I'm back again this week with Part 13 of the blog which coincidentally enough is discussing a match that took place on a show titled "Friday The XIIIth" and was my first encounter with a longtime 3-2-1 stalwart in Mr. Fitness. As I've previously discussed numerous times, while there was some initial hesitance to work with some of the roster due to their inexperience, Fitness was someone whom had always been incredibly nice and welcoming to us since we met him on that first show that we took part in way back in Feb 2014 and was regarded as one of the more talented members of the roster. It's not totally clear to me with nearly 10 years of hindsight and memory loss but I believe this was either a title eliminator for 3-2-1's Pacific Middleweight Title or a match for the belt itself outright as it was technically held by "Romantic" Romeo Ramirez whom was nursing a knee injury; more on him and the situation at large later though.
One of my favourite things about these earlier matches from 3-2-1 was the guerrilla nature in which they are filmed and presented. 3-2-1 was still figuring out how they were capturing these shows for their own future posterity but in the mean time, all of the matches involving any of our contingent from British Columbia was assuredly being filmed by one of us using "Big Cat" Scott Henson's camcorder; in hindsight, I'm so very thankful that he was as much of a completist and archivist as he was. With that being said, the video for this match picks up with the man himself filming over my shoulder in the makeshift locker room, which received a couple of major facelifts over the course of the 5+ years we ran shows in Evolv Fitness, as "Teenage Kicks" can be faintly heard in the distance and he let me know "I'm backstage with you Dan." As mentioned last time, the lighting has gotten an upgrade in the last month or so which was a nice change from the bare bones fluorescence that illuminated the room previously although in this case, there's one bright red light that can be seen off in the distance that's blaring directly into the camera and reminds me of HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubrick's 1968 classic 2001: A Space Odyssey.
We quickly move on from the brief encounters of wrist lock reversals and undoing grips like a belt around a waist to a mutual tease of our patented suplexes; my Armtrap German Suplex hold that by this point I had won numerous matches with as well as the Cobra Clutch Suplex which he referred to as the "Muscle Confusion" and was not a particularly widespread move at this point; save for it's usage in the 1990s in AJPW by Dan Kroffat (yay) or Johnny Ace (boo). This is a pretty typical storytelling device I've used over the years when putting together a match; a momentary vignette to establish some reoccurring themes that will be expanded upon further as the match progresses, acting as a thesis statement that caps off an introductory paragraph of an essay; it's basic but generally speaking, it works.
Fitness quickly takes control for a quick shine brought on by some wonky looking punches and dropkick after whipping me off the far ropes. While this sequence started off on a bit of a rocky note, he does follow up with really nice stalling Gut Wrench Suplex, grounding me immediately afterwards with a tight rear chin lock. It's at this point though where there was some clear Muscle Confusion... confusion. While Mr Fitness was clearly one of the better athletes in the locker room at the time with his muscular physique capped off with his "KAYFABE" tattoo that adorned his upper abdominals, he did not have the best memory and would sometimes find himself lost amidst a sea of jumbled up, similar pre determined sequences.
Still early on in the matchup, his follow up attempts to hit his dangerous suplex variant that would drive me neck first into the mat and surely lead to victory or at the worst a very close call in the form of a nearfall were merely meant to be just that; attempts. However the combination of his poor memory and athletic prowess lead to him shooting me over with two consecutive suplexes, both of which looked messy and clearly unintentional or at a minimum, uncooperative on my behalf. We finally got back on the same page as not really knowing what to do to right the ship, I mostly no sold his previous efforts to the confusion of the fans and announcers alike before a third attempt of his was countered with me driving the both of us towards the ropes, sending him crashing through them and to the hard floor below.
Finally creating some distance and recovering enough of my wherewithal, for the last time that I can recall in my career, I quickly followed him out there by vaulting over the top rope to the adjacent second turnbuckle and hitting a Moonsault out to the floor into the arms of a prone Mr. Fitness. The only issue being I didn't get the kind of spring off of the ropes and turnbuckle that I needed to properly execute the move and found myself landing too low on his body with my head and shoulders driving into the thin layer of padding below, jamming my neck in the process. It's clear that I'm a little worse for wear upon landing and being laid out momentarily by the impact but was still able to continue without much issue due to adrenaline and still being relatively young with not nearly the amount of spots accounted for on my proverbial bump card at that point in my career.
My control segment begins earnestly enough with a nice Butterfly Suplex which was a regular part of my repertoire at this point in my career and is something that I should have held onto longer as it usually looked pretty clean and wasn't something many others were doing. Things progress with me clearly struggling to position him into a Lucha submission that I had recently seen Pentagon Jr of all people execute on a recent episode of the then new and noteworthy Lucha Underground TV show that everyone and their mother on the indies were clearly watching and borrowing from liberally.
Besides lacking some finesse and precision in my execution, the other thing that this segment of the match feels like it's lacking is something resembling connective tissue to help progress things in a more organic feeling manner. It's a control segment that exists simply because that's what you're supposed to do during this portion of the match with not nearly enough struggle from either of us, nor much in the way of selling or appealing to the crowd at large to attempt to help them in feeling more connected to what's transpiring in the ring itself. I would get better at this over time but in 2015, I was still going through the motions a tad; missing the music between the notes so to speak.
