieces of her just don't click with me like I know they do for other people. So go ahead, send me your hate and rage, I'm fully ready for it, just understand that while I enjoy Mercedes as I wrestler, I don't hold her in as high regard as everyone else. 

So when I saw this match on the card, I had measured expectations. I've already gone over why Mercedes wasn't someone that made me decide that I NEEDED to watch a match, and Stephanie Vaquer was completely unknown to me. But let me tell you folks, she absolutely made a fan out of me by the end. 

Vaquer comes down to the ring and has that thing the kids nowadays call "aura." Coming to the ring with the CMLL World Women's and CMLL World Womens Tag Championships, as well as her NJPW Strong Women's Championship, which she is defending against Mone tonight. 

Via @PuroresuFlow on X

 

The match starts out hot as the referee goes over the rules with the pair, only for Vaquer to grab Mone right away and knock her down with a headbutt. The pair are fairly evenly matched, trading armdrags and quick exchanges from the offset. It should come as no surprise that the Eddie Gurrero inspired Mone would mesh well with a woman who is in the conversation for best luchadora in the world. 

Vaquer receives a rather tepid response at the start, with the AEW faithful more than likely trying to figure out what to make of this "fresh face." She starts to win them over with a brilliant crossbody to the outside, taking Mone down. 

The move that really starts to turn the crowd in her favour is something that I can only describe as a "Zach Sabre Jr tie up." Mone starts hitting Vaquer with 3 amigos, landing 2 and picking her up for her third. Vaquer is able to escape and shoots Mone off into the corner. Catching her with a body scissors off the rebound, Vaquer ties Mone up on the canvas and holds her in a pretty uncomfortable looking position, no matter how flexible you are.

This does not look like a fun place to be at all. AEW

She follows it up pretty quickly by scissoring Mone's head, rolling her back down to the canvas, and playing basketball with her head.

Lets hope this isn't your first broken nose. AEW

Its at this point the crowd is firmly behind Vaquer, they are game for everything she tries and pop big when she lands it. Its honestly impressive to see how fast this crowd decides Vaquer is someone they want to see more of, and win too!

Mone startes to get back at Vaquer, snatching her head while backed into the corner and doing a double spin by rebounding off the ropes as well before landing a tornado DDT. They square off in the centre before both hitting the ropes and crashing into each other for a double-down, with Mone seemingly getting the worst of it. 

This wasn't pretty for either of them, but Mone got folded. AEW

Mone tried early on for the crossface win but Vaquer was able to escape. She tries again after she's been worn down and Vaquer starts crawling towards the ropes to break it. In a counter we've seen a dozen times before, Mone kicks off the bottom rope to sinch in the hold again in the centere. But, in a counter we've seen far more rarely, Vaquer picks Mone up in a firemans carry position and drops her into a huge lungblower. What a counter

Did not expect to see this kind of counter. AEW

The crowd starts to turn on Mone, first chanting "Fuck the Celtics" and later "Fuck the Red Sox" to try and get under her skin. It doesn't really seem to work, but its a clear message of how they aren't really sure how to properly cheer for Vaquer so they resort to bashing the sports teams from her hometown. Makes sense to me.

Mone starts piulling out the heavy artilley, cracking Vaquer with 2 backstabbers in a row. Listening to the jeers of the crowd, she climbs to the top rope and signals for the frog splash. Taking flight, she crashes into Vaquer's 2 feet, now sticking straight up in the air. Not the best kind of landing. 

The finish comes about when Mone picks Vaquer up for the Mone Maker, which she manages to slip out of. Mone is quick to react, going for a head scissors type move as to position herself on the other side of Vaquer to pick her up for the move again. This time, she lands it, transitioning immediately into the crossface to win.

A hard fought victory for 2 belts Mone. AEW

I'll be honest, I pretty well knew Mone would win this from the offset, just based on her being a more well established name and all. But as the match progressed I, like the rest in attendance, really wanted Vaquer to win. I really, really hope this isn't the last we see of her in AEW. She's unbelievably talented and needs a bigger spotlight placed on her. I'll absolutely be digging around for more of her work in CMLL and elsewhere. This wont be the last time Vaquer is on the watchlist I feel.

Kings of Wrestling v North Star Express - Best 2 out of 3 Falls - CHIKARA Once In a Lifetime - 09/22/2006

"Claudio, the title is upside down!" CHIKARA

This is probably going to be the most niche opinion anyone has ever had about wrestling, so hear me out. 

CHIKARA and Ska music are the same thing.

Like I said, hear me out. They are both super niche genre's of their respective art, both perfectly straddle the line between ridiculous comedy and absolute seriousness, they take influence from all over, maxico, japan, europe, all of it comes together to make CHIKARA one of the most special and completely unique wrestling promotions to ever exist. And, much like ska music, one of my most beloved promotions in history.

Unlike ska music, however, one man's reputation can't completely derail the entire company and force them to close up shop. I'm talking about you Quackenbush.

For the past few years, I've been working my way through CHIKARA from the first match available to me on IndependentWrestling.tv (not sponsored) and have made it to about mid 2005. I've slowed down in my watching recently and kinda feel like starting over for the sake of my never ending spreadsheet but had the urge to check out a really solid match before I went back to the early, early days of CHIKARA.

