This review was commissioned by CJ over on my Ko-fi account.
It’s bad. Not even in the “compared to what they would go on to do” kind of way either, I’m talking pure, straight up bad pro wrestling. As will happen a million times over after them, Chris Hero and CM Punk are given way too much rope that they’re entirely happy to hang themselves with. In this case, that ropes come in the form of a 45 minute tables and ladder match (no chairs, despite them being plentiful in the venue) that, if you check the card, doesn’t even main event the goddamn show!
This sucks. It has a million and one ideas, all of them ranging from boring to genuinely awesome, and none of them get properly developed despite having all the time in the world to do so. This analogy has been going around online recently, but I truly can’t imagine a more blatant example of “checklist” wrestling for the 2000s indie scene than this bout right here. With its stipulation, there’s of course the prerequisite crazy bumps, balcony dives, and broken tables, but because it’s Punk and Hero and both wrestlers have such a professed love for territory wrestling and historical footage, they still want to get their workrate stuff in by doing some chain wrestling work at the top of the match. At one point, before the weapons even come into play, Punk goes for an overhead sunset flip off the top rope and I’m just left sitting there wondering, for what goddamn reason would he do that when there’s no pinfalls in this bout to begin with.
It’s such a shock to the system to see match like this from these two especially. In their careers moving forward, CM Punk and Chris Hero at their best would be known for attention to detail, pacing, pruning their matches down to the finest qualities. To see them at such an early stage of their development is fascinating, a match that rewards the kind of brazen, youthful overambition that abounds among young wrestlers. They do everything in this and it’s all the worse for it.
That said, the particular flavor of bad that Hero and Punk achieve here still has some more palatable aspects to it compared to others. For one, there is some true gnarliness to the damage they both sustain through the bout. There’s that crazy poison rana as shown above, which has the added detail of leading to a (far too brief) Chris Hero bladejob. There’s also things like Punk eating shit on the concrete when he accidentally swipes away the chair meant to break his fall. And all the bits where Hero just charges in to ram Punk into the walls of the venue (on their last night there no less) feel real visceral and cool.
Individually, moment to moment, there’s flashes of the brilliance that would characterize both men. Punk’s in the moment selling, for example, is so good. The way his face wrenches up, and he just howls in agony as Hero works over his body and midsection rules so much. There’s also a couple of very good stooge bumps ideas in this such as when Punk’s hanging from the rafters Ultimate X-style to try to get the belt, only to fall and crotch himself right on the top rope. Hell fucking yeah.
None of those things really compensate for what a mess all of this is. The trees can be nice, but this forest is ugly as fuck.
I haven’t even covered Hero’s manager at ringside who gets physically involved about twenty minutes in, or the fact that the referee also gets physically involved in the closing moments of the match. And that finish, Jesus Christ. Hero pulls the belt down, but Punk bumps his through a table before the ref can see and takes the belt for himself to retain. Truly some Russo in TNA-level brainworms behind that particular idea. So much fucking happens in this match, it’s awful.
It’s something of a minor miracle that these two actually do get great in the end. One wonders if that’s a product of the time and era. No doubt something like this probably got its fair share of acclaim, sold a few DVDs and tapes too. But all of that would have just been contained in the smallest internet bubbles, whispered about on forums, no big algorithm to splash isolated GIFs through a million different timelines. Just two dudes making all the mistakes, and perhaps getting some praise for it, but just in the right enough dose that it wasn’t too late for an eventual correction. If anything, this match is a reminder that improvement is not impossible, and sometimes the turnaround can be massive.
Also, I got Chris Hero on record saying he’s sorry for his many overlong matches. Sins can be forgiven when there’s repentance.
Rating: *1/2
