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| Gresham was one of the reasons why Bloodsport is worth your time Photo Credit: Scott Finkelstein |
Last year's show had a distinct change of pace from the high-octane silliness of Joey Janela's Spring Break, and yet it didn't lose any sense of charm or fun. It had a certain amount of camp, much like the movie that it was named for. It felt like Riddle really wanted to recreate the atmosphere of the kumite that Jean-Claude Van Damme's character went through. That's why even though it was an event presented with rigid shoot-style rules that Nick Gage pulling out a signature GCW door worked. The rules existed as a framework, but in the grand spirit of pro wrestling, they played with the boundaries and created something unique, special, and worth recreating.
From jump at this year's event, it was clear that the spirit changed. The ceremonial reading of the rules was followed by stern verbal reinforcement from the commentary team of Denver Colorado and Kevin Gill, who harped on THE RULES™ at several times during the rest of the show. Maybe that strain was present last year, but it didn't stick with me throughout the show like it did this year. And right in the first match, after Phil Baroni knocked Dominic Garrini out and the decision was reversed because he put his hands on Bryce Remsburg, that sinking dread became manifest.
The change in atmosphere was no more apparent than in the Frank Mir/Dan Severn match and in the main event. With the former, every match on the card except for this one felt like a pro wrestling match even in the extreme cohabitative embrace of MMA. Shoot-style wrestling might seem like this wholly foreign concept, but no doubt, any wrestling match has the same DNA, the same skeleton. You can pick out the same beats, the same concepts in matches like even Garrini/Baroni that you can in Austin/Rock or Misawa/Kawada or Rush/Park. Much like you can distill any analysis of science into some form of Energy = Flowrate x Resistance, you can break any wrestling match down by recognizing things like the heat or the comeback or the shine.
With Mir/Severn, I couldn't pick out any of those beats. It basically was two guys grappling around until Mir got a quick and anticlimactic finish. They worked a MMA fight instead of doing a shoot-style match. Like, Mir probably wanted to fight Severn, but he would've wrecked him because of age differences. So they did this where Mir could go over but make it look competitive. Worked MMA might have a niche interest for some people, maybe even among those who watched the show, but for me, I watched to see wrestling, not a how-to on tapping someone with a kneebar.
As for the main event, I will give it some credit in that it was a pro wrestling match, but it was the kind of pro wrestling match steeped in excess that I tend to lose interest in. It's one that Barnett himself probably would trash, say, the Young Bucks for having in New Japan. But because it was in service of putting himself over, well, I guess it's okay, right? Anyway, going to a 25 minute draw with Minoru Suzuki is one way to end an event where the longest match beforehand was a shade over ten minutes. Comparatively speaking, the year before when Riddle worked Suzuki, worked an intense five-or-so minute match where he put the PANCRASE legend over definitively showed how absurd Barnett's wankfest with Suzuki was. Riddle by this time was a full-time pro wrestler, and he allowed himself to lose in a quick but intense main event. Barnett, who wrestles when the mood strikes him, decided he'd show everyone how tough he was by going the full 20 and then some.
But that really highlights the difference between last year and this year. Riddle is a MMA-influenced pro wrestler (which I've grown to like as my favorite kind of wrestler over the years), so he knows to put on a wrestling show that happens to adopt elements from things like MMA and the kumite in Bloodsport the movie. Barnett is a MMA fighter who likes wrestling. So he wanted ideally to do MMA pantomime borrowing pro wrestling imagery. The difference is tangibly noticeable.
I hate, though, that the change in atmosphere colored my experience and made the first part of this review seem that I didn't enjoy the show, because that's not the case. I compare the dichotomy to a good WWE show, where all the matches might rip, but then you gotta deal with the company's fucked up mythmaking. An annoying Michael Cole call wouldn't ruin, say, the Elimination Chamber event where the Shield wrestled the Wyatt Family, and the hard-on for THE RULES™ didn't ruin this event in the least. After the first match, which was good because it showcased how natural a heel Phil Baroni was and could be if he made the jump, things really heated up. Simon Grimm and JR Kratos started throwing some spicy strikes. Their attempts at grappling and working holds felt sleepy, but they put some mustard behind their big kicks and punches. Davey Boy Smith, Jr., who looks uncannily like his dad now, and Killer Kross upped the ante, as did Chris Dickinson and Andy Williams after them.
But the two matches that really stood out were Masashi Takeda vs. Jonathan Gresham and Hideki Suzuki vs. Timothy Thatcher. The former match was your classic "styles make fights" match (hate that term, but it fits here I guess). Takeda had crazy deathmatch energy looking to slug the shit out of Gresham at every turn, and Gresham kept it real on the mat, slicking in and out of his transitions and holds like his nickname, the Octopus, would suggest. The action spilled to the outside, and it overall exuded crazy energy, which was a nice change of pace from a lot of the methodical action that preceded and succeeded it. Thatcher and Suzuki kept more of a methodical pace, but it was a masterclass in grappling, as one might expect from a Thatcher match. This Suzuki came over with a heavy reputation, and he didn't disappoint. Thatcher was the perfect first opponent for him in America in this regard. I struggle to think which match was better, to be honest, but they both stood out as both outstanding bouts within their styles and also excellent entrees into shoot-style for the uninitiated.
I think anyone who fancies themselves as a connoisseur of wrestling, especially of technical wrestling or even match quality, owes it to themselves to watch this show on replay. Shoot-style is definitely a different-looking animal, but when it's done as well as the best matches on this show were, it is just as satisfying as any style of match one might like. As a style, it's just as vital as lucha libre or deathmatch wrestling, and I'm glad that GCW decided to agree with that assessment and bring it back another year even if its first namesake got the opportunity to sign with WWE. I hope they bring it back next year too.
I just hope that if they do bring it back, they get someone closer in spirit to Riddle to put their name on it. Aside from being an utter, self-important bore, Barnett is also one of those "gotta hear both sides" idiots who thinks you should have to listen to what the Proud Boys have to say, even though listening to people like that in the '30s is what got us the Third Reich. I know it's a tall order for GCW to split ties with people like that. They still fucking book SHLAK for crying out loud. But even with all that, Barnett's vision for the show clearly dampened the event with the slavish dedication to THE RULES™ instead of going for what Riddle intended it last year, to be live action kumite. Bloodsport this year was excellent, but with another person laying it out next year, it can be perfect.
