Match Review: Hero vs. Quack from TPI '04

[Phoenix Fury Legdrop 0]

So, last night I popped in the videotape of the first night of the Ted Petty Invitational 2004 for the second time, looking to do something I had failed to do the first time I went through the tape: watch the Mike Quackenbush/Chris Hero match from the first round while paying full attention. I also happened to see this bout in person, but trying to in-depthly (not a word, I know) analyze stuff in person happens to be pretty damn nerdy and just sucks the fun out of everything at a live show, in my opinion. I was not planning on typing a review of the match, but a conversation with my fellow Paradise City Ninja,Patrick McGovern, changed my thoughts on that. So, here we go...

 

Right from the point that Smart Mark Video cuts from the Jimmy Jacobs backstage promo after his ladder match with Delirious back to the ring, it's immediately established the match is a friendly exhibition/clinic, as students from the Chikara Wrestle Factory, the school that both competitors in the match teach at, are seen kneeling around the ring, patiently waiting to see their two mentors display wrestling skill out of not only respect to them, but that maybe they'll also pick up something that maybe was lost on them in training.

 

The match opens with a long feeling-out process, something that many "Hero Haters" point out as a bad quality of a Hero match when debating why they dislike Hero. But, like I and other Hero fans feel is a constant, there's a logical explanation behind the long feeling-out process. It's easily explained with two theories:

 

1) Neither man goes into striking immediately due to their friendship and the fact that both are strict believers in the art of the human chess game, wanting to be able to out-grapple the other man rather than just go out and throw bombs, hoping that one will knock out or daze the other man long enough to score a victory.

2) Both men have been training side-by-side for long enough at the Chikara school that they've taught each other too much about one another's styles, and therefore they know counters for each other's counters for each other's counters.

 

After neither's really put himself out as the fore-runner in that exchange, Hero tries picking up the pace to change his usual gameplan of "Slow but steady always gets the mouse". But, that fails him, as Quackenbush is both more proficient at the lucha style, as well as being phyiscally smaller and quicker. Quack uses that defense mechanism to his advantage, winning that exchange by wearing out the larger Hero by having a better speed game.

 

But, Hero has an ace up his sleeve. He's able to get an advantage on Quackenbush any time he grounds Quack, as he's basically able to hold down Quack and keep him in one spot while punishing the neck and arm, countering Quack's weird lucha/Euro style with a traditional US-style "wear down a body part" gameplan, something Hero is very proficient at.

 

However, Quack has an added advantage that Hero usually doesn't get out of his opponents, who in 2004 has usually used a more heavyweight style and therefore weren't used to being able to easily get away from Hero without some sort of stiff strike or complicated counter. Quackenbush again uses his speed to gain the advantage any time Hero has him on his feet, as he's small and quick enough to slip out of a hold without having to manuever Chris around any before just running around again to wear Hero down in a more unorthodox form

 

During a Quackenbush speed-demon display, I forget exactly how (I basically just sat there and watched without taking a single note), but at one point, Quack downs Hero with a hold and goes right into the Stretch Plum, a move that both Quackenbush and a former Chikara trainer in "Reckless Youth" Tom Carter are well-known for using often. However even holding Hero in it for a long period of time doesn't secure Quack a victory due to him not utilizing a similar gameplan to that of Hero, who knew coming in that he was relying on wearing down the neck and arm for his Hangman's Clutch, working over the neck or shoulder at all during the bout up to that point.

 

Hero escapes the hold after the fans in attendance, who seem more receptive towards Chris than usual, get behind him as he escapes the hold. Chris seems to then drop his usual thinking man's gameplan, going with the flow of the match and picking things up, going into that aggressive side that Samoa Joe, Arik Cannon, and others had mentioned on commentary and in promos that Hero needs in order to survive on a higher competition level. But, picking up the pace feeds right into Quackenbush's speed vs. size game, as he's able to dodge and hit, even scoring a couple of big DDT variations that target Hero's neck, just in case he needs to go back to the Stretch Plum.

