If my appreciation of Timothy Thatcher was purely intellectual before, it’s full blown acceptance now.
Holy crap, this was so much more than I could have imagined it was going to be. When WWE announced that these two would be wrestling in a cage, I had simply imagined the standard WWE steel cage set up. For some reason, that hellhole corporation decided to go out with a reimagining of the Lion’s Den instead with a lower cage combined with walking platforms surrounding the cage. Happy to see that they could afford an entirely new set up for this match but not to bring in some chairs for their fake audience to sit on.
The match wastes no time making the most of its surroundings as Riddle dives from the platform into a rolling forearm on Thatcher. This sparks a fantastic babyface shine filled with so much energy and creativity with Riddle doing the Showtime Kick off the cage. The shine ends and leads into commercial with Thatcher dealing with a bloodied mouth and picking his teeth up off the canvas. The spot worked so well that I still struggle to tell whether this was a work or a gimmicked spot. It was so effective that I honestly couldn’t care too much which it was. I absolutely believe that Matt Riddle could kick Thatcher’s teeth out of his skull.
Coming back from commercial break, the fight turns to more grapple based offense as Thatcher tries to go for Riddle’s arm by cutting off a second Showtime Kick attempt. When Riddle escapes Thatcher’s attempts, Thatcher alternates between the arm and the leg. Thought this was a great continuation of the opening segment with these two doing what they do best before working their way up to the platforms. The transition isn’t too awkward and everything they do on the walking platforms felt like a natural extension of the matwork they established in the previous segment.
All of it leads into a hot finishing stretch with my favorite moment being Riddle cutting off Thatcher’s choke slap to hit one of his own. Just a big, significant win for Thatcher in a fantastic, unique setting. I loved this match. It’s highly doubtful anything in the promotion comes close to this while the pandemic lasts unless the GOAT can pull off some of his patented miracles. But this is a truly special piece of work and there’s no taking it away from either Thatcher or Riddle. A top 5 match of the year and the WWE match of the year by quite a margin.
