Daniel Makabe vs. Fred Yehi & Jon Gresham

Pizza Party Wrestling 04/03/19: Daniel Makabe vs. Fred Yehi

One of the more intriguing match ups of the WM weekend. There's no big story in it, as in their attacks aren't focused on one or two specific bodyparts, but it's some damn good rasslin' from bell to bell. Mostly contested on the mat, with really good work in there indeed + both guys definitely throw some solid looking strikes as well. Good stuff. Gentleman's ***

3-2-1 BATTLE! Battlemania 2019: Daniel Makabe vs. Jonathan Gresham

There's some truly great stuff in this: the armwork by Gresham was very vicious & compelling, and Makabe's selling of it was very consistent & good. The way how they changed the control from Gresham to Makabe was uniquely outstanding w/ Makabe pointing out that Gresham had one of his shoes untied, looking to give him space to tie it back on, but then delivering a dropkick to his face. Great heel-move & as I said, an unique way to switch the control to him. Absolutely loved it. That's when the back of Gresham became the main target of Makabe's onslaught; it was gonna be armwork vs. backwork, and I loved the striking exchanges where that came into play, with instead of smashing each other in the face, Gresham goes for the arm & Makabe goes for the back. That's lots of greatness there, but there was one thing that bothered me more than it probably should've: Gresham's (lack of) selling. There's a point in the match where Makabe delivers a brutal Double Underhook Backbreaker to him, and then looks on to lock in the Cattle Mutilation, but Gresham gets out before it's fully locked in & busts out a big offense-flurry. He basically no sold the big backbreaker completely to get his shit in, and let me tell ya, that annoyed me to no end. It instantly reminded me of all the slack that ZSJ gets from people for his "bad selling", but here Gresham did exactly what ZSJ is often given shit for. It makes it all the more annoying that before in the match he was selling the back by not being able to lift Makabe for a German Suplex, but here he was doing flips, running full speed & no selling backbreakers full stop. That's why this match ended up falling short of it's potential, which is disappointing & annoying because of how great the great stuff in it was. ***1/4