Match A Day 05.21.09: Week 6 - That Empty Feeling

Posted by Jake Chambers on 05.21.2009

Is there any better way to deal with the loneliness of being single than with some of wrestling’s most famous empty arena matches?

Last Time on Match A Day:

I reiterated my current refusal to watch ‘in-continuity' mainstream pro-wrestling because, "…this year I really felt that the [poor] quality of pro-wrestling and overall direction of the industry took me to a tipping point. Sadly, the parallel to my now ex-girlfriend is unmistakable. All [the] other times that we were apart in the past seemed like parts of some retarded emotional game, but this time it feels like a real, painless severing, from which there can be no reattachment. And it all started with a fight…"

Yes, I had just broken up with my girlfriend last week, and a revelation about the fight that ended it all came to me while watching Kensuke Sasuke chop chests, "…I was just staring at her as she was spazzing out, and then she slapped me. After that I told her to get the fuck out of my place …"

By the end of the week though, I got a call from Suzy and I was tempted to reignite our five-year relationship, "I didn't want to answer the phone. I shouldn't talk to her again. I should just cut it off, like I did with wrestling. But damn… I really want to see Star Trek… one night together at the movies isn't a big deal, right…?"

And now, MAD Week 6 begins…

Match #36 - Sunday, May 10th
Empty Arena Match: Jerry Lawler vs. Terry Funk
[CWA, April 1981]

Terry Funk vs Jerry Lawler - Empty Arena Match CWA 1981Uploaded by leberlous - Basketball, baseball, pro wrestling and more sports videos.

Legendary Memphis wrestling commentator Lance Russell opened this tape with an existential search for meaning. ‘Why am I here? Will anyone ever show up? We're just gonna stand around and wait until something happens.' Felt familiar.

As you can see, Terry rolled in like an angry drunk. He threatened Russell and threw some tantrums until the very heroic Jerry Lawler appeared in a puff of royal mist at the side of the vacant floor area.

Funk started mocking Lawler as a clown and a jackass for showing up in his full ‘king' regalia; it almost felt like Funk's classic angry rasp was directed at me personally. Was I a fool?

Once the brawling began, Funk's riotous, female-ish screams throughout the match were frightening. They sounded so much like the sobs and weeping that echo through my memory of that final fight I had with my ex-girlfriend Suzy last week (no comment on who was doing the crying…).

After Terry ‘accidentally' knocked his own spike knocked into his own eye, he went from angry madman to a sheep. As he called for mercy, help, and a doctor, his face half bloody, I realized I had made the right decision by not answering Suzy's call the day before. Terry goaded Lawler into this match with his flamboyance and swagger but when things didn't go his way, he started to whine and throw a tantrum. I can't be lured into Suzy's trap or else I'll be on the receiving end of another slap soon enough.

Match #37 – Monday, May 11th
Tyler Black vs. Bryan Danielson
[ROH on HDNET, May 2009]

Suzy called again today, and just like last time I let the call die unanswered. I have to admit, I was starting to get depressed. Not even ROH on HDNET's Mike Hogewood's incredibly bizarre comment,

"Speaking of ‘chess' that's where Tyler Black's head is, in the ‘chest' of Danielson,"

could cheer me up. While this match was fine, it didn't fill me with the excitement that a great ROH rivalry should. Danielson/McGuiness, Joe/Punk, Homicide/Cabana, are just a few of the classic ROH feuds that Danielson/Black does not seem to be able to live up to. Just as the handling of the entire ‘feud' between these two has felt very lackluster, this TV main event rematch seemed to be very lazily wrestled.

For example, there was one scene where they are in one of my favorite holds, the Grecco-Roman Knuckle Lock, and Danielson forced Tyler to the mat and pinned his shoulders down while their fingers were still intwined. As the ref counted multiple near falls, Dragon was obviously just lifting up the shoulder of Black with this arm rather than Black showing any signs of a struggle to get out of the predicament. Seemed like very lazy work to me.

Even the live audience was sharing my disinterest, as they were very lethargic to some big spots. Black missed a Lionsault ‘cabrada' but then recovered with a very flimsy looking standing shooting star press to no crowd reaction. Sure, it's been done before, but a guy like Evan Bourne could do a move like that, make it look fantastic and blow the crowd's mind, while Black here seemed to be just going through the motions.

Nor was I buying the exaggerated way Tyler Black was selling a half crab like it was absolute torture. I mean, c'mon, a half crab! I don't think Danielson had even been working that heavily on the knee and leg before that point anyways for it to be sooo painful.

