This review was commissioned by portablestove over on my Ko-fi account.
Welcome to Universal Studios Florida, where for the low cost of just under $60 one can enjoy such sights as animatronic dinosaurs ostensibly drawn from ancient amber, a time-travelling Delorean powered on questionably acquired nuclear materieals, and a large man clad in cheap looking pleather throwing around one of the craziest white boys the world has ever known. One wonders if those international tourists from halfway across the globe knew what they were walking past in Universal Studios in the mid-2000s. After spending a whole day out in the hot Florida sun, was it attractive to pile one’s self into the air conditioning of the Impact Zone to see AJ Styles repeatedly approach death for our entertainment?
If rollercoasters are meant to bring us the ultimate sense of manufactured danger and thrill, then a great AJ Styles performance from the 2000s instead elicits the voyeuristic joy of seeing someone experience the real deal. In this match against Abyss, he demonstrates his masterful capacity to fling his body at solid surfaces at speeds dazzling to behold. A rollercoaster provides the illusion of danger, AJ Styles, however, flies headfirst straight into it.
With a big dive onto Abyss from the ring to kick off the match, AJ puts his foot on the gas and never lets up for the whole bout.
It is an astonishing performance from Styles here, arguably one of his most impressive ever. For as fun as Abyss might have been as a hulking monster figure with hardcore stylings in the 2000s, I don’t think he ever quite grazes the same dizzying heights that AJ’s able to bring out of him in this bout. A monster needs, more than anything, a victim willing to die for him–and AJ does that with such gleeful brilliance from bell to bell here.
There is a seemingly endless barrage of gross spills and bumps that Styles takes in this bout. Importantly though, there’s such variety to them in both tone and execution. There’s the silky smooth, almost unnatural control of his offense such as the big tope to kick off the match or how he fearlessly accomplishes a triple jump escape into the packed Impact Zone crowd before topping it off with a big dive over the heads of the first four rows onto Abyss in the ringside area. But even more notable are the bumps he takes to make Abyss look like a true monster. There’s a million ways he punishes himself to make Abyss here, whether that be getting obscene air time in the ring for things as simple as a military press or him hitting some of the crunchiest back bumps on the floor to make the most of a cage door being swung into his face. Styles is equal parts pro wrestling pantomime and actual bone-crunching physicality.
It’s not all dives and loop-de-loops here though. Anticipation is key to this kind of David vs. Goliath clash functioning as well as it does. And so, Styles and Abyss craft a fairly traditional narrative here, just told with the modern and pacing sensibilities that TNA used to meld together so well. The crowd brawl to open the match is an impressive way to establish the dynamic, but the heat segment once the door on the cage closes is where a lot of the magic really lies. AJ taps into a decent bladejob here that adds a gravity to his selling and bumping throughout. He’s such an active seller here, not just lying flat on the mat after each bump, but writhing in pain, balling up his fist to draw the crowd’s sympathy, really contorting his body on each crash to add just a little more oomph to things.
Impressively too, it’s a rare 20th century match that ends exactly when it should. The struggle on the top of the cage is beautifully set up. Abyss’ chokeslamming the referee into the cage door is a great character choice and a nice way to stall Styles’ momentum to allow Abyss to reach him. And the climax of it too with AJ enduring the chain hangman spot to launch himself into one of the smoothest sunset flip bombs ever was simply not going to be topped. Hit the craziest finish one can dream up, get the pin, send everybody home happy.
$60 for all that and the theme park around it too? That’s a good deal in my book.
IS IT BETTER THAN 6/3/94? There’s a relentless pace that Abyss and Styles capture here, a match with no fat on it whatsoever. On top of peaking at the exact right point, this match is relentless in its escalation, its application of traditional pro wrestling structure, and the catharsis of the finish is so rich as well. Sorry, Misawa and Kawada, love y’all, but this one goes to the Floridians and their crazy TNA rasslin’.
Rating: ****½
