I don’t know if it’s just that companies want to change their top titles now that wrestling shows have fans back (and for many it’s been a long while since they’ve had shows at all), or that the summer is just a popular time to change your champion, or if it’s just that I’m covering more and more companies’ title changes all the time, but damn there were so many title changes every weekend in July. It’s probably a combination of all of those things.
July 4, 2021 – Marylebone, London
Ricky Knight Jr def. Dan Moloney {Southside Heavyweight Championship Iron Fist Match}
From RevPro Live at the Cockpit 51. This show was RevPro’s first one with fans post pandemic. Or post the part of th pandemic when society actually did anything about it. This match is the finals of a tournament to fill the vacant championship spot, made that way because the last champion was David Starr. No need to say more as I’ve written about it a few times. I thought it was interesting that RevPro was headlining a show with this title while their own title laid vacant. Okay, so what I didn’t understand about this stipulation when Colt Cabana and Marty Scurll fought under it was that it’s Iron Man rules unless someone gets knocked out, in which case the match ends immediately. Moloney started the match with a 1-0 lead, I assume because of a stipulation that came up during the tournament. Knight is Zebra Kid’s son and Paige’s nephew. Ten minutes in, Moloney rolled up Knight to win a second point. Knight came back strong, took out Moloney’s knee, and then hit him with Will Ospreay’s Ace Cutter and Hidden Blade to knock out Moloney at 15:06. Knight had lost a recent RevPro British Heavyweight Championship match to Ospreay, so this finishw was clearly in hopes of a rematch where Knight can try again. I very much liked the use of the stipulation here. Though while the slower build to the match made sense given they were meant to be pacing for a thirty-minute match, it still felt like a fifteen-minute match cut off before it peaked. Two weeks later, Knight retired this title and declared himself the British Heavyweight Champion, bringing back the better designed old belt, before cementing his standing by beating Doug Williams in a non-title match. ***¼
July 5, 2021 – Tokyo, Japan
Violento Jack def. Toru Sugiura {King of Freedom World Championship Death Match}
From Vol.1 of FREEDOMS’ seventh Tokyo Death Match Carnival. We’ve got light tubes along the ropes and glass in the corners. There’s also a giant mallet with thumbtacks taped to it. Jack works the arm and introduces a pile of jagged and cut aluminum cans to the match. They forget about the arm for most of the match, but Jack goes back on the arm attack near the end. Sugiura never sold the arm, but that didn’t stop Jack from doing what he could to give the match a bit of nuance. A cross armbreaker gave Jack the win at 21:04. This could have been really dope if Sugiura had been game to play, but as it is it was violent fun but unlikely to be on anyone’s year-end lists. ***¼
July 5, 2021 – Fukuoka, Fukuoka
Kengo Mashimo def. Genkai and GAINA {
Kyushu Pro Championship Triple Threat Match
}
From Kyushu Pro Monday Night Vai! #4. I couldn’t find a lot of past footage from Kyushu Pro, but I did find a few of Genkai’s title wins and losses, so that’s what’s linked in the listing. I don’t understand how this company makes money when they give away streams of their show on YouTube for free. Also note to Kyushu, overhead shots make splashes from big guys like GAINA look unimpressive. I imagine it’s hard to get into a groove in front of a crowd of less than 200 fans who because of COVID restrictions can’t cheer and are only allowed to clap. Given that caveat, these three kept the pace of the match at a nice clip. It was never boring, always moving forward. I don’t feel much like GAINA had a role to play here, though he kindasorta helped Mashimo win. He hit Genkai with a powerbomb and then got wiped out by Mashimo’s kick. The powerbomb only got a two-count for Mashimo, but then Genkai was vulnerable to Mashimo’s brainbuster. That got Mashimo the title at 18:28. ***
July 9, 2021 – Merrionette Park, Illino
