This review was commissioned by FaisalMAX03 over on my Ko-fi account.
With throwback guys like Charlie Dempsey, what you hope to see is commitment. Any wrestler that packages themselves around a return to the fundamentals should always do so beyond the superficial level of just focusing on classical holds, but also sticking to the spirit of the older styles they’re calling back to. For someone fairly early into their career, and certainly early on major stages, Dempsey gets a lot of it so very right.
For one, there’s the obvious mechanical competence on display. He really does wrench on those holds well, has a real natural sense for how to make these things look both significant and painful within the context of the match. The demeanor’s there as well. Sure, the (seemingly) planted little girl getting her sign ripped up is a little much, but Dempsey spends the match mean mugging and being expressive without feeling goofy. It’s a real good sign that his toolbox feels so defined at this stage of his development.
There’s so much of this where Axiom and Dempsey nail the spirit of the kind of match they’re trying for as well. In particular, I love how while Dempsey’s presented as the more technically inclined worker of the two, he often gets shown up by Axiom here. Dempsey tries to take Axiom to the mat early, and while he finds success there, Axiom’s able to come back and control Dempsey with a side headlock as well. I also enjoy that Dempsey’s smart enough to be the first to escalate the violence here. Unable to just grapple Axiom into a loss, he starts throwing hands and stomps, ceding the battle on the ground for a more underhanded path to victory instead. And even then, when Axiom gets the chance to start laying strikes in himself, Dempsey gives way by actually selling for Axiom to show the edge that the babyface has over him. Good stuff, really in tune with the sort of old timey heel grappler thing that Dempsey’s clearly going for.
The problem, of course, is compromise.
I want to say, it’s not entirely Dempsey’s fault. He’s sort of bound by the expectations of American TV wrestling, and perhaps even the more modern style that an opponent like Axiom requires. Axiom’s part of the problem here too. I’m never entirely sold on his more high flying offense, and the back selling that’s bad enough to elicit a bridge crumble sell does start to fade in the later stretches of the bout. It’s never awful, but Axiom takes the match to a much less interesting place for me, one built around a little more high flying and bomb throwing. Where Dempsey is at fault is from how he plays into these more modern tropes. After doing so well to be the heel for so much of this, he suddenly starts doing pop up suplex no sells in the back half. And sure, he still eats shit with Axiom catching him at the end of the exchange, but it’s one of those slips in character that stands in such sharp contrast to everything else that’s been done to that point.
Hope that in the coming years, Dempsey learns to stick to his guns instead. Standing up for this style sometimes means going down for a suplex.
Rating: ***1/2
