Video Information Date: 12/14/2002 Runtime: 00:26:54 Codec: WMV v9 Filesize: 326 MB Average: 0 No votes yet Your rating: Select ratingPoorOkayGoodGreatAwesome Your rating: None

Discussion of this match really has to begin and end with discussion of Bobby Quance, because he's the guy who walked into Newhall really without a local reputation. I can't remember the last time I walked out of a wrestling show so impressed with a guy compared to when I walked in; Samoa Joe is close, but not quite for the same reasons. Joe shocked me because I wasn't expecting to sit down and watch a force of nature; Quance shocked me because I wasn't expecting to sit down and watch one of the most amazing aesthetic performances I may have ever fucking seen. Quance is completely balls-out committed to being a wrestler; he doesn't want to be a part of anything that looks contrived or phony, so he'll gladly get punched in the neck/punched in the face/put his head very quickly on the mat/eat a dive/hit a high spot beautifully. He'll do whatever it takes to make himself look really, really good at professional wrestling, and where this takes a trip into Magic Land is when you start thinking about the fact that HE'S BARELY BEEN IN THE BUSINESS FOR A YEAR.

I'm not saying he's a flawless wrestler, but the stuff he's doing is miles away from the stuff that I'm seeing guys who've been in the business for YEARS have been doing. The principle thing is that Quance doesn't waste motions, something uncommon in ANY wrestler in today's climate; he just does exactly what needs to be done to pop the crowd. His big move - a shooting star press to the floor - is unquestionably a gigantic move, but what's interesting is that it's an embellishment of an established move, not a wild foray into uncharted territory. It's just an amazing move, and Quance is so confident in its ability to make the crowd go NUTS - because it's an amazing thing to see, and he pulls it off flawlessly - that he doesn't feel the need to embellish it.

The match is well over twenty minutes, and Super Dragon is in control for a lot of it, but Quance always has an utterly believable answer - either he's able to pick a limb to escape out of Dragon's groundwork, or he's able to weather a series of titanic fists in the face, or he's able to pull off a big move to make Dragon seem just vulnerable enough when he's on offense.

**This was SoCalUncensored.com's 2002 Match of the Year**