Fred Yehi def. Mance Warner {AAW Heavyweight Championship Steel Cage Match}
From AAW’s sixth United We Stand. I love when the artificially inflated pandemic title reigns are snuffed out. I’m not even mad that Warner had a long run, but I’m residually annoyed about WALTER’s neverending NXT UK reign. I appreciate the commentators acknowledging that 2020 saw many champions not defend their titles and talk up the defenses that Warner was able to jam into the year when AAW was running. What a massive improvement over the awful commentary AAW had in the early ‘10s. There was a funny moment early on where Warner blinded Yehi leading to Yehi mistaking the referee for Warner and beating him up. And then Warner beat up the referees who came in to help just for fun. The middle ten minutes of this match was filled with a lot of setting up plunder and slow action. It killed the crowd. Things picked up in the final third thanks to Warner focusing on an attack on Yehi’s leg. I am annoyed that the referee enforced rope breaks in a cage match. That’s some lazy, unthinking nonsense. What did Warner have to lose by keeping his figure 4 leglock on after he’d already used tons of foreign weapons and attacked multiple referees? The poor quality of the plunder comes into clear view at the end as Warner trying to avalanche chokeslam Yehi through a furniture table doesn’t work out as planned. Then Deonn Rusman & Joeasa and attack Warner, leading to Yehi putting on a Koji Clutch for the win at 31:16. All in all, this was a slog with a few interesting highlights. **½
July 11, 2021 – Tokyo, Japan
Ryo Mizunami def. ASUKA {Beyond the Sea Championship Match}
From SEAdLINNNG Nanae Takahashi 25th Anniversary: Arigatou. ASUKA’s relentless attack on Mizunami’s arm was great. Mizunami was an unstoppable ball of momentum, and it was only believable to me that ASUKA could cling to her title by taking away one of Mizunami’s cannons. The finisher chain at the end was a little annoying because it’s not like ASUKA is some unbeatable monster that can’t be put down. She kicked out of one big lariat but nothing else notable. But Mizunami spammed her with finishers and ended the match with the Red It at 17:02. ***¼
July 11, 2021 – Catonsville, Maryland
Bandido def. Rush {ROH World Championship Match}
From the 11th ROH Best in the World. Bandido won Survival of the Fittest to earn this shot. Rey Horus is on commentary, sounding way less comfortable with English than he did when he was El Dragon Azteca. Was that a post-production trick in Lucha Underground? Rush came into this on a 22-win streak. This was fun, though I wish Bandido would have sold the leg throughout. It would have made all the abuse and dq-baiting that Rush did upfront feel more worthwhile. I did like that his cheating came back to bite him in the end, as he got cocky after tearing Bandido’s mask and got rolled up at 16:02, losing the belt. Wishy washy story aside, the action was a lot of fun and it’s cool to see the ROH Championship change hands in a lucha-influenced match. ***½
July 15, 2021 – Tarentum, Pennsylvania
MV Young def. Allie Katch, Billy Dixon, Calvin Couture, David Lawless, Dani Mo, Derek Dillinger, Eel O’Neal, Effy, Erica Leigh, Facade, Janai Kai, Jayce Karr, Jordan Blade, Lee Moriarty, Mr. Grim, Rex Lawless, Tre Lamar, Tyler Klein, Willow Nightingale, Yoya, and Ziggy Haim {
Enjoy Championship Odyssey Battle Royal
}
From Enjoy Canned Heat S02E05, to crown the inaugural champion. Kevin Ford thinks I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel for title changes to review, but I disagree with that framing for two reasons. The first is that I am a comprehensive wrestling fan. When I started watching NXT in 2018 I went back and reviewed all of NXT. The same went for Dragon Gate before that and WWECW and Lucha Underground after. Now my kick is title changes and I’m finna watch all the ones that I can find. The second is I’m on board with Enjoy’s progressive platform. Since this is the first title match (retroactively, anyway), the link in the match listing leads to a bit of background rather than any title history. This is a royal rumble with sixty-second entrance intervals. Okay, so what’s notable here? Everyone’s preferred