Featured image by @matts2kool
A very charming match on the whole. I knew Juicy Finau from his viral story of flying out to the GCW Collective to help with the ring crew and being rewarded with a spot in the Clusterfuck. I watched that Clusterfuck and don’t recall much from it, not the best place for the guy to really showcase his talents. I’m glad I found my way to this though because it feels like a nice introduction to who Finau is.
Juicy Finau plays the giant babyface in this match against heel champion AJ Gray. He’s really great at it too. There’s something innately likeable about the guy that translates well when combined with his awesome power and striking. He spends a good portion of the babyface shine just throwing AJ about like he was nothing and it’s awesome.
Finau also does well to hold his own against a striker like Gray. Finau has massive hands and he puts them to good use. He throws some decent punches in this but his chops are just absolutely killer, arguably on par with if not better than Gray’s in this match up. It makes his comebacks and cut offs real easy to buy into.
A lot of this match is built around Gray working over Finau’s leg and he’s a pretty good hand at selling that too. It’s not an all-timer limb selling performance or anything but there’s several moments one can see the effects that Gray’s leg work has on Finau. It’s good when it’s there but it’s not anything to write home about.
As for Gray, this is an interesting performance for him as well. I don’t often see him playing an outward heel and he’s also rarely the undersized performer in any given match up. I thought he handled both pretty well here. His offense is a little dynamic than usual, with him having to throw these wild kicks all over Juicy to try and chop him down. His leg work isn’t bad either as he focuses on just kicking the hell out of the leg instead of sitting down in any one hold for too long. AJ’s also really mean in this small ways. Petty kicks to a downed Finau or fishhooking the big man into a forced grin are all great little ways to fill up space.
It’s not a perfect match though. Feel like there’s a little too much downtime in between everything. AJ does well to try to fill it with heel character work though but a little more viciousness might have really taken this to the next level. A little tightening here and there and this could have been something really great.
Despite that though, I’d say this is still very much worth the watch. A nice showcase for Juicy Finau and one that I think can win him over a lot of new fans, as he did with me.