I was really only seriously impressed by one unique sequence of ‘rolling.' They shared a ring circling, rolling sunset flip until they were dizzy that was followed by a rolling elbow by Danielson and a spinning Pele Kick by Black, keeping with the rolling motif. Generally, by the time I got to the double countout ending though, my head was starting to roll around my shoulders in drowsiness. Hey-O!

Match #38 – Tuesday, May 12th
KENTA, Taiji Ishimori & Atsushi Aoki
vs. Katsuhiko Nakajima, HARASHIMA & El Blazer
[SEM, October 2008]

Any chance to see KENTA and Nakajima throw down is an absolute pleasure, but what's sad is that there was only a small sample of the magic these two can put together here because of the other wrestlers in the match, and that this was a SEM event, usually home to matches that spotlight less famous workers from NOAH and their Japanese independent promotion friends.

This really wasn't the kind of thing I needed to see after Wednesday's watered down performance by two so-called ROH rivals. While KENTA and Nakajima still give some of their trademark strike exchanges, you can see they are obviously holding back for the sake of not stealing the spotlight from the other guys in the match. It's not that the other guy's are poor, they are fine, but I'd rather have KENTA unleash at his full capability, just like I would have liked to have seen Bryan Danielson in there with someone who can handle his full ability, like Nigel McGuinness, and not the still maturing Tyler Black. Not only that, but halfway through this nearly 20 minute match my phone screen lit up to indicate I had received a text message from Suzy, a message I surely didn't feel like opening at that point. While I tired to let the sloppy high flying of El Blazer and the semi-stiff shots by Ishimori distract me, it would have taken a full power KENTA/Nakajima match to truly keep my mind off of the mysterious contents of that message for the next ten minutes.

Match #39 – Wednesday, May 13th
Empty Arena Match: Sting vs. Kurt Angle
[TNA Impact, March 2009]

Compared to the Funk/Lawler match, which was a bit of a grimy landmark, this match brought nothing new to the table. Just another forgettable moment in a typical TNA throwaway feud.

Whereas Funk had to end the entire match because he gets accidentally poked in the eye in this unsanctioned environment, Sting lifted Angle over the fence at the top of the empty bleachers and let him drop like 15 feet to the concrete and Angle basically no-sold any kind of injury. Literally 20 seconds later he was on his feet, at full energy, in control and pummeling Sting.



The hyperbole in this match was just the most annoying kind of exaggeration in the history of wrestling! After a chair came into play, both men started trash talking, with Kurt at first begging for Sting not to hit him with the chair because he has 'kids' and then Kurt changed completely and started challenging Sting to ‘dare to hit him,' as soon as friend to both men, Kevin Nash, came out. Nash then started bellowing, "Make it right" in such a sadly stereotypical example of pro-wrestling overacting. After a failed handshake, Kurt spit in Sting's face and then went on about how he wants to kill Sting and take his life. Really? They hated each other that much? Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels didn't even go this far, and they hated each other on screen for years.

Whereas the ending of Funk/Lawler seemed like an intriguing transition point to a larger part of a feud, this shit match, non-ending and desperately exaggerated motivations was just useless fodder in a one-month, passing chapter of TNA's hollow narrative.

Nonsense of the Week: was it really necessary for Angle and Sting to both have full music and pyro entros? Doesn't that kind of seem redundant in front of no audience? Empty arena… full ego!

Match #40 – Thursday, May 14th
FIP Title: Go Shiosaki vs. Austin Aries
[ROH Return of the 187, October 2008]

A kind of plodding and deliberate match that saw Shiosaki take control and try to slowly wear down Aries. Of course, this is a perfect strategy for an athlete to utilize in a combative competition. When a match is given time, this is the kind of stuff that makes ROH a dependable promotion for rational wrestling, even when it is not jump-out-of-your-seat exciting at first.

This reminded me of the brilliant movie I watched on Thursday. It was my first chance to get to see the new Park Chan Wook movie, ‘Thrist' with English subtitles.



This is an incredibly dense and complex super-human, vampire thriller that makes ‘Twilight' look like the teenaged pap that it is, and ‘Wolverine' tame and unthreatening. Violent, highly sexual, compelling, meaningful, funny, uncomfortable and rousing, ‘Thrist' at it's core was a dark and somewhat depressing love story, yet to watch a director of such immense power communicate longing and responsibility in this unique narrative was truly invigorating.

Not unlike the Aries/Shiosaki match, ‘Thirst' starts with a slow and careful pace, showing brave yet confident artists who know they need to lure the audience slowly into their package in order to dazzle them later with climax and catharsis.

