Because I have no real immediate family to celebrate this year’s Thanksgiving with and nothing to really do at the current moment, I am choosing to start a new (hopefully) monthly project in which I am tentatively calling “Wrestling Grab Bag,” where I write about some random wrestling matches with no real correlation to the next, most of which were recommended to me at one point or another by different people. Happy Thanksgiving!
If you’d like to read MORE writing by me, but not on this blog then I recently contributed to the Death Panel over at the Violent People blog, which you can go read here.
**suggested by ptotime of violent people
This match is another notch in the list of reasons as to why I love The Rejects. John Wayne Murdoch and Reed Bentley just have loads of chemistry together no matter the role they’re playing. This is a gruesome chaotic fourway match, with almost a central theme of Nick Depp (who i’ve literally never heard of before this) getting violently abused as much as possible till roughly about halfway through the match when he gets eliminated. Lots of gruesome spots in this one. Reed caves in Depp’s head with the stand of a CRT TV, the same TV which Depp also takes a Spiked Tombstone from both Rejects through a few minutes after it’s brought out. That spot in particular is just the highest point of the match, man. Also gotta give props to LuDark in this because she puts up a good fight, outsmarting her male opponents in the beginning stretch in an almost comical sense and making it all the way to the end as one of the final two. The giant blowpop that LuDark uses also got a big pop out of me, admittedly. The finish is disgusting looking, with JWM suplexing LuDark through the chair and a pool noodle with toothpicks that almost nearly falls off.
**suggested by jom
Jom gave me two matches I could watch and I ended up choosing this one because I don’t watch as much older Lucha as I realistically should. Shocker immediately wins the vibes contest for coming out to “In Da Club” by 50 Cent, alongside TWO valets AND Kemonito. Vamp and Pierroth immediately jump the tecnicos before the match can begin and just start smacking them around, getting a lot of heat. Negro Casas has some amazing selling during this. Shocker and Casas have a comeback which leads them to get the first fall after Shocker’s Lion Tamer on Vampiro AND a big splash from Kemonito. The rudos quickly take over after that, getting DQ’d when Vampiro turns Negro Casas’ silla into a turnbuckle nutshot and gives what looks like a Styles Clash to Shocker. The biggest most dastardly move of the whole thing being Vampiro’s piledriver to Kemonito after the match!! Really fun, more people should watch old CMLL matches for the soul, myself included.
**suggested by Cameron aka unmasked_taro
I fully admit that I’ve always been interested in BattlArts as an entity but for some reason have never decided to dive more into it than I should outside of the occasional Ikeda or Ishikawa bout. This is a really, really solid tag match. Definitely feels like a vehicle to showcase how much of a bastard man killer Murakami is, he’s the real star of the whole thing. Ishikawa in particular sold really really well for his offense, probably because Murakami was legitimately beating the shit outta him. Carl Malenko is also an interesting case in the match because he does some decent looking holds and also sells pretty well for both Murakami and Nagai. Murakami knocking out Malenko for the finish and the post match scuffle between him and Ishikawa which led to multiple wrestlers coming between them looked great. Don’t know much about the “lore” and Cagematch doesn’t necessarily help me but I do hope this led to some kind of big match between the two because that’s what it felt like.
Erick Stevens vs. Myung Jae Lee - C4 Underground Championship - C4 A Fistful of Dynamite (09/19/2025)
This is one of Erick Stevens’ first matches back since going on hiatus again in 2022, and he’s going against a guy who I’m kinda hoping starts to break out in the States someday soon in Myung Jae Lee. It’s a really solid veteran vs young guy bout, with Stevens getting to play a decent old man bully and drop him on his head a few times. Myung Jae Lee also shows a lot of heart in this as well and I love the visual of him being busted open at the mouth(?) during some really good looking comebacks. The commentators definitely fanboy over Erick, and, by extension old school ROH but it doesn’t really get annoying at any point. Love the finish of Erick’s Sarasota Screwdriver getting countered into a Small Package rollup, too. The younger wrestler getting to outsmart an old grizzled vet and whatnot. Dunno how long this Erick Stevens run is going for, but i’m a fan of how much he’s been able to mesh well with the current indy generation from what I have seen. Hope I get to see him live one day before it’s over.
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