It was also the first show with some continued progression when it came to production, adding some additional jazzed lighting as things improved slowly but surely from the shows just a few months prior that featured the particularly unflattering fluorescent house lights paired with inexplicable music playing constantly in the background during the matches themselves. This was all of course in addition to the signature 3-2-1 Battle! live commentary which I haven't really dug into much over the course of this blog but was something that while I was initially skeptical of, turned out to help expand our fanbases' knowledge of the product and wrestlers' themselves. Upon rewatch, I do not recognize the voice of whomever the ring announcer for this particular show was but he sounds very professional and does a great job of setting the table, including a fine reading of a nickname that I toyed around with at the time as a nod to one of my favourite pro wrestlers of all time, The Destroyer; that of course being "The Sensational, Intelligent" Daniel Makabe.
I was still in the period where I hadn't quite settled on consistent entrance attire, which would be the case until later this year/early the following year. At this point however, I would enter in whatever random hoodie I happened to be wearing that day be it of a band or the American Apparel varietal. In this instance I was wearing the classic varsity style BANE hoodie, maroon in colour with gold font; something that a US customs agent once pointed out to me as likely being a ripoff of the USC Trojans famous colour combination. What I didn't realize at the time was that the lead singer of some of my favourite Seattle hardcore bands, John Pettibone (Undertow, Himsa, Heiress) was in attendance on this evening and the obvious nod to the 90s Boston Hardcore greats indicated by my choice of entrance attire was something that caught his eye. He informed me of this years later when we became friends, sometimes grabbing a coffee with one another before 3-2-1 shows at the nearby 'Espresso Vivace', a regular stop for the lion's share of us Canadian wrestlers whenever we were in town, for many years to come.
Not to bury the lead but this was also the first and only time that I ever had a one on one match with Asis Nowarranty, a young Seattle based grappler who was very inexperienced at the time; in fact his Cagematch bio notes that this was only his 5th match ever, although I do believe their results of these early 3-2-1 shows are a tad incomplete so that may not be completely accurate. Regardless, he was a protégé of a few of the wrestlers whom were helping put together shows at the time, namely Draven Lawless and the previously mentioned El Chango Blanco, having trained regularly in Jiu Jitsu before making the transition over to Pro Wrestling. Although there was definitely a stretch around this time that I was not particularly enthusiastic about integrating myself into working with a wider selection of the varying states of "professionally trained" roster, he was someone that I saw some potential in due to his athleticism and combat sports background. With that being said, I have a core memory of showing up early for this Wednesday show, having taken the day off work in order to participate in it and struggling to track him down in order to put some ideas together as he was preoccupied with his crew of friends who were in attendance that evening instead. This wasn't the first nor would it be the last moment in my professional wrestling life where an opponent and I had differing views on an appropriate amount of care and attention to put into a match beforehand but it is what it is; or should I say, was what it was.
The match proper gets underway with a fairly basic trading of mirrored standing headlocks with both instances containing the headlockee shooting the headlocker off the ropes, ending with them being met with impactful shoulder tackles that send them crashing to the mat. Asis' inexperience is clear from the get-go with him applying his headlock on the incorrect side, with me frantically signaling him to at least hit the tackle correctly on the left. Although he was fairly green, his previous experience and athletic aptitude carried over into some early exchanges of holds with him showing that he was clearly adaptable and pliable within a chain wrestling context, which isn't always the case with inexperienced wrestlers. Another typical sign of inexperience in these early exchanges is someone not feeling comfortable just existing within a hold and selling it or the moment; always feeling the need to constantly moving on to the next reversal even if that means not selling or feeding in a conventional manner. But being young and flexible also means that it's usually not too awkward or painful to have to get back on track which was the case here, including after an exchange that featured a flipping hammerlock reversal that I stole from Doug Williams a decade+ prior to this match and must have incorporated into hundreds of my matches by this point.
Things pick up fairly out of nowhere with me upping the intensity and taking the role of the aggressor in this match with a firm slap to conclude the early feeling out process, catching Asis off guard. What follows immediately afterwards however is a very brief control period of his with a reversal off a whip into a nice tilt-a-whirl headscissors that I sell by powdering straight through the ropes to the floor in lieu of taking a bump and rolling out immediately afterwards. Whatever reprieve I may have benefitted from in this moment was short lived as Asis flew out of nowhere with a big crossbody dive that I had to quickly adjust my positioning for in order to catch; with most of this sequence occurring off camera unfortunately. The sudden explosive moment of high flying into the crowd itself was enough to catch all parties involve (myself included) off guard and garner a "Holy Shit" chant; truly these crowds were some of the most receptive that I ever got to wrestle in front of in all my years.