pronouns are in their entrance graphics. Way too many people pile into the match before anyone is eliminated, though thankfully is treated when the Lawless cousins start taking people out. The Runway’s interaction with (and elimination alongside) Leigh is pretty funny. Young gets immediate revenge on the Lawless cousins for David’s previous attack on him. Katch turns out to be Allie Kat, and it hurts my soul a bit that a wrestling cat couldn’t make it big. Moriarty was a surprise entrant who quickly eliminated Dixon. That makes me pretty mad that Dixon just sat in the ring after coming in at number one, doing pretty much nothing the whole match, and that was the payoff. Awful. In fact, way too much of the match saw people just sitting in the corner when they didn’t have a spot to be a part of. That’s just bad planning. The match came down to Moriarty and Young beating up Grim for all of his transgressions against them. That was satisfying, as was the matching ending with the two guys who found in the finals for the Enjoy Cup. Young elbows Moriarty while he was going for a springboard move and got the win at 36:07. Young receives a briefcase with a note that leads him to a vault that contains the title belt. Up until that point, nobody knew what was in the briefcase and thus what they’d been fighting for. **¼
July 18, 2021 – Belfast, Northern Ireland
Mark Haskins def. Adam Maxted {OTT World Championship & OTT Gender Neutral Championship Match}
From OTT Welcome Back to the Second Half. The OTT World Championship was also held last by Starr. OTT quickly stripped him of the title after the accusations came out, seemingly in conjunction with the other British wrestling companies at which he held titles. This match, between already-GN Champ Maxted and OTT top guy Haskins was a smart choice for a slot to crown a new champ, though the standards it was being asked to live up to (by me) were completely unfair. The four title changes that the OTT World Championship put on before this were part of one of the best indie storylines of all time and put on an unreal string of incredible matches. Given Maxted’s reputation, I tried to temper my expectations going in. But Maxted wasn’t bad at all. I think people don’t like him because he was famous for being a reality TV contestant before he was a wrestler. But the dude clearly got into wrestling because he digs it and he worked hard here. He might not be the most naturally gifted, but he has a good look and the effort is there. The story of this match was a little strange given that this was a rematch of the bout that saw Maxted beat Haskins for the GN title. Here, the story was Haskins being in control most of the time and being surprised at how difficult he was finding it to put Maxted down. The finish saw Maxted being declared the winner after the referee missed Haskins’ foot under the ropes during his count. The match was restarted and Haskins used the confusion to hit a bunch of elbows to the head and a clothesline to the back for the win at 19:31. It was definitely not at the level of the Jordan Devlin-WALTER-David Starr era, but it got the crowd nice and foamed and showed that Maxted could hang. ***¼
July 18, 2021 – Fort Worth, Texas
Charlotte Flair def. Rhea Ripley {WWE Raw Women’s Championship Match}
From the twelfth WWE Money in the Bank. This was WWE’s first PPV with a crowd after the COVID-19 pandemic, and they’re pretty stoked to be there. I really liked the storyline going into this match, as it established that both women are dastardly and very similar to each other. There was an interesting moment early on here where Ripley hit the ropes too close to the turnbuckle and was visibly shaken at how little give there was. That’s not emblematic of the match, it’s just something you don’t often see. One of the downsides of having a giant crowd show up for the first time in over a year is they briefly disrespect the match by changing, “We want Becky.” Maybe Becky Lynch shouldn’t have tweeted a photo of herself outside of the arena before the show. Flair and Ripley picked up the pace right then, so the chants didn’t last long. It was a heck of a match, with some great near falls and good character work from both women. That said, I actually prefer their WrestleMania match. In that match they compensated for the lack of fans by beating the absolute crap out of each other. This was close, but didn’t quite match it for me. Flair bashed Ripley’s leg between the steps and the ringpost and then put on the Figure 8 Leglock for the win at 16:48. ***¾