Kings of Wrestling is a team that I'm quite familiar with. I can't say I watched a lot of these two as a pair, but I've watched loads of Claudio as a singles and plenty of Hero during my time watching various indies and working through CHIKARA when he was teamed with Claudio and Arik Cannon, so seeing these 2 finally as a top team is really satisfying.

Darin Corbin and Ryan Cruz, known collectively as the North Star Express, are completely unknown to me. CAGEMATCH tells me these guys are still in the business and wrestling around Minnesota indies but that's about it, sometimes you luck out and one of them ends up changing their name to someone you've seen a dozen times but didn't recognize because they were so young, but alas, not today.

The match starts out slowly and pretty evenly paced, as both NSE and KoW try and wear each other down, going hold for hold for a good while. Despite Corbin and Cruz finding opportunities to get one over on Claudio and Hero, their offence is usually shut down pretty quickly by the more experienced and powerful tandem.

Claudio is able to grab Corbin by the arm and wear him down to the mat with a solid wristlock. Corbin is able to grab Claudio with a counter hold I've honestly never seen before by snatching Claudio around the neck with his boots and spinning on the top of his head to take him down. Claudio is able to fight out of it and stand back up but Corbin pulls him back down for a second time. Really, really slick moves between these teams.

Impressive counter on the much larger Claudio. CHIKARA

 

Y'know, despite working for a wrestling promotion that tends to favour "family friendly entertainment," and draws no more than a couple hundred people to a building that is used to running weekly bingo nights, there's far too many matches that are far better than they should be. This one is no exception. Both teams are putting an absolute effort in tonight, no holes in their holds, its all really, really good stuff. 

With this being held under Lucha Libre style rules or as Larry Sweeney (12 large, baby) mentions on commentary, "NWA Rules," this title match is 2 out of 3 falls, and the first fall comes about 20 minutes into this match and its an absolute sprint. 

Cruz and Corbin are in the ring together and start to isolate Hero from Claudio, going so far as to send him outside the ring and make sure he stays there the entire time they are on top. They keep Hero off balance with a flurry of offence, with the first fall coming after NSE lands Cruz Control on Hero.

An alabama slam on your partner, turning him into a weapon. CHIKARA

Both teams get some breathing room after the first fall, which allows Claudio to come back into the ring to check on Hero, only for him to scold him for not helping him. Commentary has mentioned throughout the match that the Kings have been struggling to stay on the same page a bit lately, not the best look for the double-champs (did I mention they are Ring of Honor tag champions too?)

Claudio and Cruz start things off after the first fall and Hero is pissed. He climbs off the apron and walks around to NSE's side of the ring and clobbers Corbin across the back, dragging him across the room slamming him head first into the bar. No alcohol was harmed during that bump, thank god.

Hero continues to beat down Corbin, dragging him outside the building now and slamming him against the brick wall of the building. Turning to the conveniently parked cube van, Hero opens the back of it and tosses Corbin inside. Instead of just locking him inside, he instead lays him down at the mouth of the cube van and grabs hold of the strap for the door. He jumps down off the box of the van, dragging the heavy rolling door down with him as it slams into the chest of Cruz with a sickening impact. 

 

Don't show this to the fire marshal, they wont be too happy. CHIKARA

 

Leaving Corbin for dead, Hero walks back into the arena and barres the door behind him, effectively turning this into a handicap match, all the while Claudio has been wailing on Cruz. From this point on, Cruz is as good as dead, he gets a few moments of offence and is able to get the KoW down, but they quickly shut him down hard.

With Cruz laying down in the corner, Claudio and Hero pick him up by his feet and violently rip him up off the mat. Flipping as her flies to the centre of the ring before crashing back down as the Kings of Wrestling tie things up.

KRS 2. Kings Reign Supreme. CHIKARA

 The moments leading up to the final fall are much the same as the second fall. Hero and Claudio wear Cruz down even more, toying with their food before landing the killshot. Cruz is able to thwart their double team offence as Hero is thrown off by Claudio's on-the-fly thinking, screaming "thats not what I called for Claudio!" as Cruz spins around and spikes Hero with a huge DDT.

Corbin is able to come back and make the save (to a very mild reception, sadly) as Hero was unable to lock every entrance to the building and lays out Claudio and Hero, having had time to recover from Hero's assault. 

It looks like NSE is about to get the final fall on the Kings, until Cruz gets launched over the top rope and gets his foot caught on the way down, leaving Corbin completely isolated. Hero and Claudio are able to finish off the North Star Express with the KRS 1 for the third and final fall.

Mid flip. This landing could not have felt good at all. CHIKARA

To nobody's surprise, the Kingf of Wrestling are an incredible tag team, and while I can't say they carried the North Star Express, they were clearly the ring generals in this match and kept control the entire time. The first fall took a while to get to (just about 2 thirds of the match) and the final 2 came pretty quick, with Corbin receiving a very cold reception for what should have been a hot comeback, but that aside this match is certainly one to check out.

Folks, I'd love to stay and chat, maybe even review a few more matches, but I've gotta run. When I said this was a busy week, I meant it! But trust me, I've got an exciting post in store for next week, so stay tuned!

Until then, 

Cliff Morgan