The bulk of this match consists of a lengthy control sequence on my behalf with the young Mr Nowarranty being on the receiving end of an extended series of increasingly gross and flexibility defying holds. A gnarly looking top wrist lock stomp out of nowhere gets things going with him selling it particularly well, beginning on his hip as opposed to flat on his back as most opponents whom had felt it in recent memory had done so. I followed up immediately with a nice Romero Special, a move I only ever utilized a handful of times on opponents significantly smaller than myself as well as an incredibly painful looking Reverse Viper Hold which was a move I had lifted years prior during my backyard days when my fandom of Minoru Fujita whom had used it with much success, was at its peak.
Things stay fairly stagnant during this period of the match with not a ton of dynamics integrated although the fans seem mostly invested nonetheless. The exhibition of "cool holds" continues with a neat behind the back grip to liven up an otherwise pedestrian grounded chin lock as well as a submission I directly lifted from Kazuchika Okada during his early run as a top heel in NJPW when he let the influence of his early Toryumon/Ultimo Dragon training shine through in his work. I'm not sure he ever had a name for this one but it's what can best be described as a double wrist clutch reverse Abdominal Stretch/Neck Crank of sorts and was one that I used for years many after "The Rainmaker" had retired it. Innovative submissions aside, the match definitely could have benefitted from me having the foresight to give Asis more opportunity to show some fire and that he was more than just a a warm body for me to tie in knots; clearly he wasn't the only party involved whose inexperience was showing on this particular day.
The third and final act of this sub 10 minute match begins with an impactful looking running Dropkick in the corner which gets one of the bigger reactions up until this point. It's immediately following by Asis finally showing some life and mounting a comeback with a series of clotheslines that I bumped and fed for accordingly; something that I got particularly good at in a few years time but was merely 'okay' at in this match. His attempted follow up Diamond Cutter/Ace Crusher/RKO/etc is momentarily countered by me shooting him off into the ropes with me trying to return the favour with a clothesline of my own ducked and him successfully hitting the aforementioned maneuver for his one and only nearfall in the entire match.
An incredibly random post comeback grounded attack to my arm that felt like something you would do with no sense of logic or reason in a video game is followed up with Asis heading up top onto the then very loose and flimsy ring ropes with me almost immediately cutting him off. Joining him up there and wasting little to no time, I hit him with my first Top Rope 'Rana in the Battle Palace, known in certain circles as the 'Dan Spike.' This was a name that I initially chose due to its absurdity as it references fellow sometimes Canadian, Chris Jericho whom used the move with some regularity in the 1990s but obviously doesn't roll off the tongue nearly as nice. It was a recent conversation that I had with a friend of mine whom followed my entire career, both backyard and pro, where we discussed the likelihood that I used the move more often and effectively than Mr. Irvine ever did although in this instance, it wasn't particularly well executed or impactful looking; in all honesty it's probably the worst one that I've ever done in my life.
The closing stretch proceeds in relatively short order immediately afterwards as an attempt to lock Asis up and execute my patented Armtrap German Suplex leads to an ensuing ugly struggle between the two of us with desperate back elbows thrown to both my mid section and face. Finally hitting one last big European Uppercut to soften him up, the end comes in the form of a dead lift German Suplex with a bridge for a 3 count that feels somewhat out of nowhere; with the fans initially offering a fairly tepid and mixed reaction in part. This almost felt like a bit of a TV style squash match on my behalf and definitely could have benefitted from a better built crescendo, offering Asis at least one more big nearfall during the final act. Although if memory serves me right, this may have been a byproduct of him not having enough big moves in his repertoire; something that would be rectified in years to come as he grew as a performer. We did manage to conclude the evening with a bigger reaction from those in attendance with the classic cheat code of the winner doing his best to put over the loser by acknowledging their effort and abilities as a performer, even if it's as simple as raising his arms for all to see.
While this was a fairly uneventful match, it would thankfully only be a few short weeks before I was right back in Seattle to ply my trade and further master my craft. One of 3-2-1's big annual shows was right around the corner in the form of "Horror Business", a Halloween themed show with its' Glenn Danzig inspired moniker. While this would be the first one of these shows that any of us Canadians had participated in, it may go down as the most memorable as it would feature one of my all time favourite matches that I ever had in the history of the promotion.
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