July 19, 2021 – Dallas, Texas
Nikki A.S.H. def. Charlotte Flair {WWE Raw Women’s Championship Match}
From Raw 1,469. Flair had just defended her title in a rematch against Ripley by hitting her with the title belt to get intentionally disqualified. Ripley flipped out and beat up Flair on the floor. Then, A.S.H. ran out to cash in her Money in the Bank title shot, which she’d won the night before. And then 13 seconds later she won the title with a diving crossbody. N/A
July 22, 2021 – Tokyo, Japan
Leon def. Rydeen Hagane {PURE-J Openweight Championship Match}
From PURE-J Discover New Heroine Tag Tournament. We should have known Hagane was losing right from the start, as her mohawk didn’t have the stiff peaks it did during her title win. Logically it tracks that in a match that saw Hagane have trouble staying in control, the smaller challenger would be more likely to win. But even having that internalized, I was bummed that this wasn’t as much of a Hagane showcase as her title win was. Leon is good, but little she does sets her apart from the rest of her generation. A big bruiser in a land of smaller women makes for a more interesting champion if you ask me. Alas, this was Leon’s night, and she won with a roll up counter to a lariat at 17:06. ***¼
July 23, 2021 – Tokyo, Japan
Drew Parker def. Takumi Tsukamoto {BJW Death Match Heavyweight Championship Match}
From an unnamed BJW show. Tsukamoto also has the Union Pro MAX title with him and I’m super annoyed that I can’t find the match in which he won it anywhere. I think these two went into this match with the right mindset, which was have an actual wrestling match highlighted with a few gory stunts. Unfortunately, the execution didn’t quite work. Parker’s strikes looked too tame for the environment. Also, that Parker was the one who was the victim of his own light tube cross was good, but that he no-sold it to come back for the win immediately after defeated the purpose. He hit a Meteora and a Swanton Bomb for the win at 16:31. **½
July 23, 2021 – Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire
Robbie X def. Callum Newman, Ace Matthews, Big Guns Joe, Big Joe, Blake, Clint Margera, Dara Diablo, Doug Williams, Havok, Jack Bandicoot, Jack Jester, Jack Turner, Jake Silver, Jimmy McIlwee, Kid Lykos, Kid Lykos II, Man Like DeReiss, Matt Myers, Myles Kayman, Nathan Cruz, Reece, Reese Ryan, Ricky Knight Jr., Rogan, Rory Coyle, Scotty Rawk, Simon Lancaster, Tu Byt, and Tyler Devlin {BWR Heavyweight Championship Riot Rumble}
From BWR’s Fourth Anniversary Show. The way they stylized ANNIVERSARY is very neat. This is a Royal Rumble. Two Rumbles in one month! X and Knight started the match and were also the final two at the end. In between, there were a handful of memorable moments, including a heel turn from Kayman, and enough loud distractions to keep me from noticing too often that many guys had too little to do. I don’t ask for much more out of a Rumble. It’s also good that when I did start feeling like there were too many guys doing too little, out came Big Joe (but not Big Guns Joe, who is significantly smaller) to clear the field. Joe’s white speedo under a button-down sure made him look like a big baby in a diaper. The wedgie that Devlin gave him didn’t help. The two of them set up a table at ringside during their brawl, and to everyone’s credit multiple guys teased going through it at various points throughout the match. Devlin wound up going through it at the hands of Knight. How poetic. I think they may have botched the finish though, as X threw Knight over the top immediately following the Devlin elimination, only for Knight to rush back into the ring and the announcer to say that the referee missed it and the match would continue. That was pointless, because after scrapping for just a minute, X threw Knight out again for the win at 67:12. This was the best thing I’ve seen from BWR yet, in no small part thanks to there finally being commentary. It also helped that the match was clearly rather well planned. ***¾
