Timothy Thatcher vs. Matt Riddle (WWE NXT 5/13/20)

A perfect little highlight reel of all of Thatcher’s best qualities as a worker. You have the realistic grappling which Riddle was more than capable of keeping up with. You have the steady progression from mat work to standing strikes that allows the more traditional stuff to pop as they become almost like high spots. And you have Thatcher making faces. Bless him, he’s so good at in-ring facial expressions. Perhaps my favorite example comes from Riddle picking him up for a powerbomb and you get a brief glimpse of pure shocked horror on Thatcher’s face just before he gets driven into the match. I loved how this felt like Thatcher just wrestling a Thatcher match without all the silly frills that the WWE often insists upon forcing onto people. At one point, NXT silliness threatens to breach things with Riddle shouting a taunt at Thatcher to which he responds by just grabbing the man’s arm and locking him back up on the mat to quash the spot dead. Love it.