A brief comeback from Fitness is shut down with an Irish Whip ending in an Abdominal Stretch which is a hold that I've always loved and for a period of time attempted to use as a finisher back when I was predominantly working backyard shows, an environment that feels pretty counter intuitive to rudimentary, out of fashion submission finishers. I guess that has been a theme though out my entire career though; doing my best to present the kind of wrestling that appealed to me regardless of the likelihood of it landing successfully for the crowd at hand, whether it was a handful of my peers in a private gym or a couple hundred strangers patiently waiting to laugh at a drug peddling fast food clown in an underground venue in South Lake Union.
On the subject of reoccurring themes from this match, the two of us struggled to find ourselves on the same page coming out of the Abdominal Stretch as my attempt at transitioning straight into a Side Death Roll along the lines of legendary Japanese performers Manami Toyota or Kenta Kobashi went array with Mr. Fitness faceplanting straight into the canvas. Doing my best to make proverbial chicken salad out of the situation, this resulted in way grosser and more vicious looking hold in the long run that I can't even describe all that well; something akin to a Reverse Viper Hold but with an added leg ride used to neutralize him even further.
The second act of the match finally concludes due more to my own downfall, rather than any offensive output of Mr. Fitness' doing. In quick succession, I'm able to bring him down to the mat with my typical top wrist lock with hopes of delivering a jumping stomp to the triceps (speaking of ZSJ-isms); however the manner in which he sold himself down to the mat looked so much more unnatural and uncomfortable than any kind of damage that I could have inflicted myself. My shorthand notes that I took while re-watching this match yesterday reads "Fitness feeds like Homer Simpson on the fire hydrant for the top wrist lock stomp" and if that doesn't immediately put a hyper specific visual into your brain, we likely had very different childhoods.
Continuing my seemingly never ending and somewhat redundant attack on one of his arms by snapping his fingers, I finally take another stab at neutralizing both of his for another attempt at my previously teased German Suplex varietal. Able to counter out to another Cobra Clutch attempt before I transition to another top wrist lock takedown that I escalated further with a Senton attempt in place of my usual stomp with Fitness able to move at the very last moment before I came crashing down onto his outstretched arm. While I do appreciate the bigger visual and requisite bump in order to set up his comeback courtesy of the missed Senton; there's definitely a logic gap present here as who in their right mind would want to land back first onto someone else's elbow that's pointed straight up in the air?
Bringing Fitness into the near corner with one of the most effective equalizers and crowd engaging maneuvers in all of wrestling, that of course being the simple knife edge chop; my attempted Superplex was not meant to be as I was sent crashing down to the mat and left prone for a Top Rope Legdrop by him, resulting in a big kickout with the fans buying it as a likely finish at this point. Going to the well perhaps a tad too many times, another Muscle Confusion attempt is countered with me backing him up into the same corner he had just recently descended from albeit with some force, allowing me to escape. Newly freed, I whipped him to the far corner following in immediately afterwards with a big jumping forearm, transitioned directly to a German Suplex with a bridging pin for a 2 count in what proved to be the final nearfall of the match altogether. While I've always been good at coming up with unique counters and sequences to get in and out of an opponent's signature move, I was definitely guilty at times of trying to shoehorn too many (ie all of them) into a single match which can definitely lead to them feeling repetitive at times.
Speaking of Scott and the random off hand comments we would make while filming one another's matches, as this post match melee ensued he can clearly be heard stating that "Y'all guys were early. You blew the spot" which is not totally obvious by any means but did spark my memory of this being the case although I don't specifically remember what the proper cue for their interference was. It likely would have been another attempt at an Armtrap German Suplex by me or perhaps this was where Fitness was finally due to successfully hit his much discussed Muscle Confusion for one last nearfall but alas, it wasn't meant to be.
Finding myself once again on the receiving end of the bouquet of flowers upside my head, both Fitness and I were left laying as a result of this simultaneous beatdown with a brief promo from the Romantic one that followed. kinda sorta explaining the motives behind his actions. Upon their exit, Fitness and I find ourselves begrudgingly shaking hands with some clear unfinished business that would lead to another match in the near future although I don't recall if we knew the exact when and where of our inevitable rematch at this point. A rousing "Friendship!" chant echoed off the walls of the Battle Palace as we found ourselves exiting together after a rather unsatisfactory conclusion to this match and the show altogether, with this match serving as the Main Event for that particular evening's show.
Despite my hang ups with a lot of elements of this match, I do think it was a nice introduction to a series between Mr. Fitness and I. While we were technically at the top of the cards, both of us had some growing and learning to do over the coming years and thankfully for us, we were afforded such opportunities beginning with an immediate rematch in the coming months. These are the exact kind of matches that I really relish the chance to rewatch and discuss for this project as they offer both some real fond memories and nostalgia for this period in time while also showcasing moments that were obviously learned from. These are the best kind of matches at demonstrating my entire thesis for this project; the logical growth I experienced as a performer that came with working more regularly in front of different crowds with a variety of opponents over the course of many years.
Watch:
Daniel Makabe vs Mr. Fitness [11/13/15]
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