This review was commissioned by Damon Spriggle over on my Ko-fi account.
While poking around the channel trying to find the link to this match, I ended up catching a bit more of the hype video recaps that start every show. I wouldn’t call myself an expert on the goings on at SFT, but there’s a certain cheek to the whole thing that I can’t tell is intentional or not. Either way, there’s something so very on the nose about Damon Spriggle founding a promotion called Spriggle Fighting Trials where he’s the top guy running a dojo against a bunch of villainous units. Talk about making space for yourself in the industry, I sort of can’t help but begrudgingly respect it.
On top of that, I think this match is…good!
This one’s wrestled under the company’s “fight” rules which means that strikes are legal, and they make they best of that. Both Jordan and Spriggle throw some decent blows in this. Crunchy elbows, solid body shots, kicks that land–all the classics. They’re not Shibata and Ishii out there but in a small venue like this where every sound gets captured, it leaves a positive effect for sure. Even outside of that though, I feel they get way more out of the early grappling than Spriggle and Jah-C did. Jordan’s able to really make Spriggle work for his escapes here and it’s fun to see him fluster Damon down on the mat and really grind down on certain holds.
This escalates a lot more naturally too. The big strikes start flying, then suplexes and bumps come into play too. There’s a real organic sense of tempers starting to flare as Spriggle tries to escape eating his third L in a row to Jordan, and it does actually suck to see the life snuffed out of him at the end there.
I think the best compliment I could give it is that I’d be pretty happy to see this at a Filipino indie show. It’s got the same sort of DIY spirit to it with just enough violence to sweeten the deal.
Rating: ***+