No doubt director Park Chan Wook, is on a historic roll following Oldboy, Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, I'm A Cyborg and That's Okay, and now Thrist. It would be quiet easy to argue for Park as the greatest film director alive at the moment, yet he still has plenty of competition from fellow Asian directors like Bong Joon Ho, Kim Ki Deuk, Takeshi Kitano, Zhang Yimou, Wong Kai Wei, or even Takeshi Miike, a reinvigorated John Woo or Ang Lee. But in my opinion, there is no greater director than Park working today.


-is this man the world's top film director? Abso-fucking-lutely!

If Asian directors are better than American filmmakers, can the same be said for wrestlers? Go Shiosaki gets the win over Austin Aries here, and shows more versatility, patience, and unspoken attitude than even the polished and innovative Aries. If Go Shiosaki goes on to become the next Kenta Kobashi, while Aries becomes say, the next Dean Malenko, doesn't that mean that the Japanese grew to be the better overall wrestler? What could be the reason? Is it because of the race or the environment? Something to think about…

Match #41 – Friday, May 15th
All Japan Jr. Heavyweight Title Match: Kaz Hayashi vs. Minoru
[All Japan, March 2009]

What is incredible about this match, really, is not the actual content of the battle but the fact that All Japan gave these two guys almost 40 minutes to wrestle. Kaz Hayashi you may know from his jobber days in WCW while Minoru was a relatively successful mid-carder in New Japan, yet All Japan lets them go in this match. While not on the level of the Naomichi Marufuji vs. Shuji Kondo All Japan Jr. Title match from 2008, or the KENTA/Nakajima matches from this year, is still a very engaging and interesting match regardless of the long running time.

When you think that they two wrestlers have more time in this one televised match than most lower card WWE wrestlers might get all year, it's pretty staggering to realize about just how far the WWE and North American pro-wrestling is behind Japan when it comes to artistic integrity. This is not unlike my experience watching ‘Thrist' on Thursday, a movie that no doubt (although co-funded by Universal) could ever be made in Hollywood. It's not even that the soulless suits who run industries like the movie universe, or the WWE, would be against promoting some stimulating art, it's just that the environments they've created in the United States have basically killed the farm system for meaningful artistic development.

The WWE is completely comfortable now in their spot as a branding, public company, that might slowly coddle a quasi-marketable CM Punk with some time here and there to show what he can do, but could never justify taking a risk on giving Gregory Helms and Shelton Benjamin 40 minutes together on TV, as is comparable to this Hayashi/Minoru match.

While sure, there still might be some ‘great' (by comparison only) stuff coming out, like ‘Star Trek' or Shawn Michaels vs. Undertaker at Wrestlemania 25, I'm thankful I am able to get my hands on things like All Japan and Korean films so I can still see the best entertainment being made in the world today.

Match #42 – Saturday, May 16th
WWF Title, Empty Arena Match: The Rock vs. Mankind
[Halftime Heat, January1999]



This is the 'War and Peace' of Empty Arena Matches. Big time stars, one of the largest stages in WWF history, as a spotlight match during the Superbowl halftime, and plenty of up and down, back and forth, weapons, drama, comedy and violence. Unlike the other two matches that stayed inside the arena floor area, this match went into different sections of the building. While some might criticize the match for trying to add a ‘hardcore' falls count anywhere style to the gimmick, I thought it was brilliant in that it utilized the idea that the entire building was at play because there was no fans or rules. When Mankind pinned Rock for the WWF Title using a forklift and a magically placed camera that captured The Rock's face from above, this was a moment completely opposite of empty.

Genius of the Week: The multiple comedy touches in the match are nice, but personally I loved when Rock ate a piece of popcorn, spit it out and said, "Too much salt," while Vince McMahon followed up on commentary by calling the Rock, "The salty WWF Champion!"

Good old Attitude era WWF makes me feel pretty good, empty arena or not. So, what about that message? Maybe it was time to finally read Suzy's text message. Should I give in?

Well I did. Wanna know what she said? Here you go:

HEY ASSHOLE, CALL ME!

That kind of sent a tingle down my spine. Not in a bad way. I could hear her saying that in her contradictory cocky yet sweet style. She's kind of like The Rock that way, he may call you a ‘ruddy poo' and kick you down the stairs or bludgeon your head with a chair in front of your crying children, but really he/she loves you. I've always liked that about her, although her tantrums could be hurtful and brash, she has always been very real and honest, which is more than I can say for most of the other women I've dated. I dread the idea of meeting new women now and having to tiptoe around them and chip away at their fake personalities just to try to have some semblance of a reasonable conversation. Ugh!

So I held down the number one key, still set to speed dial Suzy's number, and it started to ring…