A match that makes another dimension known, to its own detriment.
This match is one praised for its successful demonstration of storytelling and effect, but it's also shows me the sides of wrestling that calcify my mind.
It is a basic principle that creation is easier when you have limited options. Pro wrestling matches are generally better when they stick to a line throughout it, yes, but when a match sticks too closely, it first strikes as fine but less impressive, however, these watches that won't offer anything other than satisfying the basics can be fullfilling.
But on the second stage, the walls encroach, the light recedes, steam rounds your head...
The broad ideal mental map of a match of balance is a maze, a structure that allows many possibilities for which path the currents take and what it may lead to, to twist any linearity in on itself. Furthermore, a maze that contains unfinished blots through out it, where the walls just end rather than connect to another, where rather than be stuck on a touristic monorail, we finally step out, walk side to side, sprawl out on the ground, and with a jar, encase the unique aromas in the area: the gif capture, where its muteness slices off any crowd's potentially interfering notion, any ropes of ensnarement (as that is the curse of hearing!), resulting in the pure movement of such a moment, that captures its wavy essence. As from the gif's perspective, the ultimately homogeneous archetypal signifiers tied down by the crowd's sentiment, are their sacrificial lamb, as stepping stones to accentuate, through giving shape, to the unique movement that underlines and leaks through them.
The beginning section has the mental map of a ~95% one column grid. No room to breathe, the transitions are a door that is leading from the perfectly square concrete room you were just in, to another perfectly square concrete room. The starting tile, surrounded by the infinity and a fantastic storm a crowning match like this needs, quickly devolves into a litany of these rooms, with the floors cratered in some, such as Roddy's attempts to escape the wrist lock, shifting the perspective of your normally flat stance into a klaidescope of contortions. But these still sterile squares of functionality calcify my mind into a grey rock, with electrical activity inside of it, but with no where to go, instead the currents running into themelves over and over and over again. I am just phasing through everything, no touch, as the pressure inside gives me bruxism.
The path peaks at Bret's accident injury, a room with basic furniture: the most functional the match will ever be. But Bret starts bleeding, and the air comes back to me. We get a nice aggressive knee lift from Roddy. After Bret's sunset flip, Roddy cocks, aims, and delivers some good aggressive punches and in the next flurry, Bret's head barely recoiling from them, making the punches seem more like scrapes pointy from the knuckes than impactful from the whole fist, all while Roddy is standing still, his face screaming "DAH! DAH! DAH! DAH!".
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It's a great mix of vengefulness and silliness, with Bret the straight man contrasting with it. How Roddy just flipped those punches on their head a bit, is he trying to make himself more of a joke, or did he go to far trying to give you the sense of pettiness? It is like tracking a swirl of breeze as it stings my eyes; it is the misalignment that causes tears. Regardless, it's something to be encased for exhibition, as inspiration, momentum, and after analyzing it, I can turn the knob on how far I'd actually want to go with that spot, how I could modify it, or recontextualize it to get the effect I want. It's to be stored in a bottle, uncorked for transformation into another format. But mostly, it's uncorked to inhale its exuberance.
The door there was the sunset flip attempt, but look at all the room...
The important matter is it doesn't have a complete lineage from the match, that spot arising from a seed dropped in the moment, so it would be younger. You could of course say it is fully part of the lineage, as in the crowd, their energy, and its effect on Roddy being 1 lineage. But that would do it a disservice, to attribute it to the storm outside surrounding this monotonous linearity. It is rather an arm phasing through the boundary the match is in, slashing the air every which way, that only you and I can see.
Fine spots occur like Bret's flying forearm, which sends Roddy outside the ring. But his selling on the outside overextends its absurdity, its too transparent motive of selling surprise resulting in a purely functional purpose, activating the latent solidifiers to stir. Roddy rushes back in the ring and the classic double clothesline spot occurs; the greyness looms again. A spot that I thought its usage was interesting in the Punk vs Sami match I reviewed, is now dread, because it's a move used to equalize, to bring the dynamic back down to Earth, which in this case, is the smooth cement of solitary confinement.
But the section it leads to isn't as nauseating as I'd expect. It's Bret unearthing a flurry of his moves in a comeback sequence, with the overall comeback section giving this a sense of rigidness, but the moves themselves each acting as a single huff of air so I don't suffocate. It's still inside a square room, but Roddy's kick to reverse the pointed elbow acts as a pressure relief valve, and the ending sequence, while grid-like yes, is for once positively defined as functional, not apeing the fluidity of a wrestling match, but it's in its own lane, even if it has some of the previous issues I've described.
And thus, rubbing my temple, I am released.
A clearly successful match for sure. Still a classic match to study,
but alien frontiers will eat it alive, no remorse.
...
Maps and routes.
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