Wrestling Review // Pro Wrestling GRIND "Doctor, Doctor!" July 1st, 2022 Pulaski Club, Easthampton, MA

Going into this show I knew that there were several songs titled "Doctor, Doctor" and there's even a song that doesn't have it in the title but still sings it a lot by Robert Palmer.  When I think of "Doctor, Doctor" though my musical mind goes right to The Academy Is... and their song "The Phrase That Pays", which has the line "Oh Doctor, Doctor, I must have gotten this sick somehow".    So on the way to this show we listened to The Academy Is... a bunch.

This GRIND show- like all GRIND shows- seemed to have big implications with the upcoming title tournament and we found out that while GRIND is going to the RPM Fest in early September they return to the Pulaski Club on September 30th, meaning that there is no August show but also the September show will likely start the title tournament and so that will likely all be finalized in the coming weeks.

Every GRIND show is really their best show because there's always matches that you want to see- none of them are ones you can skip.  So when someone asks me it's not like I can say "Oh yeah, you have to see this match so watch this show" because I feel that way about every match on every show.   And "Doctor, Doctor!" didn't disappoint but rather just added more wrestling for those to watch who might be finding out about GRIND like a year from now.

The show opened up with Rip Byson vs Perry Von Vicious and this was a good way to start things.   Two friends and tag team partners going at it while they both know what's at stake not only in the title tournament but as the show goes on.  In a lot of ways, on GRIND shows it's beneficial to the wrestlers to go on first because then you set that bar of "Ok, top that" and leave it up to everyone else to do so.  

Joseph Alexander and Mike Skyros were up second and they had this hard fought match with strikes and suplexes that I don't think we've seen for the last time.  This might've been the second match on this show, but in a few years this is going to be a main event somewhere and you just can feel it coming because of the intensity.    These two just felt like they were made to wrestle each other, their styles just complemented each other so well, so I'd like to definitely see them do it again and again.

MSP took on the Brick City Boyz in the third match and first tag team match.  This was an interesting match because GRIND is a place where the crowd won't boo you unless you give them a reason to boo you.  GRIND is all about respect.   The Brick City Boyz came out and did some disrespectful things, but at the end still somehow got that round of applause from the fans for their effort.   BCB are big and they hit hard, but they also have speed.  When the timing is right, I'd love to see them versus the Saito Brothers.

The fourth match took us into intermission and since it was the first match announced for this show I thought it would go on last but it was a nice middle of the show main event while we took time to reset for the second half as Anthony Henry wrestled Travis Huckabee.  The thing about this match is that no one is really doing just that old school style of wrestling any more but overall as a performer Travis Huckabee has to be up there amongst the best.   And then, of course, Anthony Henry is quite possibly the best wrestler in the world today (I would argue that he is)

What I enjoyed about this match was that you could see the technical aspect of it.  There was reversal upon reversal upon reversal and both of them just seemed to have found their equal.  But then, at some point as Huckabee sat in the ring, you'd just see Anthony Henry nail Huckabee in the back with this huge kick and you think "Well, that's it".   This was as much about technical skill as it was about toughness.  This is my favorite Anthony Henry match.  This is my favorite Travis Huckabee match (and that match with Carlos Romo comes really close as well) and this is also just my favorite match of 2022.

During intermission I had to get up to walk around and so I went to the merch tables.  Channing Thomas wasn't out but he had his shirts and I was trying to get a small for Quentin but J Cruz told me all he had was XL so I got one for me.  I moved down the table to Anthony Henry and bought an 8x10 and trading card sort of thing he had and then that put my towards Mike Skyros.  As I'm doing all of this, Quentin was with ABBS but then when I got closer towards their merch, I see Quentin just hanging out with MSP and Aggro looks like he's about to hit him with the F5.   It was so great.

Coming out of intermission we went into Channing Thomas vs Max ZERO, a match which was just entirely too pretty for me.   Before the match Channing Thomas addressed that he was 0-2 and said he was basically bringing in Sidney Bakabella to help him now.  This was the GRIND debut for Max ZERO but boy can he get it done inside that ring, throwing Channing Thomas around like a small child.  I still have a desire to see Max ZERO vs Perry Von Vicious and I'm still one of the only ones clapping for Channing Thomas but he's just really good.

The Mane Event was up next against Miracle Generation and even though the Saito Brothers are in Japan (shout out Tajiri) it's so cool to see that the tag team division in GRIND isn't slacking.  And even though this was the debut GRIND show for Miracle Generation, there are still other tag teams out there now like The Haven, The Outfielders, The Faceless Ones and Petty In Pink who I think would just fit in so well also.   This was all the high flying fast paced action I hoped it would be and more.   Definitely one of the best tag team matches this year.

Gary Jay took on Jay Freddie in the main event and this is the only match I'm going to kind of spoil in terms of who won, so if you don't want to know about that then stop reading now, ok?  Ok, bye.   So this match started as any match between two of the toughest wrestlers in the world would start.   Then, Jay Freddie was knocked to the outside near the entrance way and the referee and a number of wrestlers came to check on him as he apparently went unconscious.   Gary Jay is being held back but he still wants to go.

After he's taken to the back, Jay Freddie is up and comes back out and is ready to fight again.   Really, there's no stopping or controlling these two, so they go for it.  At this point in the show, I also must say that though Quentin had been doing good at watching this show and enjoying the matches he asked me what happened on the outside (we couldn't really see it from where we were, so I had to explain it to him) and he became very heavily invested in this match and in the idea of Jay Freddie winning.

At one point during the match, Jay Freddie hit a piledriver on Gary Jay on the apron right in front of us and Quentin said "That's what he gets for attacking him before when he was down!"  Jay Freddie would battle back and ultimately win this match and Quentin was also very excited about this.  I asked him on the ride home what his favorite match was and he said it was this one because he was glad that Jay Freddie came back and won.   Sometimes your matches can be brutally violent but tell stories at the same time and this did exactly that.

I'm kind of sad GRIND won't be back at Pulaski until the end of September because that's the rest of July and August perhaps without wrestling.  I really do kind of plan all my wrestling adventures around GRIND these days, though I have to see how it works out if we can go to the RPM Fest show since you can buy tickets just for the wrestling part.  On the plus side I can also spend that time thinking (and writing) about the upcoming title tournament.   I'm also definitely going to watch this show back when it airs on IWTV.