 

The match ends up ending on a mistake that a more aggressive, but less thoughtful Hero makes, going into a war of reversals with Quackenbush. In that, both men seem to be quite even, as Quack uses the speed, but Chris uses anything he can conjure up from his many training experiences to out-do Quackenbush. Quack ends up having to pull a huge ace from his sleeve, as he pulls out what is considered to be the trickiest pinning cradle that he's ever mastered, the Alligator Clutch, out of nowhere, leaving Hero with no escape and pinning him for the flash victory.

 

If you noticed, I used the term "ace up his sleeve" many times during this recap. That's not only because I'm completely unoriginal as a writer, but it's also because the match was practically a battle of "aces up people's sleeves". In order to take advantage of something at any point in time, someone had to pull out a trick from out of nowhere that the other couldn't see coming due to Hero and Quack being on the same mental level going in, and knowing one another, like was mentioned before, due to them being co-trainers at the Chikara school.

 

Another interesting ingredient while watching this match on tape is the commentary, as you've got Dave Prazak on play-by-play, who's able to intelligently explain why exactly Chris Hero isn't going out there with the notion to get the win as soon as possible, explaining that Chris is a competitor who enjoys being able to have a grappling bout with the opponent, and trying to out-wrestle the other guy in the simplest form possible. On color, you have "The Anarchist" Arik Cannon, Hero's biggest antagonist, who is able to keep up with Prazak on the debate on Chris Hero's in-ring style, explaining any mistake possible that Chris is making by being stubborn with his ring style, while not overshadowing the action in the ring whatsoever.

 

The match also works on not only a cerebral level, but a visceral level as well, as Hero and Quackenbush have enough knowledge of the European and lucha styles to be able to bust out cool sequences from both similar, yet different styles and have them make sense within the context of a good wrestling match.

 

Even with all of this, I still personally prefer the Samoa Joe/Roderick Strong match from that night to this one, as it has more of that "I hate you and want to do anything in my power to destroy you" feel that I happen to love in a wrestling match. But still, this is a really great match and I could totally see why someone would prefer this over Joe/Strong. While both are wrestling matches, they are completely different styles of wrestling matches and it's diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folks.

 

With all that being said, thanks for your time and I hope that maybe, just maybe, I didn't waste your time with my spiel.

[JoeDirt 0]

Great review...I might need to check this match out for a third time.

 

And BTW, my favorite match from night one is easily Punk vs. Aries. I loved Joe vs. Strong, but it wasn't as good as I thought it was upon second viewing.

[Youth N Asia 0]

I thought the best matches were

 

1. Punk vs Aries...far and away the best match of the TPI

2. Styles vs Rave

3. Strong vs Joe

 

I couldn't get into Hero/Quack...I understand Hero's matches and like a lot of them, but it was just slow chain wrestling forever it seemed. And the people in front of me were creaming themselves over countering a slow wristlock with another slow wristlock. I really wasn't feeling that match.

[Slingshot Suplex 0]

Watching it live, all I kept thinking early on in the match was that it was way to choreographed. It looked cute just for the sake of being so. Then it got better.

[Phoenix Fury Legdrop 0]

I can totally understand the argument about some of the stuff looking too wacky and over-choreographed. It's a way different style of wrestling than most American fans are used to, and it takes a lot of getting used to in order to see that they're actually doing something thoughtful most of the time with it instead of using the Euro and lucha spots interchangably like non-flippy spot-fu. The same thing goes with not being able to get into methodical chain wrestling: it's not for everyone.

 

Punk/Aries was good for a 2004 Punk match. I thought it was super-fun live, but I didn't think it translated to tape as well as it could have. I just can't get into CM Punk or most of his matches anymore. It almost seems like he's going for a more physical version of WWE-style in a lot of his stuff, and I watch indies so that I don't have to put up with WWE style. (Saying that, sometime soon, Patrick McGovern and myself are reviewing Joe/Punk from Dayton and Nigel/Collyer from HWA in 2003, and I found myself disliking a lot a stuff with Joe/Punk that wasn't there to dislike in Nigel/Collyer).

[Youth N Asia 0]

I thought Punk/Aries was just as good on tape. Aries loses and looks like a star at the same time. You thought he could win at any time.