Shelley and Strong
I rarely see any CZW, but I got a chance to pick up a match between Alex Shelley and Roderick Strong from November 2004 (NoI). Oddly enough it goes second on the card, but there was a hell of a lot of good in here. These guys aren't on the level of American Dragon and Samoa Joe, but watching them gives you a lot of confidence for the future of US indies once the current class moves on to better things. Shelley was fucking fabulous in the first portion of the match, all of the matwork worked in the context it was used, and they did alost everything right, barring Strong going down on a shoulder tackle, which kind of goes against the theme of technical vs. power they seemed to be going for. I didn't love Strong's control segment, even though I expected to. I don't know, when you wait nearly 10 minutes to start a heel control for a match, it really needs to be longer than what this was. It could be just structure bias on my part, but I would have loved a longer heel offense portion with Rod cutting off comebacks with teased backbreakers. The forearm exchange was awesome, and the end was solid if not spectacular. Given the opening portion and Shelley's offense, I think they were pacing themselves for 5 minutes longer than they went. Still, it was so ironic seeing these 2 young guys work a themed match similar to Nakamura vs. Tanahashi at the Dome, but doing it so much better. You have Shelley who is ten times the technical wizard Nakamura is. Then you have Strong who usually can work the back a hell of a lot better than Tanahashi did, but was only alright in this one. And then you have the finishing runs, and this was better in that department too in sticking to theme. If Nakamura and Tanahashi had worked this exact match, it would be getting MOTY talk from so many people. I look forward to these 2 working in RoH soon. ***1/4