 |
(photo taken from Mad Dog's Twitter, unsure of who took it. please dm me and i will properly credit if needed.) |
Wanted to start this off real quick apologies to my cumulative seven fans for the lack of actual writing that has been seen in the past couple of months, easiest explanation that I can give is that I've been dealing with a combination of Being Super Fucking Busy™ and also my general mental health being super erratic for reasons that i'm honestly not gonna get into here. Anyways, I wanted to come back to blogging with something of a start to a potential hybrid-blog-and-Youtube content series, which i'm currently dubbing the very simple title of "Wrestlers I Like", an idea that was slightly inspired by both Tom Green's "Why They Rule" series where he goes over why certain wrestlers are really good in the span of 60 seconds and also in a way that is hard for me to explain at the moment, my good friend Hiten Mitsuru's Yap Session videos where she talks about numerous different things usually having to do with art or video games, you should check them out if you like content about that type of stuff. She's really cool.
I'll probably explain how I actually wanna RUN this series of content at a later date, but to put it simply on how this will work: I'm basically going to rant and rave about wrestlers that I really really like. I'll talk about how I found out about them, how good I think they are, along with some blurbs about my favorite matches from them because I am absolutely super fucking autistic about professional wrestling and if you don't like it... well, why are you reading a wrestling blog anyways?
So I figured the best way to start off a series like this is to talk about a wrestler who, genuinely, is somebody I could consider as THE wrestler of the year. If not at the very least in the conversation of top 3.... Mad Dog Connelly.
I got into Connelly, funnily enough, this year, after watching his dog collar match against Demus at ACTION Wrestling's DEAN~!! event during WrestleMania 40 weekend all the way back in April.
I had heard about him vaguely in 2021-2023 but for whatever reason never actually bothered to check out his matches there despite him wrestling in places that I was absolutely watching around that period. Namely Saint Louis Anarchy and Paradigm Pro. Genuinely I don't think I have much of a proper explanation for not knowing about him before this match, but lemme tell you, after watching the match at DEAN~!!... I was absolutely fucking hooked on Mad Dog. Same thing with Demus, somebody who I also need to do a "Wrestlers I Like" entry on at this point, don't you fucking worry your soul.
Now, to answer the question: Why do I love Mad Dog Connelly?
It's very simple.
He's one of those wrestlers whose matches you watch and afterwards go "hell yeah."
I'll probably explain how I actually wanna RUN this series of content at a later date, but to put it simply on how this will work: I'm basically going to rant and rave about wrestlers that I really really like. I'll talk about how I found out about them, how good I think they are, along with some blurbs about my favorite matches from them because I am absolutely super fucking autistic about professional wrestling and if you don't like it... well, why are you reading a wrestling blog anyways?
So I figured the best way to start off a series like this is to talk about a wrestler who, genuinely, is somebody I could consider as THE wrestler of the year. If not at the very least in the conversation of top 3.... Mad Dog Connelly.
I got into Connelly, funnily enough, this year, after watching his dog collar match against Demus at ACTION Wrestling's DEAN~!! event during WrestleMania 40 weekend all the way back in April.
I had heard about him vaguely in 2021-2023 but for whatever reason never actually bothered to check out his matches there despite him wrestling in places that I was absolutely watching around that period. Namely Saint Louis Anarchy and Paradigm Pro. Genuinely I don't think I have much of a proper explanation for not knowing about him before this match, but lemme tell you, after watching the match at DEAN~!!... I was absolutely fucking hooked on Mad Dog. Same thing with Demus, somebody who I also need to do a "Wrestlers I Like" entry on at this point, don't you fucking worry your soul.
Now, to answer the question: Why do I love Mad Dog Connelly?
It's very simple.
He's one of those wrestlers whose matches you watch and afterwards go "hell yeah."
Let's be honest. There's a demographic in modern wrestling of guys such as Lee Moriarty, Alex Shelley, Jon Gresham, hell even possibly Danielson and many others that I could easily spout off as examples who give a "cleaned up", smooth and crisp presentation of wrestling in their matches, with Mad Dog you don't get... well, any of that. He's not smooth, cleaned up, or crisp. BUT THAT'S WHAT MAKES HIM SO UNBELIEVABLY FUCKING AWESOME. His work is some of the grimiest, grossest, absolutely mauled in filth shit in North American wrestling today. Pretty much all of his matches have some kind of spot where he's trying to murder his opponent in some form or fashion, every time I go into each one expecting an absolute spectacle and they deliver to the upmost degree. The aforementioned dog collar match with Demus, his series of matches with Steve Manders, hell, even his 2022 no disqualification bout with Jake Lander from ZERO1 USA are some of examples of the closest that you could possibly get to a modern recreation of the old school "southern-style" brawls of the 1980's. It's incredibly difficult to compare Mad Dog to literally ANYBODY else that's active nowadays because the style that he presents is in a completely different universe from basically anybody else in the United States. Literally, I fucking dare somebody to find any wrestler in the US that's on the level that Connelly has been on for the past while. You can't. Literally anybody who comes close to that would be working on the Mexican independent scene right now, one of the reasons why ACTION booking Demus/Mad Dog back during WrestleMania weekend was such a stroke of genius but that's something I'll have to fully elaborate on when (not if) I end up writing about that match in specific. In a lot of ways what makes Mad Dog compelling is definitely the same thing that made dudes like Buzz Sawyer, Atsushi Onita, Necro Butcher compelling in the 80s, 90s, and 2000s. Another thing that I like about his matches is that they all last the right amount of time. Most likely due to the chaotic nature of his matches, but i've not watched through one of them thinking "man, they really need to wrap this up" or "y'know I wish this lasted longer..." Personally, if you can hit that peak, ESPECIALLY when it comes to modern wrestling where.. admittedly there's a lot of matches that go on for longer than they realistically should, you are one of my favorites. Not to mention his promos are also amazing. There's way too many that I could pull up as examples so if you really need to go scroll his Twitter and you'll be bound to find some but with each promo I watch it feels like I'm witnessing a man grow more and more inhuman and insane as each second passes. They easily captivate me and feed into the notion that when I go into his matches I'm going to expect an absolute car crash spectacle which, again, COMPLETELY deliver each and every time. He's a fucking total package. Expect me to make match edits of him when I actually have the time and ideas for songs to match up with.
To cut things short.
Do yourself a favor today. Sit down, watch one of the many Mad Dog Connelly matches on YouTube (or IWTV, if you have that), have fun, and....
Live Your Truth.
( P.S: SOMEBODY out there in the world better book Mad Dog in the fucking Zona 23 Junkyard. I would actually, genuinely pay money to see footage of it. )
To cut things short.
Do yourself a favor today. Sit down, watch one of the many Mad Dog Connelly matches on YouTube (or IWTV, if you have that), have fun, and....
Live Your Truth.
( P.S: SOMEBODY out there in the world better book Mad Dog in the fucking Zona 23 Junkyard. I would actually, genuinely pay money to see footage of it. )
No comments:
Post a Comment