This review was commissioned by Dan Vacura over on my Ko-fi account.
It’s never a bad idea to start your TV show with blood. In something of a rare move for 2000s wrestling TV, this episode of Impact! joins the X Division Championship match between Christopher Daniels and Samoa Joe in progress. By this point, Daniels is covered in blood, always a welcome sight on a pale bald head as Steve Austin in 97 and beyond, and Samoa Joe is in the middle of one of his more evil and malicious heel performances ever.
What we don’t get on the broadcast, and is tucked away as a TNA Online Exclusive are about five minutes of a real classic feeling babyface shine from Daniels. It’s not an overwhelming he gets on Joe, more akin to a very sporting championship-style outwrestling of the big man. Daniels’ shine focuses heavily on simple wrestling takedowns and dodges to use the challenger’s size and weight against him. It’s enough to flummox Joe though who spends a significant amount of time recalibrating on the floor, which allows Daniels to goad him on and work the crowd from the turnbuckle. It may be simple stuff, but I think it completes the picture of what this match is for psycho completionist historians. It also provides us context for Joe’s transition into control, the frustration he feels in the shine adds texture to the cruelty he enacts during the heat.
And what a heat segment it is. Samoa Joe is one of the all-time great offensive wrestlers ever, certainly true for this time period as well when he’s still operating as close to the peak of his powers as possible. All his work on Daniels’ cut is direct and mean. There’s some rare Samoa Joe biting in there–as if he’s a rudo straight out of Monterrey–and a whole host of punches towards the wound. He never loses sight of the cut, and it’s the driving force of much of the drama here. One of the best things Joe does as well is adjust his attack in the smallest ways to take advantage of the wound. When cycling through his classic combo of ground submissions, he takes the time to punch at the wound while in the hold, for example. Or later on, as Daniels begins to pick up steam, Joe goes right for the cut with open palm strikes to try and halt momentum.
To his credit, Daniels is up to the job of selling the wear of it, adding a little stutter and wobble to his movement even while quite smartly applying the Steamboat rule with a few futile punches to try and escape Joe’s onslaught. He’s also smart enough not to overcomplicate things here. For a division built around the flashiest offense possible–at least on the surface–there’s nothing crazy that Daniels does here that might undercut the severity of the beating he takes. His initial comeback is built on multiple enzuigiris, which helps convey the desperation of a man just sticking with what’s working. He’s fully believable in the comeback as well, if only because he has to work so hard for it. Even after the repeat enzuigiris, Joe’s back on his feet, and Daniels has to throw himself into several attempted clotheslines and strikes to have even the mildest hope of taking the challenger back down.
In this, Joe is excellent too. He sells just enough, but also importantly protects himself just enough, to make the comeback sing. He doesn’t give or take too much away from Daniels. Joe provides the satisfaction of an insane high angle top rope rana bump, where he seems to arc up before crashing back down, but he stops shy of burning a kick out on Daniels’ Angel’s Wings. That’s the kind of smart, purposeful wrestling that leaves so much left to be explored without giving in to the impulse of the moment. Joe protects Daniels here even as he absolutely murders him with that top rope Island Driver and takes the X Division Title. It’s hard to even comprehend given the brutality that Joe enacts, but it’s the ability to hide the protection within violence that makes Joe one of the Greats.
Rating: ****¼