July 24, 2021 – Atlantic City, New Jersey
Matt Cardona def. Nick Gage {GCW World Championship Death Match}
From GCW Homecoming Weekend. The way that the commentator no-sold Cardona’s intro was very cute (Cardona had just called him a mark), but I still find the over the top intro for Gage totally cringey. It must be a holdover from being too cynical for school spirit as a child. If anyone under the age of 22 is reading this, it was of zero benefit for me to be “over it” back then, and frankly it’s of zero benefit to me now. But I can’t help it and I think most of the Gage shtick is super corny. SHLAK is on commentary proving he doesn’t know what a great many words mean. That didn’t change how I feel about the match, I just thought it was worth pointing out that he’s a moron. Anyway, this was the best of the few Gage death matches I’ve seen, thanks entirely to Cardona and the way he worked the crowd. I have nothing against death matches starting with weapons already in and around the ring, but the fact that this eschewed that trope in favor of building the violence throughout the match made this much better than Gage’s usual. They also told a great story around Cardona’s fear of and inexperience with the plunder. The finish was very overbooked, but who cares it’s a death match. A Fozzy song played and some goon in a halloween costume attacked Gage. Gage was set to face Chris Jericho in AEW shortly after this so the fake out would have been a fine distraction to lead to the finish. But it didn’t. First, Ricky Shane Page’s crew came out to attack Gage. RSP followed and seemed to want to help Gage rather than hurt him, but then he turned on the champ. Then, Cardona hit a bunch of light tube shots and the Rough Ryder for the win at 24:47. I’d have liked this a lot more if they’d have settled on one distraction finish instead of trying to have and eat their cake. But still, I had a solid amount of fun with Cardona torturing the fans regardless. They pelted the ring with trash after the match. ***¼
July 29, 2021 – Jeffersonville, Indiana
Tyler Matrix def. Logan James and Kevin Giza {IWA Mid-South Heavyweight Triple Threat Championship Match}
From IWA Mid-South Prelude to Death. The first time I tried to watch this, it had been uploaded to IWTV with no sound. After they fixed it, there was still no sound but it’s just because the Jeffersonville crowd never makes any noise for this part of the roster. It must be annoying, because these three busted their ass to put on a main event-calibre match and the crowd slept on it. If you put this exact match in front of fans who give a damn, you’d get that little bit of extra energy from the wrestlers to make this something you wouldn’t forget. I won’t forget it mostly because of how annoyed I am at the lack of reception it got on the night. Giza dumped James to the floor, which left him open to get hit by Matrix’s DVD to wrap things up at 25:54. Matrix in particular was very impressive. ***¾
From Diamond Ring Kensuke Office Changes. They emphasize that Nakajima beat Dragon Gate wrestler Kenichiro Arai 
From Dynamite 131. This is a qualifying match for the Owen Hart Foundation tournament. Joe debuted at ROH Supercard of Honor, saving Jonathan Gresham from Jay Lethal (whose soul searching apparently led him to turn heel) & Sonjay Dutt after the main event. And now that ROH and AEW are the same thing, that seems worth mentioning. Caster’s pre-match rap was cute. This was real squashy, with Joe needing only two minutes to put Caster down with the Muscle Buster at 2:52. Lethal & Dutt pop up on the big screens and Lethal says he’d been trying to get a hold of Joe during his difficult soul searching time, and Joe never picked up. They have a present for Joe next week. N/A
From Dynamite 132. Jay Lethal & Sonjay Dutt were in the front row cheering on Joe. Sarcastically, probably, as they brawled with Joe at ROH Supercard of Honor XV. 
From Rampage 39. 
From Dynamite 137. 
From Dynamite 138. This is a 
From Double or Nothing. 
