Mike Bailey vs. ACH (West Coast Pro The Art of Drowning 2/11/22)

Match Reviews

Featured image by @matts2kool

Just on a mechanical level, one of the best matches of the year. Everything Speedball and ACH do in this looks so damn great. ACH’s chops aren’t just crispy, they’re also resonant. Speedball hits well too. Not just his famous kicks, but also chopping in return, and even some of his elbow strikes land really well. There’s an urgency and viciousness to a lot of what they do, especially from ACH. I haven’t enjoyed too much of ACH’s post-WWE run, but this is the most explosive and exciting that I’ve seen him in a long time. He is an absolute killer in this especially early on while working over Speedball’s back. There’s that crazy bump which sees ACH suplex Bailey right onto the edge of the ringframe that rules so damn much. Spots like that stand out, of course, but it’s the fact that he brings that kind of brutality to everything he does in this match that elevates it.

Speedball’s a really fun babyface in this. There’s nothing crazy good about his selling or anything, the back work that ACH does doesn’t play hugely into proceedings, but he gives as good as he gets. He meets ACH’s ferocity heads on and that just makes this whole thing crackle. I feel like I had my jaw on the floor for so much of this, just from how hard they were going. It’s not some layered, intricate masterpiece. It’s just two guys going all out, and tearing down the house. The kind of match that used to feel commonplace on the indies but now feels just rare enough to celebrate.

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