From PWF York Cougar Football Fundraiser. I didn't know that this match happened until over a month after the fact. This started out as a non-title match, but we'll get to why I've listed it as a title match in a moment. FTR have Mick Foley in their corner while their opponents have Bill Behrens. I’ve never actually seen Behrens do an on-camera gig before. He's holding a tennis racket, presumably as an Umaga to Jim Cornette. But it's confusing because there was actually a tennis player named Bill Behrens. They announce this match as having a 20-minute time limit. Only 11 minutes in, they say there are three minutes remaining. Until then, this was as run-of-the-mill as a modern FTR match gets. But the announcement snapped everyone out of their heat-on-Wheeler funk and forced them to go for desperate pins. They announce ten seconds remaining a couple of times, but no one can get the roll up pin they're looking for. The 20-minute time limit expires at 1
From NXT UK 183. McGuinness started by essentially saying that Fraser is going to pee or poo himself during the match. Unnecessary. Had Shawn Michaels been game to have a good match against Vader, this is what it would have looked like. Actually, a more appropriate and modern analogue is Brock Lesnar vs. Seth Rollins from SummerSlam. Much like that match, Frazer used quick strikes and avoided his larger opponent’s signature big move to stay alive. Here it was the powerbomb whereas there it was suplexes. Here, Frazer also successfully damaged WALTER’s knee, which slowed the big man down and made it hard for WALTER to hit the powerbomb. Unfortunately for Frazer, WALTER was able to bide his time and clothesline Frazer’s legs out from under him. An inevitable powerbomb followed and won the match for WALTER at 14:02. I hate to say this because I’m happy that he’s healthier, but the way WALTER has slimmed down has taken some of the magic away from his aura. At least for me it has. That said, dude can clearly still go as well as ever in the ring. ****
From NXT 659. Strong was feeling it here, which is thanks in large part to the crowd being maniacally loud from the get go I’m sure. His whole game was fast and devastating stick and move attacks. That worked pretty well, as WALTER was dazed from time to time. But as with all good WALTER matches (which is pretty much all WALTER matches), everything WALTER does is devastating here so it takes very little for him to take back control. And eventually he did just that and hit the powerbomb for the win at 9:46 (shown of 12:18). After the match, WALTER gets on the microphone and says that his name is Gunther now. I did not think WALTER would be a victim of the renaming curse this far into his run. What will they rename Strong?! ***¾
From NXT UK 185. Andy Shepherd helpfully announces from inside the ring that the reason for the stipulation is that the feud has gotten so violent that it wouldn’t be safe to have fans around. Devlin says during the match that it’s because he thinks Dragunov could only muster the energy to win if he had the crowd behind him. I like that explanation a lot more. The only real reason I could think of to do this without fans is that there was a scheduling conflict with one of the wrestlers for the regular TV taping date and they needed to get this thing filmed. We just had such a long stretch of empty arena NXT UK episodes that I can’t imagine anyone was dying to get another taste of it. This aired the day after Adam Cole vs. Orange Cassidy in a match that was also no disqualification and falls count anywhere, and this served up everything I felt was missing from that match. Now you might say, “Brad, Cassidy is not the same kind of character as Devlin or Dragunov, how could you expect the same level of violence or intensity?” To that I say, when Cassidy started his match by breaking his own sunglasses and rapidly punching Cole, he was indicating that level of violence and/or intensity. And instead the match was mostly wacky. Anyway, this was not wacky. It was stiff and intense and featured weapons that made sense and spots the didn’t take forever to set up. Dragunov got in trouble when his eye injury acted up. Devlin took control and beat the crap out of him. I wasn’t wild about how meek Dragunov was when Devlin was zip tying his hands, but I did like that in the end it turned out to be an error on Devlin’s part anyway because Dragunov’s finisher requires no hands. And indeed, a bound Dragunov jumped off the steel steps (which had been brought into the ring) and hit the Torpedo Moskau on Devlin for the win at 21:43. NXT UK is still sneaking in these dope matches that no one is watching. Y’all should watch them. ****¼ 
From AAA Triplemania Regia. FTR come out with Vickie Guerrero. This was supposed to be explained at an earlier AAA taping but FTR and Guerrero all missed them. AAA is notorious for having this kind of luck/being incompetent lately. FTR is also wearing Eddie Guerrero tribute tights, with American flags on one side and flames on the other, I suppose to pay homage to his Gringos Locos and Latino Heat gimmicks. This match mostly sucked, but one cool spot saw FTR tie Pentagon’s mask to the ropes and force him to unmask with his hands over his face to stop them from climbing the ladder. That would have been a very meaningful moment to lead up to the Lucha Brothers winning the titles back, but unfortunately instead it led into nothing. He just got his mask back and the match continued on in its lame, derivative way. At one point, Pentagon was the only man standing, but instead of climbing the ladder he grabbed a table from the floor. So the titles mean enough to him that he’d unmask to stop his opponents from winning, but not enough for him to get the titles when he had a clear path to do it? Vickie powered Pentagon, causing him to voluntarily jump through the table and Harwood grabbed the belts at 12:12. This was abysmal. *
From AEW Full Gear. Silver was hamming it up a lot more here than he was the year before in New York. That said, this had stronger just-a-match vibes than the aforementioned match. After Silver ripped out Cassidy’s pockets, Cassidy turned up the heat and these guys put on a middle of the row undercard match. Not bad by any means, but nothing memorable either. Cassidy hit the Beach Break rather out of nowhere for the win at 9:42. **¾ 
From the second Honor Reigns Supreme. The commentators sold this as Gresham getting a big shot against a top ROH guy after being an also-ran in the Television Championship division for a while. This was terrific. Both guys did a fantastic job selling their respective targeted limbs, and Gresham in particular played the role of the tenacious underdog perfectly. He didn’t just watch to see where Lethal would have trouble executing his finisher because of the damage he’d done to the former ROH Champion’s arm, he pressed the assault whenever he could, taking out the arm to make sure the Lethal Injection would never come. But what he couldn’t do was stop Lethal from battering his knee and ultimately winning with a Figure 4 Leglock at 17:54. ****¼ 
From the second Masters of the Craft. Columbus has way more Gresham fans than Concord did. That’s a neat little advancement to the plot, innit? They both went after the same limbs that earned them dividends in their previous match. And then they went ahead and built an incredible match out of that story. At first it seemed as though Lethal wasn’t going to be able to get Gresham’s leg to give out. But about halfway through the match, Gresham’s knee was in trouble. Gresham was able to escape the leglock this time by using the momentum of Lethal pulling him away from the ropes to shift to an armbar. But Gresham’s focus on the arm bit him in the ass. Lethal went for the Lethal Injection and collapsed again, but when Gresham went for a roll up after that Lethal cut back on it for the win at 18:27. This is one of the best American examples that I've seen of a match building on the match that came before. Rather than try to outdo the maneuvers from their first meeting for the sake of a big crowd reaction, they adjust their game plans in logical ways that, to me, were just as exciting. I think this match is slept on, by virtue of the fact that I’ve never heard anything about it before watching it. ****½ 
From ROH Wrestling 364. In real life, 
From Death Before Dishonor XVII. Gresham and Lethal had been teaming, but Gresham grew frustrated and started heeling. Ultimately, he turned on Lethal. It took them a little while to get there, but once they got into a groove this was exactly what I wanted from this match. It was back to their old tricks, with Lethal targeting the leg to set up for the Figure 4 Leglock and Gresham targeting the arm to block the Lethal Injection and set up for his Octopus. In the end, Lethal tried the cutback trick that worked for him in Columbus, but Gresham countered to a pin and then put on the gnarliest Octopus for his first win over Lethal at 17:20. This is the best kind of wrestling series. And none of it felt stale because it was a year after they’d wrestled last and because they found ways to energize the old tropes. And that’s not to mention Gresham busting out what I can only describe as a sumo-style assault. Gresham and Lethal make up after the match. ****
From ROH Wrestling 500. During the pandemic, ROH made the most of their empty arena shows by kicking them off with a tournament to crown a champion for the revived Pure Championship. Gresham won the tournament, and this was his fourth defense of the title. Lethal and Gresham were still allies here. In an interesting move, the other match on this milestone episode was two other partners fighting in Jay and Mark Briscoe. They cut to a commercial break about six minutes in, though the action didn’t get beyond (admittedly fast-moving) mat wrestling until the 10-minute mark. That had me thinking this was going to go long, but things took a different turn. Both guys had abused the other’s shoulders, and Lethal used that to his advantage best. He forced Gresham to use his first rope break to stop a pin, and his second to escape a crab. Then, he used the failed Lethal Injection to bait Gresham into a crossface, forcing the champ to use his final rope break. But he made the mistake of giving Gresham a breather and was quickly caught in a head scissor takedown giving Gresham the winning pin at 14:06 (shown of 16:40). For an empty arena match, this held my attention. It was totally different than their previous matches while still using a couple elements from the rivalry to elevate it just a bit. Not essential viewing, but if you’re working your way through their series you shouldn’t skip it. ***¼ 
